§ 62.043.Dissolution

The burden at the hearing, and it is placed on the applicant.

Following the hearing, the writ must be dissolved unless the party who secured its issuance proves the specific facts alleged and the grounds relied on for issuance.

Dissolution is the default. The defendant does not have to show the writ was wrong; the applicant has to show it was right, and failure produces dissolution.

That allocation is unusual and deliberate. The applicant obtained the writ ex parte on their own affidavit, and this is the first occasion on which anything is tested.

Two things must be proved, and both trace back to the application. The specific facts alleged — whatever was sworn — and the grounds relied on from the grounds section.

So an applicant is held to their own affidavit. Facts sworn to and not proved defeat the writ, which is why the application section insists on specific facts rather than statutory recitals.

The compressed timetable makes this demanding. Ten days, no discovery, and a burden of proof on the party who moved first.

Subsection (b) states the consequence: if the writ is dissolved, the action proceeds as if the writ had not been issued.

The suit survives; only the writ falls. A plaintiff whose sequestration is dissolved may still be entitled to the property at the end of the case.

But dissolution carries consequences of its own. A wrongful sequestration claim must then be brought as a compulsory counterclaim, and in a consumer goods case statutory damages and fees follow.