A Texas temporary injunction is a court order that freezes the status quo during a lawsuit, and getting one requires a verified petition, notice to the other side, an evidentiary hearing where you prove three specific elements, and a bond set by the judge. Rules 680 through 693a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure govern the process, and Texas courts treat these orders as extraordinary relief rather than routine procedure. The bar is deliberately high, whether you are trying to obtain one or defend against one.
Temporary Injunction vs. Temporary Restraining Order
These two orders get confused constantly, and the difference matters. A temporary restraining order (TRO) is an emergency, short-term order that a court can grant without notifying the other side, but only when an affidavit or verified petition shows immediate, irreparable harm will occur before the opposing party can be reached.1Texas Rules Project. Rule 680 – Temporary Restraining Order The tradeoff for skipping notice is a strict clock: a TRO expires no later than ten days after issuance, extendable once for another ten days unless the restrained party agrees to more.
Once a TRO is in place, the court must set the hearing on a temporary injunction at the earliest possible date. If the applicant does not follow through, the TRO dissolves automatically.1Texas Rules Project. Rule 680 – Temporary Restraining Order A temporary injunction, by contrast, requires notice and a full hearing, and once granted it lasts until trial or until the court modifies or dissolves it. A TRO buys days. A temporary injunction can hold for months.
Filing a Verified Petition
The process starts with a verified petition. Rule 682 requires a petition “verified by his affidavit and containing a plain and intelligible statement of the grounds for such relief.”2Texas Rules Project. Rule 682 – Sworn Petition You sign an affidavit swearing the facts are true, and the petition itself must explain clearly why the court needs to step in now instead of at trial. General allegations will not carry you.
File in the district court or county court at law with jurisdiction over the dispute. The petition must identify the specific conduct you want prohibited, the legal basis for your claims, and the facts showing you face real harm that cannot wait for a final judgment. Local rules may add formatting or procedural requirements, so check the court’s filing guidelines before you submit.
Notice to the Other Side Is Required
Rule 681 is short and absolute: “No temporary injunction shall be issued without notice to the adverse party.”3Texas Rules Project. Rule 681 – Temporary Injunctions Notice Unlike a TRO, there is no emergency exception. The opposing party must know the hearing is happening and have a reasonable chance to prepare. Defective notice can sink the injunction on appeal.
What counts as reasonable notice depends on the circumstances. Courts look at whether the opposing party had enough time to retain counsel, gather evidence, and prepare arguments. Serving notice the morning of the hearing would generally be inadequate absent extraordinary circumstances.
The Three Elements You Must Prove
The Texas Supreme Court set out the elements in Butnaru v. Ford Motor Co.: (1) a cause of action against the party to be restrained, (2) a probable right to the relief you are seeking, and (3) a probable, imminent, and irreparable injury if the court does not act.4Supreme Court of Texas. Harley Channelview Properties LLC v Harley Marine Gulf LLC Fall short on any one and the injunction is denied.
Probable Right to Recovery
You are not proving your whole case at this stage. You are showing the court that your claims have real merit and are likely to succeed at trial. The judge weighs your evidence against the law and the facts. If the underlying lawsuit is weak, an injunction will not shore it up.
Irreparable Injury
The injury must be probable, imminent, and irreparable. “Irreparable” means money after the fact cannot fix it. If your losses can be calculated and paid through a damages award at trial, the court will generally find you have an adequate legal remedy and refuse the injunction.4Supreme Court of Texas. Harley Channelview Properties LLC v Harley Marine Gulf LLC Loss of a unique business relationship, destruction of irreplaceable property, or disclosure of trade secrets are the classic examples. Speculative or hypothetical injuries do not qualify. You need concrete facts showing the threat is real and near.
Balance of Harms
Beyond the three formal elements, Texas courts weigh the harm to the applicant against the burden the injunction imposes on the respondent. An order that devastates the other party’s operations while offering marginal protection is unlikely to survive. Courts also consider the public interest. This balancing is where judges have the most discretion, and it is often where close cases turn.
Evidence and the Hearing
The hearing is an evidentiary proceeding, not a casual argument. Both sides present witness testimony, introduce documents, and cross-examine. Affidavits are common, but courts scrutinize them for specificity. Statements like “I will suffer great harm,” without supporting facts, carry little weight. Financial records, contracts, emails, and expert opinions do more work than general assertions.
The burden rests entirely on the applicant. You must bring enough evidence to justify restricting someone’s conduct before a trial. The respondent can challenge your evidence, present counter-affidavits, and argue that damages would be adequate. Courts typically rule quickly given the urgency.
Keep in mind that the hearing decides only whether interim relief is warranted, not who wins the lawsuit. Evidence that falls short at this stage does not doom your case at trial, and evidence that persuades the judge to grant the injunction does not guarantee a final judgment in your favor.
What the Order Must Contain
Rule 683 imposes specific requirements on the order. It must state the reasons for issuing the injunction, describe in reasonable detail the acts being restrained, and be specific enough that the restrained party knows exactly what conduct is prohibited.5Texas Rules Project. Rule 683 – Form and Scope of Injunction or Restraining Order The rule prohibits describing the restrained conduct merely by referring to the complaint or another document in the case file. Vague orders are vulnerable to dissolution.
The order must also set the case for trial on the merits. Rule 683 states: “Every order granting a temporary injunction shall include an order setting the cause for trial on the merits with respect to the ultimate relief sought.”5Texas Rules Project. Rule 683 – Form and Scope of Injunction or Restraining Order Skip the trial setting and the order can be declared void. This is one of the most commonly litigated defects in injunction orders, and it catches lawyers off guard more often than it should.
The order binds the named parties, their officers, agents, employees, and attorneys, along with anyone acting together with them who has actual notice of the order. A stranger to the order who has never heard of it cannot be held in contempt.
Bond Requirements
Before the injunction takes effect, the applicant must post a bond. Rule 684 requires a bond “to the adverse party, in such sum as the judge shall deem sufficient,” conditioned on the applicant paying any compensation awarded to the other side if the injunction is later denied or dissolved.6Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure The bond protects the restrained party if the injunction turns out to have been wrong.
The judge sets the amount based on the potential financial impact on the restrained party, including lost profits, compliance costs, and other foreseeable losses. If the bond is too low, the restrained party can ask the court to raise it. If it is unattainably high for the applicant, a motion to reduce is appropriate. If the injunction is later dissolved and the restrained party suffered damages, recovery is capped at the face value of the bond, so the amount matters to both sides.
Divorce cases are a boundary worth naming: Rule 693a gives courts discretion to waive the bond requirement entirely for injunctions between spouses.7Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure
Enforcement Through Contempt
A temporary injunction is only as strong as the court’s willingness to enforce it, and enforcement runs through contempt. If the restrained party violates the order, the applicant files a motion for contempt. Civil contempt aims to compel compliance and can result in confinement in the county jail until the person obeys, though it cannot exceed 18 months or the point of compliance, whichever comes first.8State of Texas. Texas Government Code 21.002 – Contempt of Court
Criminal contempt punishes the violation itself. The penalty is a fine of up to $500 per violation, confinement of up to six months in county jail, or both, with total confinement capped at 18 months when multiple violations arise from the same matter.8State of Texas. Texas Government Code 21.002 – Contempt of Court For contempt to hold, the injunction must be specific enough that the violator knew what was prohibited. Vague orders cannot be enforced against someone who could not reasonably understand what the court told them to do.
Modifying or Dissolving the Injunction
Temporary injunctions are not set in stone. Either party can move to modify or dissolve the order by showing a material change in facts, new evidence, or a legal development that alters the balance. Courts will also dissolve an injunction if the underlying claims are resolved, if the order was improperly granted, or if continued enforcement imposes unreasonable hardship that outweighs the benefit to the applicant.
The most common ground for dissolution is a defective order. An injunction that fails Rule 683, whether by lacking specific terms or omitting a trial date, gives the restrained party strong grounds to seek dissolution. If the injunction is dissolved, the restrained party may recover damages from the bond.
Interlocutory Appeal
Unlike most pretrial orders, a decision to grant or refuse a temporary injunction can be appealed immediately. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 51.014 authorizes interlocutory appeals from orders granting or denying temporary injunctions, so neither party has to wait for a final judgment.9State of Texas. Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code 51.014
The appeal is accelerated. You have 20 days from the date the order is signed to file a notice of appeal, and post-order motions do not extend this deadline. Miss the window and the right to appeal is waived. The appellate court applies an abuse of discretion standard: it does not reweigh the evidence but asks whether the trial court’s decision was reasonable based on what was before it. Filing an appeal does not stay the injunction, and Rule 683 explicitly provides that an appeal “shall constitute no cause for delay of the trial.”5Texas Rules Project. Rule 683 – Form and Scope of Injunction or Restraining Order