CROSSOVER: Dallas Court Reinforces Rule 193.7: Produced Documents Are Not Self-Authenticating Without Notice

Hurt v. Goswami, 05-25-01256-CV, August 12, 2026.

On appeal from County Court at Law No. 3, Collin County, Texas

Synopsis

The Dallas Court of Appeals reiterated that Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 193.7 is not automatic. A party cannot rely on an opponent’s produced documents as self-authenticated summary judgment evidence unless the record shows Rule 193.7 notice was given and the producing party did not timely make a good-faith authenticity objection. Without that predicate, exclusion of the opposing party’s expert designation and discovery responses was proper.

Relevance to Family Law

This is a crossover evidentiary decision with real consequences in Texas divorce, SAPCR, enforcement, and property characterization litigation, where lawyers routinely attach the other side’s discovery responses, produced financial records, inventories, expert designations, and business records to temporary-orders briefing, summary judgment motions, and fee disputes. Hurt v. Goswami is a reminder that produced documents are not self-authenticating merely because they came from the opposing party’s production. If you want to use an adverse party’s production in a pretrial proceeding in family court, you need a Rule 193.7 record. Otherwise, key evidence on tracing, reimbursement, valuation, fee segregation, or conservatorship-related expenses may never make it into the evidentiary mix.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

This appeal arose after remand in a landlord-tenant dispute. In an earlier appeal, the Dallas Court had affirmed most of the judgment, including unpaid rent, but reversed and remanded the property-repair damages and attorney’s fee award for further proceedings. On remand, the appellees abandoned repair damages and sought summary judgment on the previously affirmed rent amount and recalculated attorney’s fees.

In response, the appellants attached four exhibits to their summary judgment response. Two of those exhibits were the appellees’ own litigation materials: an expert designation concerning attorney’s fees and discovery responses to requests for production. The other two exhibits were a declaration and email from former counsel concerning tendered rent payments. The appellees objected that the exhibits were unauthenticated, and they separately challenged the declaration and email as irrelevant because the rent-liability dispute had already been resolved in the first appeal.

The trial court sustained the objections, struck the exhibits, and granted summary judgment. On appeal, the appellants argued, among other things, that the trial court erred in excluding the opposing party’s expert designation and discovery responses, which they evidently sought to treat as usable against the producing party without additional authentication proof.

Issues Decided

• Whether the trial court erred in striking exhibits attached to the summary judgment response, including the opposing party’s expert designation and discovery responses, on authentication grounds.
• Whether Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 193.7 permitted those produced documents to be treated as self-authenticated absent evidence that Rule 193.7 notice had been given.
• Whether exclusion of the exhibits, even if erroneous, was harmful.
• Whether the trial court abused its discretion in permitting attorney-fee testimony from a witness who was allegedly not timely designated under Rule 193.6.
• Whether the attorney’s fee recovery should have been reduced to zero based on the appellants’ theory concerning tendered rent and causation.

Rules Applied

The court’s evidentiary analysis centered on the interaction between Texas Rule of Evidence 902 and Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 193.7.

• Texas Rule of Evidence 902: identifies categories of self-authenticating documents. The court held that the opponent’s expert designation and discovery responses did not fall within Rule 902’s recognized categories.
• Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 193.7: provides a separate authentication mechanism for documents produced in discovery, but only when the document is used against the producing party, notice of intended use is given, and the producing party does not timely make a good-faith authenticity objection.
• Texas Rules of Appellate Procedure 44.1 and 61.1: require harmful error before reversal.
• Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 193.6: governs the admission of testimony from witnesses not timely disclosed, allowing admission upon a showing of good cause or lack of unfair surprise or unfair prejudice.
• Rohrmoos Venture v. UTSW DVA Healthcare, LLP, 578 S.W.3d 469, 498 (Tex. 2019): identified the framework for proving reasonableness of attorney’s fees.
• The court also discussed precedent distinguishing current Rule 193.6 from former Rule 215(5), including Alvarado v. Farah Manufacturing Co., 830 S.W.2d 911 (Tex. 1992), Sharp v. Broadway National Bank, 784 S.W.2d 669 (Tex. 1990), and the Dallas court’s own prior treatment of the issue in Estate of Toarmina.

Application

The Dallas Court treated the authentication question in a straightforward but important way. The appellants attempted to use the appellees’ own expert designation and discovery responses as summary judgment evidence. But the court emphasized that these materials were not self-authenticating under Rule 902. That left Rule 193.7 as the only plausible route to authentication.

The problem was evidentiary, not conceptual. Rule 193.7 can make produced documents authentic for use against the producing party, but only if the predicate is established. The summary judgment response did not show that notice had been given that the documents would be used. Nor was there a supporting affidavit or other proof establishing that the Rule 193.7 notice requirement had been satisfied. In the absence of that showing, the trial court acted within its discretion in treating the exhibits as unauthenticated and excluding them.

The court also underscored that Rule 193.7 is not a blanket presumption that follows every produced document into summary judgment practice. The rule operates conditionally. If the proponent cannot prove notice, the document remains subject to ordinary authentication requirements. That is the practical teaching of the opinion.

As to the other two exhibits, the court did not need to reach authentication because the trial court had also sustained a relevance objection, and that independent ground supported exclusion. The subject of those exhibits went to rent liability, which had already been resolved in the prior appeal.

The court then moved to the fee-witness challenge under Rule 193.6. Assuming preservation, it concluded the trial court did not abuse its discretion in permitting the attorney affidavit. In doing so, the court reiterated that Rule 193.6 permits admission on either good cause or lack of unfair surprise or prejudice, and that the current rule is textually broader than the former regime discussed in Alvarado and Sharp.

Holding

The court held that documents produced in discovery are not self-authenticated under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 193.7 unless the proponent shows the producing party received notice that the documents would be used and failed to make a timely good-faith authenticity objection. Because the summary judgment response did not show that Rule 193.7 notice had been given, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding the producing party’s expert designation and discovery responses as unauthenticated.

The court separately held that exclusion of the other challenged exhibits was proper on relevance grounds because those materials addressed a rent-liability theory that had already been resolved in the prior appeal and therefore did not bear on the remanded issues.

The court further held that, even if exclusion of the disputed exhibits had been error, any such error was harmless. The rent issue was already controlled by law of the case, and the reasonableness of attorney’s fees turned on the Rohrmoos framework rather than on the excluded exhibits.

Finally, the court held that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing the appellees’ attorney to testify by affidavit concerning fees under Rule 193.6, rejecting the appellants’ argument that the testimony should have been excluded solely because that attorney had not been the originally designated fee expert.

Note

I have resisted, always successfully, the notion that self-authentication requires notice. However, this opinion and the one other I can find, Merrell v. Wal-Mart Stores, 276 S.W.3d 117 (Tex.App.–Texarkana 2009) (later reversed on other grounds), also adopts the reading of the rule contained in this opinion. Merrell approved the omnibus notice that many practitioners use, which is to say, “Please take notice that the documents you produced in response to all parties’ Request for Production of Documents are authenticated pursuant to Rule 193.7, TEX. R. CIV. P., and will be used by Plaintiff at any trial or hearing,” is adequate, despite the other party’s objection to the lack of specificity as to which documents are being treated as self-authenticating against the producing party.

I think the rule can be correctly read to impose a 10-day deadline to self-authentication only upon receipt of such notice and, if actual notice dies not occur until trial, the producing party can offer a good faith objection to authenticity at trial.

Practical Application

For family lawyers, the lesson is procedural discipline. In a divorce or SAPCR, it is common to use the other side’s production offensively: bank statements produced by the spouse, business records produced in response to RFPs, prior sworn inventories, expert designations, ledgers, emails, or discovery responses relating to reimbursement, tracing, separate-property claims, wasted assets, or fee shifting. Hurt teaches that production alone does not carry the authentication burden in summary judgment practice.

That matters particularly in high-conflict property cases and fee hearings. If you attach the opposing spouse’s produced QuickBooks files, trust statements, loan applications, social media screenshots, or accountant communications to support a no-evidence response or traditional summary judgment motion, you still need to establish your Rule 193.7 predicate or authenticate the materials another way. The same is true in modification and enforcement practice, where counsel often rely on produced calendars, OurFamilyWizard records, payment histories, medical bills, school records, and communications logs.

The decision also has a secondary family-law implication on fee proof. Trial and appellate fee claims often evolve during the life of a case as counsel changes, additional hearings occur, or appeals intervene. Hurt suggests the Dallas Court remains open to Rule 193.6’s lack-of-unfair-surprise pathway when fee proof shifts from one lawyer to another, so long as the record supports admission. But that flexibility does not dilute the authentication requirements for documents themselves.

Checklists

Rule 193.7 Predicate Checklist

• Identify each produced document you intend to use in a pretrial hearing, summary judgment proceeding, or trial.
• Confirm that the document was in fact produced by the opposing party in discovery.
• Serve clear notice that the produced document will be used against the producing party.
• Make sure the notice is served far enough in advance to trigger the producing party’s opportunity to object under Rule 193.7.
• Preserve proof of service of the Rule 193.7 notice.
• Check whether the producing party made a timely good-faith authenticity objection.
• If no objection was made, say so expressly in your affidavit, notice, or hearing record.
• If an objection was made, be prepared to authenticate the document through another evidentiary route.

Summary Judgment Evidence Checklist

• Do not assume an opponent’s produced document is self-authenticating under Rule 902.
• Attach a supporting affidavit or other proof establishing the Rule 193.7 predicate if you are relying on that rule.
• Distinguish authentication from relevance, hearsay, and incorporation objections.
• Cite the specific exhibit in the body of the motion or response so the record shows how the document is being used.
• Verify that the exhibit bears the same identifying markers as the produced document set.
• Anticipate harmless-error arguments if the exhibit does not affect the controlling issue on appeal.

Family Law Use Cases Checklist

• In divorce property cases, verify Rule 193.7 compliance before using produced bank records, brokerage statements, business ledgers, inventories, or loan files.
• In reimbursement and tracing cases, authenticate produced financial records before attaching them to a summary judgment motion or response.
• In SAPCR and modification cases, authenticate produced school records, medical records, app data exports, and message logs if offered through Rule 193.7.
• In enforcement actions, confirm authentication of produced payment histories, receipts, and account statements.
• In fee disputes, do not assume prior expert designations or prior discovery responses can simply be appended as competent proof.

Attorney’s Fees Proof Checklist

• Timely designate your fee expert whenever practicable, even if lead counsel may later change.
• If successor counsel will prove fees, develop a Rule 193.6 record on lack of unfair surprise or prejudice.
• Provide the opposing party enough disclosure to evaluate settlement and prepare rebuttal.
• Tie fee testimony to the Rohrmoos factors and the actual work performed.
• Separate authentication issues concerning documents from disclosure issues concerning witnesses.
• If relying on invoices or prior counsel records, authenticate each component independently.

Error Preservation Checklist

• Obtain a written ruling or a clear reporter’s-record ruling on evidentiary objections.
• If relying on Rule 193.7, offer proof of the notice and lack of timely authenticity objection.
• Respond separately to authentication, relevance, hearsay, and Rule 193.6 objections.
• If evidence is excluded, make a clear record of why the exhibit matters to the issue being decided.
• On appeal, address both abuse of discretion and harm.

Family Law Crossover

The procedural mechanism reinforced by this decision is narrow but powerful: Rule 193.7 creates a conditional shortcut to authentication for documents produced in discovery, but only after notice of intended use is given and the producing party does not timely object to authenticity. In family law, that mechanism can arise whenever one side wants to use the other side’s produced material in a pretrial proceeding or at trial. Common examples include using produced account statements to establish community balances, using produced business records to support a valuation position, using produced emails or texts in a temporary-orders evidentiary hearing, or using produced billing records and designations in a fee dispute. The case confirms that the rule is procedural, not automatic. The proponent must build the predicate in the record, or else resort to conventional authentication.

Citation

Hurt v. Goswami, No. 05-25-01256-CV, 2026 WL ___ (Tex. App.—Dallas Aug. 12, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

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