SHAMROCK ENTERPRISES LLC LA v. TOP NOTCH MOVERS LLC (2026)

This restricted appeal challenges a no-answer default judgment based on defective service of process. The plaintiff sought substituted service under a statute requiring process to be forwarded to the defendant's “most recent address ․ on file with the secretary of state.”¹ Assuming the defendant was amenable to service under that statute, which is disputed, the record does not reflect that process was forwarded to the statutorily required address. Because the lower courts erred in presuming it was, we reverse the court of appeals’ judgment, vacate the default judgment, and remand to the trial court.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Laura, Top Notch Movers, a Texas-based LLC, provided moving services in Alabama and Louisiana to Alabama-based Shamrock Enterprises, LLC d/b/a FRSTeam Gulfcoast/LA. By letter addressed to Shamrock at a location in Summerdale, Alabama, Top Notch demanded payment of more than $170,000 for unpaid invoices.² Weeks later, Top Notch sued Shamrock in Texas for nonpayment of services but provided a different address for service of process. The original petition identified Shamrock's “principal office” as a location in Foley, Alabama, and alleged that Shamrock was amenable to substituted service on the Secretary of State under section 5.251(1)(A) of the Texas Business Organizations Code.

As Top Notch requested, the district clerk issued citation on Shamrock via the Secretary of State at the Foley, Alabama address. The Secretary's Whitney certificate,³ which Top Notch filed with the trial court, states that copies of the citation and original petition were forwarded to Shamrock at the Foley, Alabama address but the mailing was returned with the notation “Return to Sender, Vacant, Unable to Forward.”

When Shamrock failed to appear, Top Notch promptly filed a motion for default judgment, certifying the Foley, Alabama location as Shamrock's “last known mailing address.”⁴ The trial court granted the motion and rendered a default judgment awarding Top Notch actual damages, attorney's fees, and costs. The district clerk subsequently mailed the judgment to Shamrock at the Foley, Alabama address, but it too was returned as undeliverable.

Several months later, Shamrock filed a restricted appeal seeking to vacate the default judgment based on improper service of process. The court of appeals affirmed, holding that (1) Shamrock was amenable to substituted service under section 5.251(1)(A) of the Business Organizations Code and (2) the Whitney certificate was irrebuttable proof that Shamrock was properly served.⁵

A restricted appeal permits a direct attack on a default judgment when the deadline for filing an ordinary appeal has passed.⁶ After satisfying jurisdictional requirements not at issue here, a restricted appeal may be sustained on the merits only if error is apparent on the face of the record.⁷ When proper service is challenged in this procedural posture, it must be proved, not presumed.⁸ If the record does not affirmatively demonstrate proper service, a no-answer default judgment cannot stand.⁹

As to that, Shamrock contends the record establishes that (1) it was not amenable to substituted service under section 5.251(1)(A) because it was not “transacting business in this state”; (2) even if it was, Top Notch failed to strictly comply with that statute's service requirements; (3) due process requires reversal of a no-notice default judgment when a Whitney certificate shows the Secretary's attempted forwarding was unsuccessful; and (4) a no-notice default judgment must be reversed when the record does not demonstrate the nonresident had minimum contacts with Texas. Because Shamrock is correct on the second issue, we do not reach the others.

“To transact business in this state,” a foreign entity must register with the Secretary of State, maintain that registration “while transacting business in this state,” and designate a registered agent and office for service of process.¹⁰ If the foreign entity fails to meet these requirements, section 5.251(1)(A) makes the Secretary of State the entity's agent for service of process. Such service is effectuated by delivering duplicate copies of the process and any required forwarding fees to the Secretary,¹¹ who must then send one copy to the named entity “addressed to the most recent address of the entity on file with the secretary of state.”¹²

Top Notch's original petition alleged that Shamrock was “required to register with the Secretary of State but has not appointed or maintained a registered agent for service of process in Texas.” Shamrock concedes it neither registered nor maintained a registered agent in Texas but disputes that it was required to do so. As Shamrock notes, the registration requirement applies when an entity “transact[s] business in this state,”¹³ but “transacting business in interstate commerce” “do[es] not constitute transaction of business in this state.”¹⁴ Because the invoices Top Notch attached to its trial-court filings reflect a business transaction between a Texas resident and an Alabama resident for services to be performed in Louisiana and Alabama, Shamrock contends the record demonstrates that it was engaged in interstate commerce and, therefore, not transacting business in Texas, not required to register, and not amenable to substituted service under section 5.251(1)(A). Without resolving the parties’ dispute about those matters, we can assume, without deciding, that Shamrock was subject to service of process under section 5.251(1)(A) because error requiring reversal is readily apparent in a different regard.

“[F]or a default judgment to survive a restricted appeal, the face of the record must reflect that service was forwarded to the address required by statute.”¹⁵ For substituted service to count under section 5.251(1)(A), the Secretary must have forwarded the process to the address the statute designates: the “most recent address of the entity on file with the secretary of state.”¹⁶ Top Notch's trial-court filings alleged that the Foley, Alabama address was Shamrock's “principal office” and “last known mailing address,” but nowhere does the record reflect, by allegation or otherwise, that the Foley, Alabama address was Shamrock's “most recent address ․ on file with the secretary of state.” We cannot simply presume that the address Top Notch provided is the one the statute requires. To the contrary, “the face of the record must show that the forwarding address is the one required by statute.”¹⁷

The court of appeals held that the Secretary of State's “Whitney certificate conclusively established that [Shamrock] was properly served with process,”¹⁸ but this was error. Because we presume nothing, the Secretary of State's certification establishes only the facts stated therein.¹⁹ In this case, the Secretary's certificate documented that process was forwarded to Shamrock at the Foley, Alabama address, but it did not identify that address as Shamrock's address on file, let alone its most recent one. Our opinion in Wachovia Bank of Delaware, N.A. v. Gilliam forecloses reliance on the Secretary's Whitney certificate to presume that substituted service complied with the statutory requirements when it does not so state.²⁰

Like this case, Wachovia Bank involved a restricted appeal challenging a default judgment based on noncompliance with statutes authorizing substituted service on the Secretary of State.²¹ The statutes at issue there required process to be forwarded to the foreign corporation's “principal office,” and we vacated the judgment because the petition, citation, return, and Whitney certificate listed an address without alleging it was the defendant's home office, principal office, or anything else for that matter.²² And because “nothing in the record show[ed] that the Secretary of State forwarded process to [the defendant's] home office or principal office as required by the statutes on which the plaintiffs rel[ied], error [was] apparent on the face of the record.”²³

The same infirmity is present here. While the petition, citation, return, and Whitney certificate state that process was forwarded to an address alleged to be Shamrock's “principal office” and “last known mailing address,” those are not the addresses the Business Organizations Code designates for forwarding process to the defendant. Various Texas statutes authorize substituted service on a government official who must then forward service to the defendant at an address designated by the authorizing statute,²⁴ but the requirement of strict compliance does not allow mixing and matching among those statutes.²⁵ Different substituted-service statutes provide different service paths. The path Top Notch chose required forwarding to the most recent address on file with the Secretary of State, and if there was no such address because Shamrock never registered, Top Notch might have made a case for substituted service under a different statute authorizing forwarding to a different address or by a different method.²⁶ But having hitched its wagon to section 5.251(1)(A), the default judgment can survive only if the record demonstrates strict compliance with that statute. The Whitney certificate is not proof that it does, let alone conclusive proof.

As Wachovia Bank explains, a Whitney certificate conclusively “establishes that process was served and forwarded to the address provided,” but “we cannot presume” that “the forwarding address is the one required by statute.”²⁷ In other words, absent fraud or mistake, the Whitney certificate is irrebuttable proof that service was forwarded as addressed, but it does not conclusively establish that “the forwarding address was correct.”²⁸ As to that matter, the face of the record must show compliance with the statute.²⁹ “When a default judgment is challenged by restricted appeal, there are no presumptions in favor of valid service,”³⁰ so unless the Whitney certificate “certifies that the forwarding address is the one required by statute, we cannot presume” that it is.³¹

Despite the clarity with which Wachovia Bank elucidates the distinction between what a government official's certificate does and does not establish, intermediate appellate courts, including the court of appeals here, have overlooked this controlling authority. Before Wachovia Bank, we had issued opinions describing a Whitney certificate as conclusive proof that the Secretary of State “received service of process” and “forwarded the service as required by statute.”³² But as Wachovia Bank explained and clarified,³³ in the context of those cases, those statements did not pertain to a dispute about whether service was forwarded to the address designated by the statute. It is this nuance that some courts have missed in overstating the effect of a Whitney certificate. Those decisions implying or affording more evidentiary weight to a Whitney certificate than Wachovia Bank allows are disapproved.³⁴

In Texas, “no-answer default judgments are disfavored” and cannot be sustained absent meticulous adherence to service requirements.³⁵ Such judgments are “tolerable” when “the absent party could have appeared but chose not to do so,”³⁶ but “[i]f the defendant did not appear because he or she never received the suit papers,”³⁷ then the “failure to affirmatively show strict compliance ․ renders the attempted service of process invalid and of no effect.”³⁸ Such is the case here. Nothing in the record, including the Whitney certificate, alleges or identifies the Foley, Alabama address as Shamrock's “most recent address ․ on file with the secretary of state” as required for valid substituted service under section 5.251(1)(A).

Having held that the record does not demonstrate strict compliance with the Texas Business Organizations Code's substituted-service requirements,³⁹ we reverse the court of appeals’ judgment, vacate the trial court's default judgment, and remand to the trial court for further proceedings.

I agree with the Court that this record does not show strict compliance with the applicable service statute and that default judgment was therefore improper. I write separately because even if the statute had been followed, our Constitutions would still require more.

The law's deep skepticism of default judgments is no mere rule of procedure. It is a “principle of natural justice which requires a person to have notice of a suit before he can be conclusively bound by its result.” Lafayette Ins. v. French, 59 U.S. (18 How.) 404, 406, 15 L.Ed. 451 (1855). Indeed, “[i]t is a dictate of natural justice, as well as a general principle of law, that every person to be directly affected in his interest or rights by the judgment of a court of record is entitled to be named or described in the suit, to have notice of it, and an opportunity of being heard in defense of his rights.” Summerlin v. Reeves, 29 Tex. 85, 88 (1867).

To “bind a defendant personally by a judgment, when he was never personally summoned, nor had notice of the proceedings,” is “contrary to the first principles of justice.” Harris v. Hardeman, 55 U.S. (14 How.) 334, 340, 14 L.Ed. 444 (1852) (quoting Borden v. Fitch, 15 Johns. 121, 133–34 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1818)). If judgment is thus rendered “without any public notice of the proceedings, so that the parties in interest have no opportunity of appearing and making a defence, the sentence is not so much a judicial sentence as an arbitrary sovereign edict.” Windsor v. McVeigh, 93 U.S. 274, 280, 23 L.Ed. 914 (1876) (quoting Bradstreet v. Neptune Ins., 3 F. Cas. 1184, 1187 (C.C.D. Mass. 1839) (No. 1,793)).

For this reason, under both the United States and Texas Constitutions, a “fundamental requirement of due process in any proceeding which is to be accorded finality is notice reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise interested parties of the pendency of the action and afford them an opportunity to present their objections.” Mullane v. Cent. Hanover Bank & Tr., 339 U.S. 306, 314, 70 S.Ct. 652, 94 L.Ed. 865 (1950). In other words, “when notice is a person's due, process which is a mere gesture is not due process.” Id. at 315, 70 S.Ct. 652. Rather, the “means employed must be such as one desirous of actually informing the absentee might reasonably adopt to accomplish it.” Id. Attempts to put the other party on notice of a lawsuit must therefore reflect the efforts of someone who “wanted to do it, not merely had to do it.” Tex. State Univ. v. Tanner, 689 S.W.3d 292, 299 (Tex. 2024); see also In re E.R., 385 S.W.3d 552, 565 (Tex. 2012) (holding that efforts to give notice “must include inquiries that someone who really wants to find the defendant would make”).

* * *

In December 2021, before filing suit, Top Notch sent a demand letter to “Shamrock Enterprises Inc. dba FRSTeam Of Gulfcoast/LA” at an address in Summerdale, Alabama. It appears that when Top Notch wanted to avoid litigation and simply get paid, it used the Summerdale address. Two months later, when Top Notch sued Shamrock, it alleged a different address in Foley, Alabama. Top Notch also attached invoices reflecting its transactions with Shamrock. Those invoices listed an address in Kenner, Louisiana—where most deliveries occurred—as well as a phone number and e-mail.

Because Shamrock, an Alabama company, had no registered agent in Texas, Top Notch requested substituted service through the Secretary of State at the Foley address it provided. The Secretary of State received the citation on February 22, 2022, forwarded it by certified mail to the Foley address on February 28, and later issued a certificate stating that the mailing was returned “[b]earing the notation Return to Sender, Vacant, Unable to Forward.” This certificate was filed in the trial court on April 19, 2022.

Despite the evidence that its lone attempt at service had failed, the record shows no further effort by Top Notch to notify Shamrock before seeking a default judgment on May 2. The record does not reflect that Top Notch sent any further communication to the Summerdale address used in its demand letter or to the address in Louisiana listed on its invoices. The record also does not show that Top Notch tried the phone number on those invoices or used the listed e-mail address in an attempt to either provide notice or figure out where Shamrock could be served or notified. In sum, nothing in this record indicates that Top Notch acted like someone who “wanted” to give Shamrock notice of this lawsuit, Tanner, 689 S.W.3d at 299, or was “desirous of actually informing” Shamrock that its rights were at stake, Mullane, 339 U.S. at 315, 70 S.Ct. 652.

As the United States Supreme Court explained in Jones v. Flowers, “a person who actually desired to inform” another party of an action would not simply “do nothing when a certified letter ․ is returned unclaimed.” 547 U.S. 220, 229, 126 S.Ct. 1708, 164 L.Ed.2d 415 (2006). This holding was not novel. Indeed, “most” circuit courts and state supreme courts had held that when mailed notice is returned undelivered, due process requires additional reasonable steps. Id. at 227–28, 126 S.Ct. 1708 (collecting cases); see also Plemons v. Gale, 396 F.3d 569, 575 (4th Cir. 2005) (“Most courts have reached precisely this conclusion. In case after case they have held that the reasonable diligence standard requires a party charged with notice to follow up when a mailing has been returned as unclaimed or undeliverable.” (footnote omitted)). Texas courts have reached similar conclusions in cases involving notice letters returned unclaimed. See, e.g., Barnes v. Frost Nat'l Bank, 840 S.W.2d 747, 750 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 1992, no writ) (“An unclaimed letter from the Secretary of State's office can hardly further the aim and objective of the long-arm statute, which is to provide reasonable notice of the suit and an opportunity to be heard.”); Orgoo, Inc. v. Rackspace US, Inc., 341 S.W.3d 34, 42 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2011, no pet.).

Jones rejected the idea that a party charged with achieving notice is absolved of responsibility for the failure of notice simply because the other party bears some responsibility himself. The Court noted that, even if Jones had a statutory duty to keep his address current and bore some responsibility for the missed notices, a “party's ability to take steps to safeguard its own interests” does not relieve the party charged with notice “of its constitutional obligation.” 547 U.S. at 232, 126 S.Ct. 1708 (citation modified). In identifying what “additional reasonable steps” might look like, id. at 225, 126 S.Ct. 1708, the Court stressed that due process demands neither exhaustive searches nor heroic measures. It pointed to simple, low-burden options—resending by regular mail, posting notice on the door, or addressing the mail to “occupant”—all easy steps that “one desirous of actually informing” the owner might reasonably try. Id. at 235–36, 126 S.Ct. 1708. Another simple option, surely one that a plaintiff desirous of achieving actual notice of a lawsuit would try, is to deliver the suit to alternate addresses for the defendant that are known to the plaintiff.

The record contains no indication that Top Notch made any such effort despite having multiple alternative addresses for Shamrock in its own files, as well as phone numbers and e-mail addresses. Top Notch knew that its sole attempt at service had failed because the certified mailing to the Foley address came back “Return to Sender, Vacant, Unable to Forward.” Yet despite having several different alternative ways to reach Shamrock, Top Notch took no further action. Even if that is what the service statute at issue might seem to permit in some cases,¹ that is not what our Constitutions permit.

* * *

As a matter of both basic fairness and basic constitutional law, any court asked to render a default judgment should require the plaintiff to explain the steps it took to actually notify the defendant after learning that its initial efforts failed. Irrespective of any statutes or procedural rules about service of process, a party who can take further reasonable, low-cost steps to provide actual notice of a lawsuit but does not do so should never be permitted to obtain a default judgment in a Texas court. That principle is already implicit in this Court's precedents. We should make it explicit in a future case. Because reaching the constitutional question was unnecessary in this case, I join the Court's opinion and judgment.

FOOTNOTES

1.   Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code §§ 5.251, .253.

2.   The demand letter was also mailed to two ostensibly related entities at addresses in Dallas, Texas, and Kenning, Louisiana, but neither entity was named a party in the proceedings below.

3.   See Whitney v. L&L Realty Corp., 500 S.W.2d 94, 95 (Tex. 1973) (holding that a trial court lacks jurisdiction to issue a default judgment based on substituted service on the Secretary of State unless the Secretary has certified that a copy of the citation was forwarded to the defendant); see also U.S. Bank Nat'l Ass'n v. Moss, 644 S.W.3d 130, 132 n.2 (Tex. 2022) (explaining the origin of Whitney certificates).

4.   See Tex. R. Civ. P. 239a. The rule now requires a party seeking a default judgment to additionally certify the defaulting party's last known email address, but that rule change was not effective when Top Notch filed its motion for default judgment. See id. (amended Sept. 8, 2023).

5.   711 S.W.3d 699, 700, 702-04 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg 2024).

6.   See Tex. R. App. P. 30.

7.   See Tex. R. App. P. 26.1(c) (time limit for filing a restricted appeal in a civil case), 30 (establishing requisites for a restricted appeal); Alexander v. Lynda's Boutique, 134 S.W.3d 845, 848 (Tex. 2004) (listing the four requirements for a restricted appeal); see also Ex parte E.H., 602 S.W.3d 486, 497 (Tex. 2020) (explaining that all restricted-appeal elements are jurisdictional except error on the face of the record).

8.   Spanton v. Bellah, 612 S.W.3d 314, 316 (Tex. 2020); McKanna v. Edgar, 388 S.W.2d 927, 928 (Tex. 1965).

9.   Hubicki v. Festina, 226 S.W.3d 405, 408 (Tex. 2007); Primate Constr., Inc. v. Silver, 884 S.W.2d 151, 153 (Tex. 1994).

10.   Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code §§ 9.001 (identifying the foreign entities required to register to “transact business in this state” and “while transacting business in this state”), .004(b)(9) (registration must include the name and address of the initial registered office and agent for service of process); see id. §§ 1.002(28)-(29) (defining “foreign entity” as one whose formation and internal affairs are governed by another jurisdiction's laws and a “foreign filing entity” as one who “registers or is required to register as a foreign entity under Chapter 9”), 5.201(a), (b) (requiring a foreign filing entity “to designate and continually maintain in this state” a registered agent and registered office for service of process).

11.   Id. § 5.252(a)(1), (a)(2)(B).

12.   Id. § 5.253(a), (b)(1).

13.   Id. § 9.001(a).

14.   Id. § 9.251(9) (emphasis added) (listing activities excluded from the meaning of “transaction of business in this state” “for purposes of this chapter,” including “transacting business in interstate commerce”).

15.   Wachovia Bank of Del., N.A. v. Gilliam, 215 S.W.3d 848, 850 (Tex. 2007).

16.   Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 5.253(b)(1); see Whitney, 500 S.W.2d at 94 (identifying two major requirements to support a default judgment based on substituted service: (1) amenability to process under the statute and (2) proof in the record that the defendant was, in fact, “served in the manner required by statute”).

17.   Wachovia Bank, 215 S.W.3d at 850.

18.   711 S.W.3d at 703.

19.   Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 4.005 (“A court ․ shall accept a certificate issued ․ by the secretary of state ․ that is certified by the secretary of state as prima facie evidence of the facts stated in the certificate[.]” (emphasis added)).

20.   215 S.W.3d at 850-51.

21.   Id. at 848.

22.   Id. at 850-51.

23.   Id. at 851.

24.   See, e.g., Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 302.108(b)(2) (requiring mailing to “the seller's principal business location at the last address on file with the secretary of state”); Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §§ 17.045, .091 (requiring the Secretary to forward process to a nonresident's “home or home office”); id. § 17.063 (requiring mailing by a “properly addressed letter”); Tex. Occ. Code §§ 1803.155 (requiring forwarding to “the address of the nonresident, as shown on the nonresident's registration statement”), 2051.402 (specifying service by delivery to the individual or mailing to the individual's “place of residence” or “principal place of business”).

25.   Cf. McKanna, 388 S.W.2d at 929 (“[I]t is imperative and essential that the record affirmatively show a strict compliance with the provided mode of service.”).

26.   See Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code § 5.256 (“This chapter does not preclude other means of service of process, notice, or demand on a domestic or foreign entity as provided by other law.”). For example, the Texas long-arm statute authorizes substituted service on the Secretary of State for a nonresident who “has not designated or maintained a resident agent for service” but either (1) is required by statute to do so or (2) “engages in business in this state”; however, unlike section 5.253 of the Business Organizations Code, the long-arm statute requires the Secretary to forward process to the nonresident's “home or home office.” Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §§ 17.044–.045. In this case, Top Notch did not seek and expressly does not rely on substituted service under the long-arm statute to support the default judgment.

27.   215 S.W.3d at 850.

28.   Id.

29.   Id.

30.   Id. at 848.

31.   Id. at 850.

32.   See Campus Invs., Inc. v. Cullever, 144 S.W.3d 464, 465-66 (Tex. 2004); Capitol Brick, Inc. v. Fleming Mfg. Co., 722 S.W.2d 399, 401 (Tex. 1986).

33.   215 S.W.3d at 850 (addressing a misunderstanding about the scope of the statement in Capitol Brick that was quoted in Cullever).

34.   See, e.g., Balkan Express, LLC v. Hollins, No. 01-22-00911-CV, 2023 WL 8720912, at *2 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Dec. 19, 2023, no pet.) (mem. op.); Dansk Express, LLC v. IPFS Corp., No. 01-22-00621-CV, 2023 WL 4937497, at *6 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Aug. 3, 2023, no pet.) (mem. op.); Acadian Props. Austin, LLC v. KJMonte Invs., LLC, 650 S.W.3d 98, 112 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2021, no pet.); MG Int'l Menswear, Inc. v. Robert Graham Designs LLC, No. 05-18-00517-CV, 2019 WL 642724, at *3 (Tex. App.—Dallas Feb. 15, 2019, no pet.) (mem. op.); El Paisano Nw. Hwy., Inc. v. Arzate, No. 05-12-01457-CV, 2014 WL 1477701, at *2-4 (Tex. App.—Dallas Apr. 14, 2014, no pet.) (mem. op.); BLS Dev., LLC v. Lopez, 359 S.W.3d 824, 828 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2012, no pet.).

35.   Spanton, 612 S.W.3d at 316 (“We have long held that a no-answer default judgment cannot stand when the defendant ‘was not served in strict compliance with applicable requirements.’ ” (quoting Wilson v. Dunn, 800 S.W.2d 833, 836 (Tex. 1990))); Hubicki, 226 S.W.3d at 408 (“[W]e rigidly enforce rules governing service when a default judgment is rendered[.]”).

36.   In re Lakeside Resort JV, LLC, 689 S.W.3d 916, 920-21 (Tex. 2024).

37.   Sutherland v. Spencer, 376 S.W.3d 752, 755 (Tex. 2012).

38.   Uvalde Country Club v. Martin Linen Supply Co., 690 S.W.2d 884, 885 (Tex. 1985).

39.   Primate Constr., 884 S.W.2d at 153 (the person requesting service bears the burden of ensuring “service is properly reflected in the record”).

1.   Interpreting an earlier version of the service provision at issue here, the First Court of Appeals remarked that “[t]he consequence of the appellee's actions is that a party to a lawsuit has the complete and absolute right to ignore information it has concerning the proper address of the office of the registered agent and then deny that party its day in court by obtaining a no-notice default judgment.” Harold-Elliott Co. v. K.P./Miller Realty Growth Fund I, 853 S.W.2d 752, 755 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1993, no writ). Even so, the court reluctantly “agree[d] that the appellee complied with the literal interpretation of the statute.” Id. The Fourteenth Court reached a similar conclusion under the current statute: “[A] diligent party may rely on the registered address a corporation has placed on file with the Secretary of State, even when the party knows that the address is no longer correct.” Autodynamics Inc. v. Vervoort, No. 14-10-00021-CV, 2011 WL 1260077, at *6 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Apr. 5, 2011, no pet.). It appears, however, that neither court was urged to consider whether our Constitutions might compel a different reading of the statute or a different result despite the statute.

Justice Devine delivered the opinion of the Court.

Chief Justice Blacklock filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Lehrmann, Justice Busby, Justice Young, and Justice Sullivan joined.