The COVID Project
The record
- Jurisdiction
- Texas
- Level
- State
- Authority
- Tex. Health & Safety Code § 81.084(c), (d), (d-1), (e), (f), (g)
- Issued
- 1989-09-01 Sept. 1, 1989
- Effective
- standing (read as 1989-09-01)
- End
- standing (read as 2021-09-30)
- In force
- Standing since Sept. 1, 1989 (a statutory duty; in force throughout the six quarters)
- Quarters
- 2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
2020 Q22020 Q32020 Q42021 Q12021 Q22021 Q3
- Limitation types
- Business closureWorkplace rulesStanding duty
- Addressees
- owners or persons in control of premises (land, structures and objects, including every business premises)
- Character
- statutory authority
- Collection
- Standing duties: Texas DUT-TX
Operative words
In a public health disaster, the department or health authority by written order may require a person who owns or controls property to impose control measures that are technically feasible to disinfect or decontaminate the property or... may order the person who owns or controls the property... to securely seal off an infected or contaminated structure
Penalty
Tex. Health & Safety Code § 81.087 (Class B misdemeanor); injunction under § 81.084(f); costs and bond under § 81.084(g)
What it required
The owner or person in control of any premises, object or structure that the department or a health authority had reasonable cause to believe was infected or contaminated was bound to quarantine, disinfect, decontaminate or seal off the property on written order, to pay 'all expenses of implementing control measures' (§ 81.084(g)), and was subject to injunctive relief on refusal (§ 81.084(e)-(f)); in a public health disaster the notice requirement of subsection (b) did not apply. Character as recorded: statutory_authority (enabling power; binds through the orders issued under it).
Retrieval noteSubsection (d-1), added in 2013, is the public-health-disaster provision; the Commissioner's declaration of March 19, 2020 (Exs. DUT-TX-008, DUT-TX-009) satisfied § 81.003(7) and activated it. The sanitation and disinfection protocols of the DSHS checklists are the measures this section made compulsory on order.