Every TRO in Texas Requires a Bond
Before a Temporary Restraining Order or Temporary Injunction takes effect in Texas, the person who obtained it has to post a security bond with the court. This is not optional, and there are no exceptions for small cases, straightforward disputes, or situations where the applicant is sure the harm is obvious. If the bond is not posted before the writ is issued and served, the TRO has no legal force at all, even if a judge signed the order. It is void. That makes the bond one of the most important technical points in TRO practice, and it is something we check on every TRO defense, because the answer is sometimes that the order restraining our client never had any teeth to begin with.
The bond exists to protect the restrained party against an order that should not have issued. Picture the scenario. Someone gets an emergency TRO against you, your business is disrupted for two weeks, and then it turns out the order should never have existed, because the applicant was not entitled to the relief or lost at the temporary injunction hearing. You took real harm from an order that was wrong. The bond is where your recovery comes from: if the TRO is dissolved because it should not have been granted, you can recover your actual damages out of the deposit the applicant had to put up before the order took effect.
How the Amount Is Set and How It Is Posted
The judge fixes the bond amount in the order itself, using discretion rather than any set formula, and weighing what the restrained party stands to lose if the restraint turns out to be wrongful. The result swings widely. A modest business dispute might draw a bond of a few thousand dollars, while a TRO that shuts down significant operations or freezes a major asset can carry a bond well into the six figures. Because it is a discretionary call, it is also reviewable on appeal, so if you are the restrained party and the bond is set far too low to cover what you could actually lose, that is an argument worth raising with the court. Judges do not always get the number right the first time.
Once the amount is set, the applicant has to post it with the clerk before the writ will issue, in one of three forms: a full cash deposit paid to the clerk, a surety bond from an approved bonding company (the applicant pays a premium, usually a percentage of the face amount, and this is the usual route for larger bonds), or two or more individual sureties who guarantee the obligation subject to the clerk’s approval. Until one of these is in place and accepted, the writ of injunction does not issue, and the TRO has no effect until it does.
What Happens to the Bond Afterward
If the TRO or temporary injunction is later dissolved, whether because you defeated it, because the applicant could not carry its burden at the hearing, or because the court ultimately ruled the other way, the bond is the fund your damages come out of. Recoverable damages can include the business revenue you lost while restrained, the costs you ran up complying with the order, and in some cases other consequential losses. A judge has discretion to award less than the full face amount where equity calls for it, but the bond remains the source. None of this is automatic, though. Recovering on the bond takes a separate step, usually a motion that establishes your damages and ties them to the wrongful restraint, and we handle those proceedings for clients when the situation warrants it. If instead the applicant prevails and the injunction holds, the bond is simply released back to them; posting it was just the price of getting emergency relief, a deposit against a wrong that, as it turned out, never occurred.
Two situations work a little differently. When the TRO is aimed at a government entity, such as a state agency, a city, a county, or another governmental subdivision with no financial stake in the underlying dispute, the applicant’s exposure on the bond is capped at its face amount if the injunction is dissolved, though the bond still has to be posted. And there is one narrow carve-out from the bond requirement altogether: certain indigent applicants trying to stop foreclosure of their residential homestead may proceed without a bond if they file a proper statutory affidavit of inability to pay. That exception does not reach business disputes or ordinary commercial injunction cases.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Bond
What if the applicant could not afford to post the bond?
The bond must still be posted. If the applicant cannot post the required bond, the TRO will not take effect. There is a narrow homestead foreclosure exception for indigent applicants, but that is the only one. In commercial cases, if the applicant cannot post the bond, they cannot have a TRO.
Does the bond amount represent a cap on my recovery?
The full face amount of the bond is generally the limit of recovery from the bond itself. However, the court may allow recovery for less than the full face amount under equitable circumstances. If your actual damages exceed the bond, you may have other claims against the applicant, but those require separate litigation.
What if the bond was never posted but the TRO was already served on me?
If the bond was not properly posted before the writ was issued and served, the TRO is void. You should raise this with your attorney immediately. A void TRO cannot be enforced and cannot support a contempt proceeding against you.
I posted the bond and won. How do I get my money back?
When the case resolves in the applicant's favor, or the temporary injunction is made permanent, the bond is released and returned to the applicant. Your attorney will handle the formal release with the court clerk.