§ 7.003.Liability Regarding Execution of Writs

The protection that lets writs be served at all, with a defined standard and one carve-out.

Except as provided by Section 34.061, an officer is not liable for damages resulting from the execution of a writ issued by a court of this state if the officer in good faith executes or attempts to execute the writ as provided by law and by the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.

The exception matters: the execution chapter’s own liability provision survives, so this is not a blanket immunity for everything that happens during a levy.

Two conditions attach. The officer must act in good faith, and must execute as provided by law and by the rules — so a good faith departure from the required procedure is outside the protection.

Subsection (b) is the operative rule for daily practice: an officer shall execute a writ issued by a court of this state without requiring that bond be posted for the indemnification of the officer.

That reverses what would otherwise happen. An officer facing personal liability for a wrongful seizure would ask the creditor to indemnify first, and a creditor unable or unwilling to do so would hold a writ nobody would serve.

The two subsections work as a pair. The officer cannot demand indemnity, and in exchange is protected when acting in good faith.

Subsection (c) defines good faith objectively: an officer shows it by showing that a reasonably prudent officer, under the same or similar circumstances, could have believed that the officer’s conduct was justified based on the information the officer possessed when the conduct occurred.

Three features of that test favour the officer. It asks what a reasonable officer could have believed rather than what this officer did; it fixes the information at the moment of the conduct; and it asks only about justification, not correctness.