§ 65.023.Place for Trial

Venue for the trial of an injunction, and the exception is as important as the rule.

A writ of injunction against a party who is a resident of this state shall be tried in a district or county court in the county in which the party is domiciled, or in the business court division of that county.

Venue follows the enjoined party rather than the applicant. A person restrained in their conduct defends where they live.

That is a defendant-protective rule, and it distinguishes injunctions from most Texas venue provisions, which give a plaintiff a choice among several counties.

The reason is what an injunction does. It commands a person to act or refrain, enforceable by contempt, and the burden of defending such a proceeding far from home is substantial.

Where the writ is granted against more than one party, it may be tried in the proper court of a county in which an enjoined party is domiciled — so the applicant chooses among the defendants’ counties.

Subsection (b) is the exception, and it is mandatory: a writ granted to stay proceedings in a suit or execution on a judgment must be tried in the court in which the suit is pending or the judgment was rendered.

That is the right allocation. A court asked to interfere with another court’s proceeding or judgment is treading on that court’s territory, and the exception keeps the question where the case is.

It also prevents a familiar manoeuvre. A losing party could otherwise take an injunction application against enforcement to a court in their own county, and litigate the judgment there.

Read with the sections limiting relief against a judgment — the partial-stay rule and the one-year deadline — the chapter’s treatment of such injunctions is consistently restrictive.