Legal Question in Family Law in Texas

My child (16) was told by her father I missed a court date. I called the District Court & was only told that a petition was filed and there is a date showing Oct. 11. I have not been subpenaed via process server or certified mail. What is an acceptable form of service for a petition to modify and what if I do miss the court date due to lack of service?


Asked on 9/21/11, 12:37 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Mark Dunn Mark D. Dunn

If you haven't been served yet, you can be 99% sure that no court date has been set. The October 11 date is something else.

When you're served, you'll know it. Somebody will hand you a citation with a petition attached to it.

Until you're served, the court doesn't have jurisdiction over you, and can't hold a hearing.

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Answered on 9/22/11, 7:20 am
M. Elizabeth Foley The Law Office of M. Elizabeth Foley

I was just now going through my old emails and saw this. If your case is in Galveston County (since you have a Santa Fe zip code, I'm guessing it might be), I practice in Galveston. If you'd like, I'd be happy to ltake a quick ook at the case information for you and let you know what it looks like the situation is, as well as get you a copy of the petition if you'd like to see it. The date that shows up on the citation, though, is actually just a status conference (the court's way of making sure that things don't fall through the cracks). He would definitely be expected to at the very least have you served long before then, though, and that date means he must have filed the petition back in June. Assuming he knows where you live, since the two of you share a child, it's a little odd that you haven't been served yet. Of course, if he filed it himself, it's possible that he somehow did t realize that he had to request that you be served and pay the service fees. I would certainly hope that's all that's going on, but you definitely need to make sure, just in case he's trying to play some game with changing your address with the court unbeknownst to you or doing a fake waiver of service or something (no, that's not at all likely, and yes, he would get caught eventually, but a very few special people really are dumb enough to think they can do that).

If you'd like me to check on that for you, I've got a mediation scheduled tomorrow afternoon at the courthouse, and I could very easily look while I'm there, all I'd need is the case number or your names. My email address is elizabethfoleylawATgmail.com (if you copy and paste it, don't forget to switch out the "AT" for "@"--it's a spam-blocking thing).

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Answered on 9/26/11, 1:15 am


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