§ 66.003.Judgment

The judgment, in three parts — two mandatory and one discretionary.

Where the person against whom the information is filed is found guilty as charged, the court shall enter judgment removing the person from the office or franchise.

Removal is the point of the action, and it is not discretionary. A finding of guilt produces removal.

"Found guilty" is criminal vocabulary in a civil proceeding, and it survives from the action’s origins — quo warranto began as a criminal information, and the language of the judgment still shows it.

The court shall enter judgment for the costs of prosecution in favor of the relator.

That is the relator’s reward, and it is the only one. A person who prompted the action recovers the costs of prosecuting it, but the section provides no damages.

The award to the relator rather than to the state reflects who paid. A relator who brought the matter to a prosecutor and pressed it has borne expense the state did not.

The court may fine the person for usurping, intruding into, or unlawfully holding and executing the office or franchise.

The fine is discretionary and its amount unstated, which leaves it to the court — another survival of the action’s criminal ancestry.

Note what the judgment does not include: an award of the office to anyone. Quo warranto removes the usurper; it does not install the rightful holder, whose entitlement is a separate question.

Nor does it provide damages to a person kept out of an office, whose remedy, if any, lies elsewhere.