§ 35.008.Optional Procedure

One sentence keeping the older route open.

A judgment creditor retains the right to bring an action to enforce a judgment instead of proceeding under this chapter.

The traditional route is a suit on the judgment, in which the creditor pleads the sister-state judgment as the cause of action and obtains a Texas judgment on it.

The filing procedure is faster, cheaper and available at a counter, so the question is why a creditor would ever sue instead.

Limitations is one answer. A suit on a judgment has its own limitations period, and the analysis differs from the question when a judgment may be filed under this chapter — a creditor facing a timing problem on one route may find the other open.

Certainty is another. A judgment obtained after a contested Texas suit is a Texas judgment on its own terms, and cannot later be attacked on the ground that the filing was defective.

The authentication requirement is a third. Where an authenticated copy cannot be obtained, or where the judgment’s form makes authentication awkward, an action avoids the problem.

The provision also serves a defensive purpose. Without it, the existence of a statutory procedure could be read as displacing the common law action — the familiar argument that a specific remedy is exclusive.

The chapter’s answer is that it adds a route rather than replacing one, which is the same choice the code makes wherever a uniform act is adopted alongside existing law.