tx-deadlines

name	tx-deadlines
description	Use when the user asks about timing or deadlines in a Texas civil case. Triggers include "Texas deadline", "compute time Texas Rule 4", "how do I count days in Texas court", "when is my answer due in Texas", "Texas Monday rule answer deadline", "Texas mail add-on 3 days", "Texas Rule 21a 3 days", "Texas discovery response deadline", "Texas summary judgment 21 days", "Texas court holidays", "is Juneteenth a Texas court holiday", "is the Friday after Thanksgiving a Texas holiday", "Texas statute of limitations", "SOL on a debt in Texas", "4-year debt limitations Texas", "motion for new trial Texas deadline", "plenary power Texas". Computes calendar-day deadlines under TRCP 4 (exclude the first day, include the last; roll forward off Saturdays / Sundays / legal holidays), applies the TRCP 21a +3-day service add-on, applies the TRCP 99 Monday rule for the answer, rolls off the Tex. Gov't Code § 662.003 legal holidays, and maps named rules to days plus authority via scripts/case-calendar.py.
version	0.1.0

Texas Case Deadlines

NOT LEGAL ADVICE. This skill computes deadlines. Independently verify in the cited rule or statute, confirm the venue's local rules and any docket-control or scheduling order, and treat no computed date as final without checking.

Use this skill to compute deadlines under TRCP 4 (time computation), the Texas legal-holiday list (Tex. Gov't Code § 662.003), and the named rules across the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure and the Texas codes. The arithmetic lives in scripts/case-calendar.py; this body is the framework and the pointer to authority. Pull verbatim rule text from ../tx-law-references/references/court-rules/.

Time computation — TRCP 4

To count a period stated in days in the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, a court order, or (unless otherwise provided) a statute:

1. Exclude the day of the act, event, or default that begins the period (e.g., the date of service).
2. Count every intervening day, including weekends and holidays.
3. Include the last day of the period, unless it is a Saturday, Sunday, or legal holiday — in which case the period runs to the end of the next day that is none of those.

Confirm every day count below against the verbatim TRCP 4 text in the corpus before treating any computed date as final.

The +3-day service add-on — TRCP 21a

When a period runs from service of a paper and service was made by one of the methods that triggers the add-on (e.g., mail, commercial delivery, fax, or email — the exact list is drift-prone), TRCP 21a adds 3 days to the period. Apply the add-on after the underlying TRCP 4 count. Confirm the current TRCP 21a add-on triggers against the corpus — which service methods carry the +3 days is amended periodically.

★ The answer deadline — the Monday rule — TRCP 99

★ The answer is not due a flat number of days after service. In District Court and County Court at Law, TRCP 99 sets the answer due by 10:00 a.m. on the Monday next after the expiration of 20 days after the date of service. Count 20 days from service; the answer is then due at 10:00 a.m. on the next Monday following. Compute it with --rule answer-due. Justice Court answers run on a different clock — by the end of the 14th day after service (TRCP 502.5) — use --rule answer-due-justice. See tx-first-30-days.

Texas legal holidays — Tex. Gov't Code § 662.003

The holidays that trigger the TRCP 4 roll-forward are the national holidays in Tex. Gov't Code § 662.003, on which the courts are closed. The list below is qualitative; the authoritative, year-by-year computed set lives in scripts/case-calendar.py and the corpus — confirm there before relying on a date.

Holiday	Date rule
New Year's Day	January 1 (fixed)
Martin Luther King, Jr., Day	3rd Monday in January
Presidents' Day / Washington's Birthday	3rd Monday in February
Memorial Day	Last Monday in May
Juneteenth National Independence Day	June 19 (fixed)
Independence Day	July 4 (fixed)
Labor Day	1st Monday in September
Veterans Day	November 11 (fixed)
Thanksgiving Day	4th Thursday in November
Friday after Thanksgiving	Day after the 4th Thursday in November
Christmas Day	December 25 (fixed)

Texas specifics to flag. Texas courts observe Juneteenth National Independence Day (June 19) and the Friday after Thanksgiving as court-closed national holidays — roll forward off both. Texas also designates "partial-staffing" state holidays (Confederate Heroes Day, Texas Independence Day, San Jacinto Day, LBJ Day) on which state offices run with reduced staff but courts generally do NOT close — do not roll a deadline forward off a partial-staffing day. Confirm the operative court-closed set in the corpus / script.

Named rules — quick reference

Run python3 scripts/case-calendar.py --rules for the full list. The most commonly invoked:

Rule key	Days	Authority
answer-due	Monday rule (+20 → next Mon. 10 a.m.)	TRCP 99
answer-due-justice	+14	TRCP 502.5 (justice court)
interrogatory-response	+30	TRCP 197.2
rfp-response	+30	TRCP 196
rfa-response	+30	TRCP 198.2(c) (failure deems admitted)
sj-motion-before-hearing	−21	TRCP 166a(c) (counted backward from hearing)
sj-response-before-hearing	−7	TRCP 166a(c) (counted backward from hearing)
rule-91a-motion	+60	TRCP 91a (from the first pleading asserting the challenged claim)
motion-new-trial	+30	TRCP 329b(a), (g) (new trial / to modify, correct, or reform; from signing of judgment)
plenary-power	+30	TRCP 329b(d) (extended by timely post-judgment motions)
appeal	+30	Tex. R. App. P. 26.1 (use appeal-with-mnt for 90 if a post-judgment motion is timely filed)
sol-debt	see corpus	CPRC § 16.004 (4 years)
sol-personal-injury	see corpus	CPRC § 16.003 (2 years)
sol-dtpa	see corpus	Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 17.565 (2 years)
sol-judgment-dormancy	see corpus	CPRC § 34.001 (10 years)

Answer, notice, and discovery day counts are stable enough to state in this body as framework anchors; statute-of-limitations periods are computed on the calendar (anniversary date), so cite the section and verify the current period. Always confirm against the corpus / script.

Example invocations

# List every named rule
python3 scripts/case-calendar.py --rules

# Answer due — Monday rule, served 2026-03-12
python3 scripts/case-calendar.py --from 2026-03-12 --rule answer-due

# Justice-court answer — 14 days from service 2026-03-12
python3 scripts/case-calendar.py --from 2026-03-12 --rule answer-due-justice

# Discovery responses — 30 days from service 2026-04-01
python3 scripts/case-calendar.py --from 2026-04-01 --rule interrogatory-response
python3 scripts/case-calendar.py --from 2026-04-01 --rule rfa-response

# Summary-judgment service cutoff — 21 days BEFORE a hearing set 2026-06-15
python3 scripts/case-calendar.py --from 2026-06-15 --rule sj-motion-before-hearing

# Motion for new trial — 30 days after judgment signed 2026-05-20
python3 scripts/case-calendar.py --from 2026-05-20 --rule motion-new-trial

# Ad hoc count — 30 calendar days from service, with roll-forward
python3 scripts/case-calendar.py --from 2026-04-01 --days 30 --mode calendar

For a period that runs from service by a TRCP 21a add-on method, add the 3-day add-on after the underlying TRCP 4 count.

Statutes of limitations — point at the codes, do not embed counts

Texas's civil limitations periods are computed on the calendar (anniversary) date, not as a fixed day count. Cite the section and verify the current period rather than hard-coding it here:

Claim family	Period	Authority
Debt / breach of contract	4 years	CPRC § 16.004
Residual (no other period set)	4 years	CPRC § 16.051
Personal injury / tort	2 years	CPRC § 16.003
DTPA	2 years	Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 17.565
Fraud / debt (discovery rule may apply)	varies	confirm against the corpus
Action on / dormancy of a judgment	10 years	CPRC § 34.001 (and revival § 31.006)
Federal — FDCPA	1 year	15 U.S.C. § 1692k(d) (federal corpus)
Federal — FCRA / TILA	see corpus	federal corpus

Time-barred consumer debt is not revived by a partial payment. Under Tex. Fin. Code § 392.307 (and the written-acknowledgment rule, CPRC § 16.065), a payment on out-of-statute consumer debt does not restart Texas limitations, and the collector owes a statutory notice — a strong defense (see tx-consumer-debt). SOL accrual, tolling, and any revival are fact-dependent — verify against current law for the specific claim.

Appeal and post-judgment windows to watch

• Motion for new trial / to modify, correct, or reform — TRCP 329b. File within 30 days after the judgment is signed (not entered) — TRCP 329b(a), (g). A timely such motion extends the court's plenary power and the appellate timetable. See tx-post-judgment.
• Plenary power — TRCP 329b(d). The trial court retains plenary power to vacate, modify, correct, or reform the judgment for 30 days after signing, extended by a timely post-judgment motion.
• Notice of Appeal — Tex. R. App. P. 26.1. File within 30 days after the judgment is signed, or 90 days if any party timely files a motion for new trial, to modify, to reinstate, or a request for findings of fact. Confirm which event triggers the clock.

How tx-deadlines composes with the scripts

The arithmetic lives in scripts/case-calendar.py, which encodes the Tex. Gov't Code § 662.003 court-closed holidays for any year, applies the TRCP 4 roll-forward off Saturdays / Sundays / holidays, the TRCP 21a 3-day add-on, and the TRCP 99 Monday-rule answer computation, and maps named rule keys to (days, mode, description, authority). Confirm the script's holiday set and rule counts against ../tx-law-references/references/court-rules/ after any quarterly corpus refresh.

Composition

• For format: tx-statewide-format
• For the substantive rule or statute text: tx-law-references
• For first-response timing (the Monday rule, the JP 14-day answer): tx-first-30-days
• For discovery timing (the 30-day response window and discovery-level cutoffs): tx-discovery
• For the hearing / submission notice clock and the TRCP 166a windows: tx-hearings, tx-schedule-hearing
• For post-judgment / appeal timing (TRCP 329b, plenary power): tx-post-judgment
• For matter-specific deadlines: tx-consumer-debt, tx-family-law

References

• references/rule-4-time-computation.md — TRCP 4 with notes and the TRCP 99 Monday-rule worked example
• references/section-662.003-holidays.md — the holidays statute with year-by-year computed dates and the partial-staffing carve-out
• references/sol-table.md — Texas limitations chart by claim type with authority
• references/named-rules.md — full list of rule keys with authority