I am working on a tax abatement agreement, and the other party is proposing that we have a provision designating venue in an adjoining county rather than Hale County. I tend to think it is our county or nothing. I was curious what other counties provide in their abatement agreements, if anything?

On what, you ask? On whether they plan to sue your county. If they do, venue is mandatory in your county. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code sec. 15.015. Mandatory venue can't be overcome contractually.

I keep venue here at home...

Lisa L. Peterson
Nolan County Attorney

I have never consciously agreed to venue other than Tarrant County state district Courts. With regard to federal I have now added Fort Worth Division. Scott, is there a case on waiving contractual venue?
Even if such a case exists, I worry about an out of county judge making you take him or her up on that point.

I do know a few years back we were involved in a class action in Travis County on the County Court at Law fee. The plaintiff's lawyer tried to argue that, because his claim against Travis County was mandatory in Travis County, all the other counties could be joined through permissive joinder. The Third Court let them do it, but a petition for mandamus was filed in the Supreme Court on the mandatory venue issue. SCOTEX requested briefs on the merits, but the trial court granted our pleas to the jurisdiction before we could get the matter argued.

My argument (and I seem to remember some case law that would support it, but it eludes me right now) would be that the mandatory nature of section 15.015 would make any contractual waiver of venue illegal. That would probably work in state court. In federal court? Well, I guess it would depend on the judge.

In one email you made both our points. I suspect that if properly presented the Texas Supremes would say the Legislature not the County has the call on venue. But I hate the gamble.