§ 34.064.Improper Return of Writ

A correction procedure, and it prefers an accurate record to a punished officer.

An officer may file an amended or corrected return after the officer has returned a writ to a court.

The return is the officer’s account of what was done with the writ — served, levied, unable to locate property — and it is the record everything downstream relies on.

Permitting amendment is the sensible rule. A return containing an error should be corrected, and a system that forbade correction would leave the file permanently wrong.

Once an officer receives actual notice of an error on a return, or of a failure to file one, the officer shall amend or file the return not later than the 30th day after receipt of notice.

"Actual notice" is the trigger, and it is a real limit. The duty does not arise from the error itself but from the officer learning of it, so a party who wants a return fixed should say so in writing and keep proof.

Thirty days is the deadline, and it is measured from receipt rather than from sending.

An officer who fails or refuses to amend or file the return may be subject to contempt under the officer liability chapter.

Contempt rather than damages is the right sanction here. The harm from a defective return is usually to the record rather than to a pocket, and what a party needs is the correction.

Note that this section appears in the payment-of-damages provision but not in the general suit provision — a county may pay a judgment taken under it, though the chapter’s procedural rules for damages actions do not list it.