If a respondent who has been personally served with notice to appear at a hearing does not appear at the designated time, place, and date to respond to a motion for enforcement of an existing court order, regardless of whether the motion is joined with other claims or remedies, the court may not hold the respondent in contempt but may, on proper proof, grant a default judgment for the relief sought and issue a capias for the arrest of the respondent.
Tex. Fam. Code § 157.066
FAILURE TO APPEAR
Applied in 6 court decisions — leading case In the Interest of Gonzalez (1999)
Most recently applied in In Re Sheard (March 2003)
Added by Acts 1995, 74th Leg., ch. 20, Sec. 1, eff
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Texas Constitution and Statutes. Reproduced from public-domain Texas statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.