Appeal Bonds in Multi-Defendant Cases: In re Greystar Development & Construction, L.P.

We won a large judgment against several related companies. They’ve appealed. Do they have to post one appeal bond between them, or one each?

The Supreme Court of Texas answered that question this spring in In re Greystar Development & Construction, L.P., 741 S.W.3d 32 (Tex. 2026) (orig. proceeding). The vote was 5–4, and the answer was: one each.

What happened. In 2019 a construction crane collapsed during a storm in Dallas and struck an apartment building, killing a resident, Kiersten Smith. Her parents sued three affiliated Greystar entities and the crane company. The jury found that the three Greystar entities were operating as a joint enterprise, held them responsible for Smith’s death, and awarded roughly $360 million in non-economic damages plus $500 million in exemplary damages, which the trial court reduced under the statutory caps. The judgment made the three entities jointly and severally liable for the compensatory award. 741 S.W.3d at 37.

The bond. A defendant who appeals a money judgment in Texas can stop the plaintiff from collecting while the appeal is pending by posting security — usually a bond — in the amount of the compensatory damages plus interest and costs. The Legislature has capped that amount, however: the bond need not exceed the lesser of 50 percent of the judgment debtor’s net worth or $25 million. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 52.006(a)–(b). The three Greystar entities posted a single $25 million bond, jointly, to suspend the judgment as to all of them.

The plaintiffs objected. Their position was that the $25 million cap applies to each defendant, so one bond could cover only one of the three. The trial court agreed, ruled that the joint bond could suspend the judgment against one entity at most, and declared that until the defendants filed individual bonds, no valid bond was in place — which meant the plaintiffs could begin collecting from the other two. The Dallas court of appeals upheld that ruling. Id. at 37–38.

The Court’s holding. The majority, in an opinion by Justice Busby, held that the cap applies per judgment debtor. The reasoning started with the statute’s definitions: “security” is defined as “a bond … posted … by a judgment debtor to suspend execution of the judgment,” and the cap says “the amount of security … must not exceed” $25 million or half “the judgment debtor’s net worth.” §§ 52.001, 52.006(b). Reading those together, the Court concluded that the cap limits the bond a debtor posts to suspend the judgment against itself, not the total of all bonds posted by everyone. Id. at 36, 38.

The Court also pointed to the surrounding law. Execution, garnishment, appellate rights, and supersedeas practice are all party-specific — each defendant files its own notice of appeal, each is subject to its own writ, and each debtor who wants to stop collection has long been required to post security for the full amount it owes. A per-judgment cap, the Court said, would be in tension with that structure and would force courts to invent exceptions the statute doesn’t contain. Id. at 39–47. As for policy, the majority noted that the $25 million cap is only one of several routes the Legislature has provided for reducing a bond, and saw no reason to read this one as broadly as possible. Id. at 48–49.

The remedy. Although the trial court was right about the cap, the Court held it abused its discretion by invalidating the joint bond immediately as to two of the entities, without giving them time to post their own. Drawing on the 20-day cure periods elsewhere in Rule 24, the Court said parties should presumptively be allowed 20 days to fix a bond found insufficient under the cap, and sent the case back with instructions to allow the two entities a reasonable time to post sufficient bonds. Id. at 50.

The dissent. Justice Huddle, joined by Justices Bland, Young, and Sullivan, agreed the trial court shouldn’t have invalidated the bond without notice but disagreed with the majority’s reading of the cap. In the dissent’s view, the statute caps neither per debtor nor per judgment but per bond: joint supersedeas bonds have been permitted in Texas for well over a century, the Government Code says the singular includes the plural, and nothing in § 52.006 says “$25 million per judgment debtor.” The dissent warned that the majority’s rule “drives up the cost of appeals in multi-defendant cases,” may require defendants to post more security than the judgment itself, and will “reverberate most loudly in nuclear-verdict cases.” Id. at 51–54 (Huddle, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).

What it appears to mean. For a plaintiff holding a judgment against multiple defendants — related entities in particular — the decision seems to increase the security that must be posted before an appeal can proceed without collection, and to foreclose the use of a single capped bond to cover a family of companies. For defendants, it suggests that the way a business is structured carries consequences on appeal as well as at trial: separate entities get separate bond obligations. The 20-day cure period gives a defendant whose bond is challenged some room to respond. And the 5–4 split, together with the dissent’s direct appeal to the Legislature’s purpose, leaves open the possibility that the question will be revisited in Austin.

Rehearing was denied on September 18, 2026.

See also our overview of the tools for collecting a Texas judgment.