§ 6.002.Cities Exempt from Security for Court Costs

The municipal exemption, stated twice in slightly different words.

Security for costs may not be required of an incorporated city or town of this state in an action, suit, or proceeding.

"In an action, suit, or proceeding" is deliberately comprehensive. The exemption is not confined to cases the city brings; it covers any proceeding in which security would otherwise be required of it.

Subsection (b) adds the appellate side: a municipality may institute and prosecute suits without giving security for cost and may appeal from judgment without giving supersedeas or cost bond.

The supersedeas exemption is the consequential one. A supersedeas bond is what suspends enforcement of a judgment during an appeal, and it is ordinarily set at the amount of the judgment.

A city therefore appeals with the judgment suspended and nothing posted. A private appellant facing the same judgment must either post security or let collection proceed.

The reasoning is the same one running through this chapter. Security protects against an appellant who cannot pay, and a municipality with taxing power is not that appellant.

The practical consequence falls on the judgment creditor, who waits through the appeal with no security and no collection — a real cost, and the price of the rule.

Note what the section covers: an incorporated city or town. Other local entities take their exemptions from the neighbouring sections, and the coverage is not identical.