CROSSOVER: Rule 193.6 Can’t Be Used to Wipe Out a Party’s Case Without Lesser-Sanctions Analysis

Michael Solomon and Andria Roque-Solomon v. The Law Office of Keith M. Harris and Keith M. Harris, 14-25-00029-CV, April 30, 2026.

On appeal from 270th District Court of Harris County, Texas

Synopsis

The Fourteenth Court of Appeals held that Rule 193.6 does not authorize a trial court to exclude a named party’s testimony, and it likewise does not justify a blanket order excluding all causation and damages proof when that ruling effectively eliminates the entire case. When an exclusion order functions as a death-penalty sanction, the trial court must test and consider lesser sanctions before imposing it; because that did not occur here, the take-nothing judgment was reversed and the case remanded.

Relevance to Family Law

This opinion matters in Texas family litigation because Rule 193.6 disputes routinely arise in divorce, SAPCR, modification, enforcement, reimbursement, tracing, business-valuation, and fee-shifting contests. In practice, lawyers often try to convert disclosure defects into trial-ending rulings by seeking exclusion of party testimony, expert opinions, financial records, or damages-type evidence such as attorney’s fees, reimbursement claims, and valuation proof. Solomon is a strong appellate reminder that Rule 193.6 is not a shortcut to a merits wipeout, particularly where the requested exclusion reaches named-party testimony or otherwise operates as a case-dispositive sanction without a lesser-sanctions analysis.

Case Summary

Fact Summary

The appellants sued their former lawyers for legal malpractice arising from an underlying personal-injury representation. According to the opinion, the clients alleged that one plaintiff’s claims had been dismissed for want of prosecution and the other plaintiff’s claims had been lost to limitations. The case was called to trial, and at that point the defendants asserted they had never received the plaintiffs’ initial disclosures. They made an oral motion to exclude all evidence of causation and damages.

The plaintiffs responded that they had attempted service through the e-filing system, but defense counsel had not included his email as a “case contact,” so the disclosures were not actually transmitted to him. Plaintiffs’ counsel also admitted he failed to review the service notification carefully enough to catch that only his own office had received the filing. After further briefing and hearing, the trial court granted the motion to exclude, then granted a directed verdict, and signed a take-nothing judgment.

The appellate record, as described by the court, showed that the exclusion order swept broadly. It excluded all evidence and testimony bearing on causation and damages. Critically, it also reached the plaintiffs’ own testimony and the testimony of their legal-malpractice expert, even though the expert had been timely designated earlier in the case. That breadth drove the appellate court’s analysis.

Issues Decided

• Whether the trial court abused its discretion by excluding all of the plaintiffs’ causation and damages evidence under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 193.6 for alleged disclosure failures.
• Whether Rule 193.6 permitted exclusion of the testimony of the named-party plaintiffs.
• Whether the blanket exclusion order operated as a death-penalty sanction because it precluded presentation of the merits.
• Whether the trial court could impose that case-dispositive sanction without first testing or considering lesser sanctions.
• Whether the erroneous exclusion probably caused the rendition of an improper judgment.

Rules Applied

The court centered its analysis on Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 193.6. That rule bars a party who fails to timely make, amend, or supplement a discovery response from introducing the material or information not timely disclosed, or from offering the testimony of a witness—other than a named party—who was not timely identified, unless the proponent establishes good cause or lack of unfair surprise or unfair prejudice. Rule 193.6(c) also expressly authorizes a continuance or trial postponement as a less severe procedural response.

The court also relied on the abuse-of-discretion standard described in recent Texas Supreme Court authority, including Diamond Hydraulics, Inc. v. GAC Equip., LLC and Jackson v. Takara. A trial court abuses its discretion when it acts arbitrarily, unreasonably, or misapplies the law to established facts.

On the sanctions side, the court applied the familiar TransAmerican and Chrysler Corp. v. Blackmon framework. Discovery sanctions must be just. They must bear a direct relationship to the offensive conduct, and they must not be excessive. If a sanction effectively adjudicates the case or precludes a merits determination, it is treated as a death-penalty sanction, which generally cannot be imposed without considering lesser sanctions first.

The court also drew on prior authority making clear that Rule 193.6 does not allow exclusion of named-party testimony, including Bento v. Green and Arshad v. American Express Bank, FSB. And it cited decisions recognizing that a blanket bar on all evidence or witnesses can exceed Rule 193.6 and become an impermissible merits sanction.

Application

The court treated the trial court’s order not as an ordinary Rule 193.6 exclusion, but as a sanction that crossed the line into case-dispositive territory. That distinction mattered. The appellees argued that Rule 193.6 carries an “automatic” exclusion consequence for nondisclosure and therefore should not be analyzed as a death-penalty sanction. The court accepted that general premise only up to a point: automatic exclusion may apply to specific undisclosed material or to testimony from a witness, other than a named party, who was not timely identified. But that is not what happened here.

Instead, the order excluded all evidence and testimony on causation and damages. The court emphasized two overreaches. First, the order barred the plaintiffs themselves from testifying. That alone exceeded the plain text of Rule 193.6 because the rule expressly excludes named parties from its witness-bar provision. Second, the order barred the plaintiffs’ legal-malpractice expert even though the expert had been timely disclosed. Rule 193.6 authorizes exclusion only of material not timely disclosed or testimony of a nonparty witness not timely identified; it does not authorize exclusion of otherwise timely-designated expert testimony merely because other disclosure problems may have occurred.

Once the court determined the order swept beyond what Rule 193.6 permits, the practical consequence became obvious: the plaintiffs had no way to prove their case. Without party testimony, expert testimony, or causation-and-damages proof, the directed verdict was inevitable. That transformed the evidentiary ruling into a death-penalty sanction in substance, regardless of how it had been labeled procedurally.

At that point, the trial court was required to engage the TransAmerican analysis. The appellate court found no indication that the trial court tested lesser sanctions, considered a continuance, tailored the exclusion to specific undisclosed material, or otherwise imposed a proportionate remedy. Because the sanction was effectively dispositive and no lesser-sanctions analysis preceded it, the court held the ruling was an abuse of discretion. Given that the exclusion directly led to the take-nothing judgment, harm was also established.

Holding

The court held that the trial court abused its discretion by entering a blanket exclusion order under Rule 193.6 that went beyond the rule’s text. In particular, Rule 193.6 did not permit exclusion of the named-party plaintiffs’ testimony, and the record did not support exclusion of the timely disclosed legal-malpractice expert on the theory embraced by the trial court.

The court further held that, because the exclusion order deprived the plaintiffs of the ability to present the merits of their malpractice claims, it operated as a death-penalty sanction. As a result, the trial court could not impose that sanction without first testing or considering lesser sanctions. The failure to do so required reversal.

Finally, the court held that the erroneous exclusion probably caused the rendition of an improper judgment because the directed verdict and take-nothing judgment flowed directly from the plaintiffs’ inability to present causation and damages evidence. The judgment was therefore reversed and the case remanded.

Practical Application

For family lawyers, the most important lesson is that disclosure enforcement and merits adjudication are not interchangeable. In a divorce trial, one side may move to exclude the other spouse’s tracing exhibits, business records, appraisals, reimbursement calculations, social-study materials, fee testimony, or expert opinions based on incomplete supplementation. In a custody case, the same dynamic appears with therapist testimony, expert evaluations, conservatorship evidence, electronic communications, school records, and damages-type fee claims. Solomon gives trial and appellate counsel a sharper framework for separating a proper Rule 193.6 remedy from an impermissible case-ending sanction.

This case is especially useful when the requested exclusion reaches the client personally. In family cases, the named parties are often the principal witnesses on best-interest facts, parental decision-making, possession history, fraud on the community, separate-property tracing, reimbursement, and attorney’s fees. If opposing counsel asks the court to exclude your client from testifying because of disclosure defects, Solomon provides direct support for the proposition that Rule 193.6 does not authorize that result.

It is also valuable in expert-heavy family litigation. Assume a party timely designates a valuation expert, custody evaluator, vocational expert, or forensic accountant, but later supplementation is imperfect or a production set is incomplete. Opposing counsel may try to parlay that imperfection into exclusion of the entire expert. Solomon reinforces that the sanction must be tied to the actual undisclosed material and cannot simply become a wholesale preclusion order unless the court is prepared to justify a death-penalty sanction under the ordinary sanctions framework.

From a preservation standpoint, this opinion underscores the need to force precision. If the opponent seeks exclusion, require them to identify exactly what material was not disclosed, when it should have been disclosed, and what prejudice allegedly results. If the trial court appears inclined to enter a sweeping order, make a clear record that the requested relief would be case-dispositive, that lesser sanctions exist, and that Rule 193.6(c) expressly authorizes a continuance or postponement. In many family cases, a short continuance to cure prejudice is far more defensible than a blanket exclusion that eliminates the merits.

For appellate lawyers handling family cases post-judgment, Solomon offers a useful path where a trial court entered a sanctions-flavored evidentiary ruling and then rendered judgment because the affected party had “no evidence.” The label on the order is not controlling. If the practical effect was to prevent any meaningful presentation of the case, the appellate argument should focus on substance over form and invoke the death-penalty-sanction line of authority.

Checklists

Preserve a Rule 193.6 Fight at Trial

• Identify precisely what evidence or testimony the opponent seeks to exclude.
• Separate named-party testimony from nonparty witness testimony.
• Establish on the record whether any challenged witness was timely identified.
• Establish on the record whether any expert was timely designated.
• Proffer the disputed evidence or summarize the excluded testimony for the record.
• Argue both Rule 193.6 exceptions: good cause and lack of unfair surprise or unfair prejudice.
• Request a continuance or temporary postponement under Rule 193.6(c) as an alternative remedy.
• State expressly that a blanket exclusion would function as a death-penalty sanction.
• Request findings or, at minimum, a clear oral explanation of the basis for exclusion.

Oppose Overbroad Exclusion in a Family Case

• Argue that Rule 193.6 does not permit exclusion of a named party’s testimony.
• Distinguish undisclosed material from timely disclosed categories of evidence.
• Emphasize when the opponent has long known the core issues, witnesses, and theories.
• Show that any surprise can be cured through a short continuance, limited deposition, or narrowed exclusion.
• Resist requests to exclude “all evidence” on property characterization, best interest, fees, or valuation.
• Ask the court to tailor any remedy to the specific undisclosed item rather than the entire claim or defense.
• Make a direct TransAmerican objection if the sanction would prevent a merits presentation.

Use Solomon Affirmatively When You Are the Movant

• Limit your request to the actual material not timely disclosed.
• Do not seek exclusion of the opposing party’s own testimony under Rule 193.6.
• Tie the requested relief to concrete prejudice, not generalized complaints.
• Explain why a narrower remedy will address the harm.
• If you seek a broader sanction, ask the court to conduct a lesser-sanctions analysis.
• Build a record showing why lesser measures would be inadequate before requesting dispositive relief.

Audit Your Pretrial Disclosures in Divorce or SAPCR Cases

• Confirm all Rule 194 disclosures were served and actually received.
• Verify every attorney and party contact in the e-filing system.
• Check service notifications rather than assuming successful transmission.
• Update witness lists to include treating professionals, experts, and custodians.
• Supplement exhibit lists with financial records, appraisals, summaries, and electronic evidence.
• Confirm fee evidence is supported by timely disclosure of the witness and underlying records.
• Re-serve key disclosures if there is any doubt about transmission or receipt.
• Create a service log for trial counsel to use during pretrial motion practice.

Build an Appellate Record After an Exclusion Order

• Obtain the written exclusion order if possible.
• Request a court reporter for all hearings involving the motion.
• Make an offer of proof for excluded testimony and documents.
• Connect the exclusion to the inability to prove a claim or defense.
• Preserve the argument that the ruling was case-dispositive in practical effect.
• Cite Rule 193.6(c) and the failure to consider lesser sanctions.
• Challenge any directed verdict or judgment that followed as derivative of the erroneous exclusion.

Citation

Michael Solomon and Andria Roque-Solomon v. The Law Office of Keith M. Harris and Keith M. Harris, No. 14-25-00029-CV, 2026 WL ___ (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Apr. 30, 2026, mem. op.).

Full Opinion

Read the full opinion here

Family Law Crossover

This is the kind of civil opinion that can be weaponized effectively in family court on both offense and defense. Defensively, it is a strong answer to the increasingly common tactic of seeking to exclude a spouse’s or parent’s entire trial presentation because of disclosure irregularities. If the requested order would knock out the client’s own testimony, all valuation proof, all tracing proof, all conservatorship witnesses, or all fee evidence, Solomon supports the argument that the motion is no longer a true Rule 193.6 request—it is an attempted death-penalty sanction wearing an evidentiary label.

Offensively, the case is equally useful for forcing discipline on the other side’s motion practice. When opposing counsel files a sweeping pretrial motion to exclude “all evidence not previously produced,” Solomon gives you a basis to require item-by-item analysis, witness-by-witness analysis, and an express discussion of lesser sanctions. That can materially change the leverage dynamic on the eve of trial.

In custody litigation, the opinion can be deployed where one side seeks to strike the other parent’s testimony, therapist testimony, or expert input based on disclosure complaints. In property cases, it can be used where one side seeks to exclude all tracing documents, reimbursement schedules, business records, or valuation testimony. In fee disputes, it can help resist attempts to eliminate all attorney’s-fee proof through technical disclosure objections. The strategic point is simple: Rule 193.6 remains powerful, but after Solomon, it should not be allowed to become an unexamined mechanism for wiping out a family-law case without the proportionality analysis Texas sanctions law requires.

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