If you have been sued in Texas on claims that have no real legal or factual basis, you can fight back with fast-acting dismissal motions, recover your attorney fees, and in some cases turn around and sue the filer. Knowing how to fight a frivolous lawsuit in Texas comes down to picking the right motion, filing it before the deadline runs, and building a record for sanctions from the day you are served.
Move Fast: The Deadlines That Matter
Two of the most powerful tools each carry a 60-day filing deadline that starts running the moment you are served. A Rule 91a motion to dismiss must be filed within 60 days after service of the pleading that contains the challenged claim, and the court must rule within 45 days of filing.1Texas Rules Project. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 91a.3 – Time for Motion and Ruling A motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act carries the same 60-day clock, though the parties can agree to extend it or the court can grant more time for good cause.2State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 27 – Actions Involving the Exercise of Certain Constitutional Rights
Miss those windows and your options narrow to slower, more expensive routes like summary judgment. Talk to a lawyer as soon as you are served.
Rule 91a: The Fastest Way to Kill the Case
Rule 91a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure lets a defendant move to dismiss any claim that has no basis in law or no basis in fact. A claim has no basis in law when the allegations, taken as true, do not entitle the plaintiff to any relief. A claim has no basis in fact when no reasonable person could believe the facts as the plaintiff has described them.3Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure March 1 2026
The court decides the motion on the pleadings alone. No evidence, no depositions, no drawn-out hearing. A genuinely groundless case can be over in a few months rather than dragging through years of discovery. This is where most obviously meritless cases get stopped.
The TCPA: Free Speech, Petition, and Association Cases
If the lawsuit is based on or in response to your exercise of free speech, your right to petition the government, or your right of association, the Texas Citizens Participation Act (the state’s anti-SLAPP statute) gives you a separate motion to dismiss. Once you show the case implicates one of those protected activities, the court must dismiss unless the plaintiff produces clear and specific evidence establishing a prima facie case on every element of the claim.4State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 27.005 – Ruling
After the hearing, the court has 30 days to rule. If it fails to rule in time, the motion is denied by operation of law and you can appeal immediately.2State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 27 – Actions Involving the Exercise of Certain Constitutional Rights The right to an interlocutory appeal is one of the TCPA’s most valuable features. Most trial-court rulings in Texas cannot be appealed until the entire case ends, so the ability to get immediate appellate review of a denied TCPA motion is a real advantage, and the appellate courts are required to expedite it.
The TCPA also carries the strongest fee-recovery rules in Texas. When a court dismisses a lawsuit under the TCPA, it is required to award the defendant court costs and reasonable attorney fees. The statute uses “shall,” so the court has no discretion to deny the fees. The court may also impose additional sanctions sufficient to deter the plaintiff from filing similar claims again. If your TCPA motion is itself found frivolous or filed solely for delay, fees can go the other way.5State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 27.009 – Damages and Costs
No-Evidence Summary Judgment After Discovery
When a case survives the early pleading challenges but still has no substance behind it, a no-evidence summary judgment motion under Rule 166a is the next line of defense. Unlike Rule 91a, which looks only at what the plaintiff wrote in the petition, summary judgment asks a harder question: does the plaintiff actually have any evidence?6Supreme Court of Texas. Final Approval of Amendments to Rule 166a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure
You can file the motion after a reasonable period for discovery has passed, identifying the specific elements of the plaintiff’s claims that lack evidentiary support. The burden then shifts to the plaintiff to produce admissible evidence raising a genuine factual dispute on each challenged element. If the plaintiff cannot point to real proof (deposition testimony, documents, expert reports), the court grants summary judgment and the case is over. Frivolous cases that survive the pleading stage often collapse here because the plaintiff never had proof to begin with.
Getting Attorney Fees and Sanctions
Texas courts have broad authority to make frivolous filers pay. The penalties come from three separate sources, and they can stack.
Rule 13
Under Rule 13, a court can sanction the attorney, the party, or both after finding that a pleading was filed without basis in law or fact, or for purposes of harassment or delay. Sanctions require notice and a hearing, and the court must state good cause with specifics in the sanction order.3Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure March 1 2026 Texas courts presume filings are made in good faith, so you carry the burden of overcoming that presumption. Available sanctions include monetary penalties and orders to pay the other side’s attorney fees.
Chapter 10
Chapter 10 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code sets an independent sanctions framework built around a signing certification: every attorney or party who signs a pleading is certifying that the claims are supported by existing law (or a reasonable argument for changing it), that factual allegations have evidentiary support, and that the filing is not being used to harass or run up costs.7State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 10.001 – Signing of Pleadings and Motions You can file a motion describing the specific conduct that violated Section 10.001, or the court can act on its own by ordering the alleged violator to show cause.8State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 10.002 – Motion for Sanctions
Sanctions must be limited to what is sufficient to deter the conduct from happening again. A court can order the violator to do or stop doing something specific, pay a penalty into court, or reimburse reasonable expenses and attorney fees.9State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 10.004 – Violation; Sanction A prevailing party can also recover all costs for inconvenience, harassment, and out-of-pocket expenses caused by the frivolous litigation when the violator failed to exercise due diligence.8State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 10.002 – Motion for Sanctions In prolonged frivolous cases, awards can reach tens of thousands of dollars.
When You Can Countersue
Beyond sanctions the court imposes inside the case, you may have grounds for an independent civil claim against the person who filed the lawsuit. Texas recognizes two torts that fit this situation.
Malicious Prosecution
A malicious prosecution claim requires six elements: a civil or criminal proceeding was brought against you, the other party initiated it, they acted with malice, there was no probable cause for the case, it ended in your favor, and you suffered actual damages beyond ordinary litigation costs. The special-damages requirement is where most of these claims fall apart. You need to show harm beyond having to hire a lawyer, such as damage to your reputation, lost business, or seizure of your property during the lawsuit.
Abuse of Process
Abuse of process is narrower. It applies when someone uses a legitimate legal procedure for an improper collateral purpose. The classic example is a plaintiff who files suit not to win a judgment but to force a settlement on an unrelated matter, or to use discovery as a tool to extract confidential business information. You need to show the other side misused a legal process in a way it was not designed for, had an ulterior motive, and that you were harmed. Unlike malicious prosecution, abuse of process does not require the underlying case to have ended in your favor. What matters is how the process was weaponized.
Stopping a Serial Filer: Vexatious Litigant Designation
If the person suing you has done this before, Chapter 11 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code lets the court declare them a vexatious litigant, which can effectively bar them from filing new lawsuits without judicial permission.
The court can make the designation if you show there is no reasonable probability the plaintiff will prevail, and at least one of the following is true:
- The plaintiff has started or maintained at least five lawsuits as a self-represented party in the previous seven years that were decided against them, sat pending for at least two years without going to trial, or were found frivolous by a court.
- After a case was decided against them, the plaintiff keeps trying to relitigate the same issues against the same defendant.
- A state or federal court has already declared the plaintiff a vexatious litigant based on similar facts.
Once designated, the court enters a prefiling order prohibiting the person from filing any new lawsuit without first getting approval from the local administrative judge. A prefiling order from a district court applies to every court in Texas, not just the one that entered it. Violating the order is punishable as contempt.10State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 11 – Vexatious Litigants
Building Your Record from Day One
Start collecting evidence of improper motive immediately. Save threatening communications, demand letters with unreasonable terms, anything showing the plaintiff knew the claims were false, and any pattern of prior frivolous filings. Courts weighing sanctions consider both the harm the filing caused and whether the filer has a track record.
Once discovery opens, use it strategically. Depositions are particularly effective at exposing frivolous claims because they force the plaintiff to testify under oath about the factual basis of the allegations. When a plaintiff cannot identify any evidence supporting their claims, or contradicts their own pleadings, that testimony becomes powerful support for a summary judgment motion or a sanctions request.
If the court denies your motion or declines to award sanctions, preserve the issue for appeal. Make your motion specific and on the record, get a definitive ruling, and make sure the exchange is documented. A vague objection or an unresolved motion will not support an appeal. Under the TCPA you have an automatic right to interlocutory appeal of a denial. For Rule 91a rulings or sanctions rulings, you typically have to wait until the case ends to raise the issue on appeal.