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March 13, 2026 Get Citation Alerts Download PDF Add Note

Office of the Attorney General v. Pflag, Inc.

Texas Supreme Court

• Citations: None known
• Docket Number: 24-0892
• Judges: Blacklock

• Disposition: The Court reverses the trial court's judgment and remands the case to that court.

• Opinion

• Authorities (1)

• Cited By (0)

• Summaries (0)

• Similar Cases (3.6K)

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Disposition

The Court reverses the trial court's judgment and remands the case to that court.

Lead Opinion

                        by Blacklock

Supreme Court of Texas
══════════
No. 24-0892
══════════

Office of the Attorney General,
Appellant,

v.

PFLAG, Inc.,
Appellee

═══════════════════════════════════════
On Direct Appeal from the
261st Judicial District Court, Travis County
═══════════════════════════════════════

Argued October 7, 2025

CHIEF JUSTICE BLACKLOCK delivered the opinion of the Court.

Justice Sullivan did not participate in the decision.

The Attorney General’s office suspects that medical providers
may have violated the Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA) by
misrepresenting to insurance companies the nature of the services they
provide. An affidavit submitted by a corporation in related litigation
caused the Attorney General’s office to believe the corporation may have
information shedding light on these potential DTPA violations. To
obtain the documents underlying the affidavit, the Attorney General’s
office invoked its statutory power to issue a “civil investigative demand”
(CID). See TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE § 17.61. A CID requires “any person”
the Attorney General’s office believes “may be in possession, custody, or
control of the original copy of any documentary material relevant to the
subject matter of [a DTPA] investigation” to “produce the documentary
material and permit inspection and copying.” Id. § 17.61(a). Whether
or not litigation is pending, a CID may seek “documentary material
which would be discoverable under the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure.”
Id. § 17.61(c).
Rather than produce the requested information, the corporation
invoked its statutory right to petition a district court to “modify or set
aside the demand, stating good cause.” Id. § 17.61(g). The Attorney
General’s office responded by narrowing its demand, but the corporation
continued to resist the CID. The parties could not reach agreement, so
their dispute over the document request came before a district court.
Nothing about the scenario described above is unusual or
remarkable. The Attorney General’s office frequently investigates
DTPA violations, and it frequently issues CIDs in so doing. Parties often
resist them. Even more frequently, district courts are called upon to
officiate disputes over the production of documents. In purpose and in
practice, a CID is closely analogous to a discovery request in civil
litigation, and the CID statute makes clear that the two are subject to
similar considerations. Id. § 17.61(c). In both instances, a party is
generally entitled to relevant, non-privileged information in the other
party’s possession, but courts should ensure that production of
privileged material is not compelled and should protect parties from

2
unnecessarily burdensome, invasive, or harassing demands. See TEX. R.
CIV. P. 192.3(a), 192.6(b). Whether a discovery dispute arises from a
CID or from civil litigation, the appropriate judicial tools for its speedy
resolution are well known.
Although this matter could have been handled much like a
conventional discovery dispute, it was not. It remained pending in the
district court for over a year, during which time the corporation’s section
17.61(g) petition was used as a way to put the Attorney General’s
investigation on trial—rather than as a way to obtain speedy judicial
rulings on recognized discovery objections. The district court eventually
issued a final order broadly protecting the corporation from production
of several categories of material. This direct appeal, to which the
Attorney General is entitled by statute, followed.
The lengthy history of this discovery dispute no doubt owes to its
underlying subject matter, which is the Texas Legislature’s ban on
transgender treatments for minors. See TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE
§ 161.702. But the CID was not subject to a more searching judicial
inquiry merely because of its politically sensitive topic. Nor does the
constitution require courts to approach the topic with heightened
scrutiny. While this case was pending in the district court, this Court
upheld Texas’s ban against a challenge brought under the Texas
Constitution. See State v. Loe, 692 S.W.3d 215 (Tex. 2024). Since then,
the United States Supreme Court has affirmed the validity of a similar
ban under the U.S. Constitution. See United States v. Skrmetti, 605 U.S.
495 (2025).

3
The prohibition on transgender treatments for minors enacted by
the Texas Legislature is the law in this State. As with any other law
governing the medical industry, if the Attorney General reasonably
believes that doctors or hospitals are using deceptive practices to avoid
detection of their violation of the law, he may use the tools available to
him to investigate the matter. In any such investigation, courts should
be sensitive to the privacy interests of those whose intimate medical
information could be revealed, but in this case the Attorney General has
already agreed to allow redactions to preserve anonymity. On top of
that, the DTPA provides an additional layer of protection by prohibiting
the Attorney General’s office from disclosing material it obtains through
a CID unless doing so is “necessary in the enforcement of [the DTPA].”
TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE § 17.61(f). Thus, if the corporation is correct
that its responsive documents have nothing to do with the Attorney
General’s DTPA investigation, the law will shield the (already
anonymized) documents from public disclosure.
Whether or how vigorously the Attorney General’s office should
pursue investigations of this nature are political questions entrusted by
the Legislature to the Attorney General, not to the courts. Courts are
well suited to resolve discovery fights. Courts are not well suited to
second-guess the wisdom of investigatory decisions made by an elected
executive officer entrusted by the law with broad discretion.
As explained below, the district court’s rulings protecting the
corporation from the requested discovery and enjoining further
investigation by the Attorney General cannot stand. The district court’s
“Final Declaratory Judgment and Injunction” is reversed, and the

4
matter is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion. On
remand, the corporation must produce responsive documents as
described herein, subject to assertions of a recognized privilege
supported by a privilege log as required under Rule 193.3 of the Texas
Rules of Civil Procedure.
I.
A.
Texas law prohibits medical treatments for children if
administered “[f]or the purpose of transitioning a child’s biological sex”
or “affirming the child’s perception of the child’s sex if that perception is
inconsistent with the child’s biological sex.” TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY
CODE § 161.702. This law, also known as SB 14, was signed by the
Governor on June 2, 2023 and took effect on September 1, 2023. SB 14
charges the Attorney General with its enforcement. Id. § 161.706(a).
PFLAG, Inc. is a nonprofit corporation describing itself “as a
resource for LGBTQ+ people, families, and allies.” It is incorporated in
California but has many chapters and over a thousand members in
Texas. In the summer of 2023, PFLAG joined several other parties in a
lawsuit seeking to enjoin enforcement of SB 14. During the early stages
of that litigation, PFLAG’s executive director, Brian Bond, submitted an
affidavit stating that, after SB 14’s passage:
New families showed up in droves for chapter meetings and
support groups, seeking information and support.
Chapters planned and participated in events to provide
comfort to and celebrate the unbreakable joy of the gender
diverse community. PFLAG families with transgender and
nonbinary adolescents shared their contingency plans—
those with the resources to move or seek care out of state
have begun firming up their plans to do so, while the vast

5
majority without those resources have been asking
chapters for alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas.
Families were not just seeking health care providers who
specialize in medical care for gender dysphoria but leads
on affirming general practitioners as well so that their
adolescents would have access to multiple providers in the
event that their primary providers stop providing
gender-affirming medical care or leave the state as a result
of SB14.
The lawsuit in which this affidavit was submitted led ultimately to this
Court’s June 2024 decision upholding SB 14. See Loe, 692 S.W.3d 215.
Since SB 14’s enactment, the Attorney General’s office has sought
to determine whether medical providers are misleading insurers and
others by billing treatments outlawed by SB 14 as treatments for lawful
purposes. In this regard, the Attorney General’s office has employed its
investigatory authority under the DTPA in conjunction with its
investigatory authority under SB 14. See TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE
§ 17.47. 1 Investigations of this nature have generated at least three
lawsuits filed by the State against doctors alleged to have violated the
DTPA by prescribing hormones to minors in violation of SB 14 and then
deceptively billing insurance companies for treatment of “endocrine
disorders” or other conventional-sounding ailments. 2
According to the Attorney General’s office, the Bond affidavit—
particularly its reference to conversations after the passage of SB 14

1 The DTPA prohibits “[f]alse, misleading, or deceptive acts or practices

in the conduct of any trade or commerce.” TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE § 17.46(a).
2 State v. Lau, No. 493-07676-2024 (493d Dist. Ct., Collin Cnty., Tex.);

State v. Cooper, No. 493-08026-2024 (493d Dist. Ct., Collin Cnty., Tex.); State
v. Granados, No. 118832-422 (422d Dist. Ct., Kaufman Cnty., Tex.).

6
about “alternative avenues to maintain [transgender] care in Texas”—
gave rise to a belief that PFLAG may be in possession of information
relevant to the office’s investigation of DTPA and SB 14 violations by
medical providers. On February 5, 2024, while the Loe case was pending
in this Court, the Attorney General’s office issued a CID to PFLAG
seeking documents supporting the Bond affidavit as well as other
related categories of documents. The CID demanded:
1. All Documents and Communications that form the
basis of, or relate to, Brian K. Bond’s personal
knowledge of the information contained in the [Bond
affidavit].
2. All Communications to, or from, any PFLAG
representative regarding, relating to, or referencing,
“contingency plans” and/or “alternative avenues to
maintain care,” as those phrases are used in the [Bond
affidavit].
3. All recommendations, referrals, and/or lists of pediatric
and/or adolescent “health care providers” (as that term
is used in paragraph 13 of the [Bond affidavit]) in Texas,
that PFLAG (or any of its representatives) has created,
maintained, received, or distributed since March 8,
2023.
4. All communications to, or from, Brian K. Bond
regarding, or relating to, the contents and preparation
of the [Bond affidavit].
5. In reference to the [Bond affidavit], produce all
Documents, meeting minutes, and Communications
that support Brian K. Bond’s sworn statement that
“PFLAG families with transgender and nonbinary
adolescents . . . have been asking chapters for
alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas.”
6. All communications to, or from, any PFLAG
representative regarding, relating to, or referencing any

7
of the individuals or entities identified in the document
attached here to as “EXHIBIT B2” since March 8, 2023.
7. Any and all contractual and charter agreements
between PFLAG’s Texas chapters and national chapter.
8. The governing documents and bylaws of PFLAG’s Texas
chapters and national chapter.
B.
On February 28, 2024, PFLAG filed a petition in Travis County
district court seeking protection from the CID pursuant to section
17.61(g) of the DTPA, which authorizes a CID recipient to file “a
petition . . . to modify or set aside the demand, stating good cause.” On
March 1, the court granted a TRO after hearing argument from both
sides. On March 19, the Attorney General’s office offered a revised,
somewhat narrowed version of the CID. Most notably, the revised CID
disclaims any desire to obtain information identifying the members of
PFLAG whose communications with the organization are described in
Bond’s affidavit:
Unlike the [original] CID, the foregoing, operative [revised]
CID does not request that PFLAG produce documents and
information disclosing the identity of its Members and/or
actual membership lists, either in whole or in part, in any
form. For this reason, PFLAG may elect to redact or
anonymize any portion of a document otherwise within the
scope of the [revised] CID that contains information
disclosing or providing the identity of any Member.
With this caveat, the revised 3 CID requested the following:

3 As compared to the original CID, the revised CID eliminated Request

4 for “[a]ll Communications to, or from, Brian K. Bond regarding, or relating

to, the contents and preparation of the [Bond affidavit].” Request #1 was
narrowed to seek documents relating to “Bond’s personal knowledge of the

8
1. All documents and communications that form the basis
of, or otherwise relate to, Brian K. Bond’s personal
knowledge of the information stated in paragraphs 7
and 13 of the [Bond affidavit].
2. All communications to, or from, PFLAG’s professional
staff, non-members, or Affiliates regarding, relating to,
or referencing, “contingency plans” and/or “alternative
avenues to maintain care,” as those phrases are used in
the [Bond affidavit].
3. All recommendations, referrals, and/or lists of pediatric
and/or adolescent health care providers in Texas that
PFLAG (or any of its professional staff or affiliates) has
created, maintained, received, or distributed since
March 8, 2023.
4. In reference to the [Bond affidavit], produce documents,
meeting minutes, and communications sufficient to
show the factual basis for the statement that “PFLAG
families with transgender and nonbinary
adolescents . . . have been asking chapters for
alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas” (with
PFLAG having the option to redact identifying member
information in the manner described in Instruction
No. 7).
5. All communications to, or from, PFLAG’s professional
staff, non-members, or Affiliates regarding, relating to,
or referencing any of the individuals or entities

information contained in paragraphs 7 and 13 of the affidavit” rather than
documents related to the entire affidavit. Request #2 was narrowed by
replacing the communications of “any PFLAG representative” with the
communications of “PFLAG’s professional staff, non-members, or Affiliates.”
This had the effect of excluding the communications of rank-and-file PFLAG
members. Request #3 and Request #5 (previously #6) were similarly narrowed.
Finally, Request #4 (previously #5) was narrowed by replacing the demand for
“all [documents] that support” Bond’s statement about “alternative avenues to
maintain care in Texas” with a demand for documents “sufficient to show the
factual basis for” Bond’s statement.

9
identified in the document attached hereto as
“EXHIBIT B2” since March 8, 2023.
6. All contractual and charter agreements between
PFLAG’s Texas chapters and national chapter.
7. The governing documents and bylaws of PFLAG’s Texas
chapters and national chapter.
Since proposing the revised CID in March 2024, the Attorney General’s
office has consistently disclaimed any desire to revive its original CID or
to obtain information that would identify individual PFLAG members.
On March 25, 2024, the district court issued a temporary
injunction protecting PFLAG from any production. On April 12, the
Attorney General’s office filed a counterclaim seeking enforcement of its
revised CID under section 17.62(b) of the DTPA, which authorizes
petitions to enforce a CID. On May 8, the court held a hearing on the
counterclaim but took no action. On June 10, the court held a trial on
the merits, over the Attorney General’s objection that no trial was
necessary.
On September 13, the court issued a letter ruling agreeing with
PFLAG’s proposed modifications to the original CID. At no point
throughout the proceedings was PFLAG required to submit a privilege
log or to tender any documents for the court’s review. The Attorney
General’s office interpreted the September 13 ruling as a final order on
both PFLAG’s petition to modify the CID under section 17.61(g) and on
its own petition to enforce the CID under section 17.62(b). On the latter
score, section 17.62(c) of the DTPA authorizes a direct appeal in the
Supreme Court of “[a]ny final order entered” on a section 17.62 petition

10
for enforcement by the Attorney General. 4 The Attorney General sought
direct review by this Court under that provision by filing a notice of
appeal on October 10, followed by a Statement of Jurisdiction on October
21. PFLAG responded that no final order had been entered, relying in
part on the district court’s October 14 letter to the parties, which
disclaims the finality of the September 13 ruling.
Rather than resolve the dispute over the import of the September
13 ruling, on February 7, 2025, we abated the appeal and directed the
district court to cure any potential jurisdictional defect by issuing a final
order on the Attorney General’s petition for enforcement. The district
court did as requested on March 10, 2025. Its “Final Declaratory
Judgment and Injunction” finally disposes of both PFLAG’s section
17.61(g) petition to modify or set aside the CID and the Attorney

4 Although an appeal of a final order on a petition to enforce a CID may

be filed directly in this Court, a petition to set aside or modify a CID is subject
to appeal through the normal channels in a court of appeals. In April 2024,
the Attorney General’s office appealed the district court’s temporary injunction
through that normal channel to the Third Court of Appeals. That court
granted relief under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 29.3 protecting PFLAG
from production during the pendency of the appeal. OAG v. PFLAG, Inc., No.
03-24-00241-CV, 2024 WL 1662035, at *1 (Tex. App.—Austin Apr. 17, 2024,
order). The court then abated the appeal at the request of the Attorney
General’s office. In September 2024, the case was transferred to the newly
created Fifteenth Court of Appeals. In April 2025, the parties filed a joint
motion to dismiss the appeal, which they agreed was mooted by the district
court’s final order. The court granted the motion. OAG v. PFLAG, Inc., No.
15-24-00044-CV, 2025 WL 1322588, at *1 (Tex. App.—15th Dist. May 6, 2025,
no pet.). We are aware of no related activity in the courts of appeals since that
time.

11
General’s section 17.62(c) petition for enforcement of the CID. 5 The
judgment in PFLAG’s favor contains detailed findings of fact and
conclusions of law directed at the original CID. Although the Attorney
General’s office abandoned the original CID in favor of the revised,
narrowed version, the district court decided the revised CID was not
properly before it.
The final order set aside most of the original CID. It also included
a permanent injunction barring the Attorney General from demanding
documents other than those the court previously ordered produced—

5 As noted, our direct-appeal authority in this matter comes from section

17.62(c) of the DTPA, which provides: “Any final order entered [on a section
17.62 petition to enforce a CID] is subject to appeal to the Texas Supreme
Court.” The district court’s “Final Declaratory Judgment and Injunction” is
unquestionably a final order on the Attorney General’s petition to enforce the
CID, triggering our direct-appeal authority. It is also other things, however,
including a final order on PFLAG’s section 17.61(g) petition to modify or set
aside the CID—an order which would not, on its own, be subject to direct
appeal in this Court. Fortunately, we need not parse the final order and review
only portions of it. It will rarely be possible, much less fruitful, to attempt to
disentangle the issues raised by dueling petitions of this nature. It is certainly
not possible here. Whether at the trial or appellate level, a court cannot
properly rule on the government’s entitlement to enforce a CID without also
considering the CID respondent’s corresponding right to resist the CID.
Perhaps for this reason, the statute clarifies that enforcement petitions under
section 17.62 vest the court with authority not merely to decide the discrete
matters raised in the enforcement petition but also “to enter any order required
to carry into effect the provisions of Sections 17.60 and 17.61 of this
subchapter,” which includes the CID respondent’s right to modify or set aside
the CID for good cause. TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE § 17.62(c). All of this is then
directly appealable to the Supreme Court after entry of a final order on the
enforcement petition. Id. In this case, the entirety of the district court’s final
order is an effort to “carry into effect the provisions of Sections 17.60 and
17.61,” which cannot be disentangled from the court’s denial of the enforcement
petition. The entire final order is therefore properly before us in this direct
appeal.

12
which, if binding, had the practical effect of blocking the revised CID or
any later CID. 6 After receiving notice of the final order, we noted
probable jurisdiction, ordered briefing, and heard argument. See TEX.
R. APP. P. 57.1–.6.
II.
Two threshold errors affected the district court’s analysis, and
resolution of these errors largely resolves the dispute. First, the court
analyzed the wrong version of the CID. Second, the court failed to credit
the Attorney General’s office’s reasonable interpretation of the Bond
affidavit and to appreciate the affidavit’s connection to the office’s
investigation of possible DTPA violations. After addressing these
threshold questions, we will turn briefly to the individual document
requests.
A.
The agreement by the Attorney General’s office to the revised,
narrowed version of the CID should have made further consideration of
the original CID superfluous. Instead, more than a year after the
Attorney General’s office offered a less intrusive alternative to the
original CID, the district court remained concerned with the propriety
of the original CID. Indeed, the final judgment is directed only at the
original, abandoned CID—not the revised, live CID. In the district
court’s view, the revised CID was not before it because PFLAG’s petition
challenged the original CID and because the revised CID had not been

6 The final order also set aside the CID’s “Demand for Sworn Written

Statement” pursuant to section 17.60(1). The Attorney General’s office does
not seek review of this ruling, instead focusing its appeal solely on the CID’s
document requests.

13
formally served on PFLAG through the procedures required by the
DTPA. That was incorrect. As in other litigation contexts, continued
judicial concern with matters no longer in dispute wasted the parties’
resources and the court’s.
Whether it is the Attorney General using a CID or parties in civil
litigation using the discovery rules, the party seeking to compel
discovery will frequently respond to the producing party’s objections by
agreeing to narrow its demand. Only after negotiating in pursuit of any
points of compromise do the parties need to seek the court’s involvement.
When the parties cannot agree, the court’s concern is with their
continued points of disagreement, not with the validity of the original
demands.
This familiar aspect of discovery practice is no less applicable in
the context of a CID than it is in traditional civil discovery. When
litigation over a CID becomes necessary—whether through the
recipient’s petition to set aside or modify the CID under section 17.61(g)
or through the Attorney General’s petition for enforcement under
section 17.62—the court’s job is to officiate the parties’ remaining
disagreements, not to pass judgment on the abandoned positions from
which the parties began.
To put the matter in the statute’s terms, when the Attorney
General’s office agrees to narrow its CID or when the recipient agrees to
produce information, a court then has “good cause” to “modify” the CID
to reflect the parties’ agreement. TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE § 17.61(g).
Likewise, in a section 17.62 enforcement proceeding, the court’s power
to “enter any order required to carry into effect the provisions of Sections

14
17.60 and 17.61” includes the power to adjust the CID to reflect either
party’s willingness to adjust its position. Id. § 17.62(c). Nothing in the
statute remotely suggests that the entire proceeding is tied to the mast
of the original CID unless the Attorney General formally serves an
amended CID on the recipient. Instead, as in conventional discovery
disputes, the court may adapt its rulings to reflect changes in the
parties’ positions as the litigation develops.
Applying these basic principles here, the Attorney General’s
willingness in March of 2024 to allow redaction of information
identifying any PFLAG members and to otherwise narrow its demand
should have removed the original CID from the picture. The
obsolescence of the original CID became even clearer when the Attorney
General filed an enforcement petition in April 2024 seeking enforcement
of the revised CID, not the original one. The district court nevertheless
proceeded to rule only on PFLAG’s objections to the original CID.
This procedural error did not result merely in expense and delay.
It also caused the court to misperceive the extent to which the CID
impacted individual PFLAG members, whose intimate, private medical
information could be revealed by public disclosure of their
communications with PFLAG. The Attorney General’s agreement,
reiterated in this Court, to allow redaction of information identifying the
children or families who communicated with PFLAG—its agreement, in
its own words, to let PFLAG “anonymize” the documents—obviates any
valid concerns about medical privacy. As we understand the revised
CID, the Attorney General’s office has disclaimed any request for
information that would identify individual children or families who

15
sought assistance from PFLAG, and it has agreed to allow PFLAG to
make redactions to that effect.
With such an agreement in place, we are hard pressed to put
much weight on the lingering privacy concerns PFLAG continues to
assert, which are vague and ill-defined. There is no free-standing
discovery privilege against disclosure of private communications. Nor
do the First Amendment rights of free speech or association—or related
provisions of the Texas Constitution—categorically shield from civil
discovery communications that were intended to be kept in confidence.
Recognized privileges exist, of course, such as for communications
between lawyer and client, doctor and patient, or husband and wife. 7
But there is no recognized privilege protecting communications with a
non-lawyer, non-doctor, private advocacy organization like PFLAG.
PFLAG makes no focused argument to the contrary, instead broadly
invoking the general protection of the First and Fourth Amendments
without citing any authority supporting the kind of privilege it claims. 8

7 See, e.g., TEX. R. EVID. 503 (attorney–client privilege), 509
(physician–patient privilege), 504 (spousal privileges).
8 In addition to invoking the First Amendment, the district court held

that the CID “infringe[d] the right to be free from unreasonable search and
seizure under both the U.S. Constitution and the Texas Constitution” by
“seeking information and documents that are not reasonably relevant to the
purported purpose of the investigation and in failing to comply with the
requirements of the DTPA.” We disagree because, as we conclude below, the
revised CID reasonably sought documents related to the Attorney General’s
valid investigation of efforts to deceptively conceal violations of SB 14. The
district court’s only basis for its holding was its conclusion, which we reverse,
that the CID did not comply with the DTPA’s statutory standards. We do not
foreclose the possibility that, in another case, an aggressive CID could
implicate unconstitutional-search concerns under the state or federal
constitution.

16
With that said, we by no means dismiss PFLAG’s privacy
concerns as immaterial. The civil discovery rules instruct that courts
may protect the target of discovery from “invasion of personal,
constitutional, or property rights.” TEX. R. CIV. P. 192.6(b). The DTPA
contemplates judicial modification of a CID for “good cause,” an
open-ended standard whose precise contours we do not seek to define
here—although the DTPA indicates that the civil discovery rules will
generally provide useful guidelines. See TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE
§ 17.61(c). Whether in civil discovery or in response to a CID, courts
should take seriously a claim that discovery of private, intimate
communications is unduly burdensome, harassing, or otherwise
deserving of judicial protection even if not technically privileged. It is
enough for present purposes to observe that so long as the identities of
PFLAG members are protected by the agreed redactions, production of
documents reflecting the members’ communications with PFLAG—to
which the Bond affidavit refers—do not threaten the members’ privacy.
Any threat to privacy is further ameliorated by the DTPA’s
command that the Attorney General’s office may not disclose material it
obtains through a CID to “any person” other than authorized employees
of the office, unless the CID respondent consents. Id. § 17.61(f). This
robust protection does not exist in civil discovery absent a protective
order, but it attaches automatically to material submitted in response
to a CID. As might be expected, the protection is subject to the authority
of the Attorney General’s office to use the material “as it determines
necessary in the enforcement of [the DTPA], including presentation
before any court.” Id. Such use is the purpose of the CID process, after

17
all. But the exception does not swallow the rule. The Legislature has
imposed on the Attorney General’s office a strict obligation to prevent
disclosure of CID materials except to the extent the disclosure is
“necessary” for the enforcement of the DTPA, in court or otherwise. This
protection serves at least two important roles in the statutory scheme
by (1) shielding CID recipients from dissemination of material that
turns out not to be useful in DTPA enforcement, and (2) preventing the
Attorney General’s office from using CIDs for something other than
their intended purpose.
If, as PFLAG vigorously maintains, none of the responsive
documents would be useful in the Attorney General’s DTPA
investigation, we struggle to imagine how their further dissemination
could ever be “necessary in the enforcement of” the DTPA. Id. In that
scenario, the Attorney General’s office would be statutorily prohibited
from disclosing the material even to unauthorized employees within its
own organization, much less to the public.
B.
Having established that the revised CID is our proper focus and
that its provision for redactions adequately deals with any valid privacy
concerns, we come to the crux of the parties’ dispute over the content of
the document requests, which is the Bond affidavit. As explained below,
we agree with the Attorney General’s office that documents underlying
the disputed portions of the affidavit may provide insight into the
pursuit—by anonymous, redacted patients—of treatments by doctors
who violated SB 14 and the DTPA. Or they may not. PFLAG objects
that none of its responsive documents would corroborate any such

18
theory, and the district court agreed (without seeing any of the
documents). Of course, a party seeking discovery is not obligated to
believe the other party’s assurance that its responsive documents are
not interesting or incriminating. And, as noted above, if PFLAG is right
that its responsive documents are immaterial to a DTPA investigation,
then section 17.61(f) shields the documents from further dissemination,
even within the Attorney General’s office. With those observations in
mind, we turn to the Bond affidavit.
1.
PFLAG participated in the Loe litigation as one of the plaintiffs
seeking an injunction against enforcement of SB 14. In so doing, it
submitted the affidavit of Brian Bond, its executive director. The
affidavit’s purpose was to aid PFLAG’s pursuit of an injunction by
demonstrating that SB 14 would cause PFLAG and its members
irreparable harm. The key portion of the Bond affidavit reads as follows:
New families showed up in droves for chapter meetings and
support groups, seeking information and support.
Chapters planned and participated in events to provide
comfort to and celebrate the unbreakable joy of the gender
diverse community. PFLAG families with transgender and
nonbinary adolescents shared their contingency plans—
those with the resources to move or seek care out of state
have begun firming up their plans to do so, while the vast
majority without those resources have been asking
chapters for alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas.
Families were not just seeking health care providers who
specialize in medical care for gender dysphoria but leads
on affirming general practitioners as well so that their
adolescents would have access to multiple providers in the
event that their primary providers stop providing
gender-affirming medical care or leave the state as a result
of SB14.

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The parties take dramatically different views of this paragraph.
As the Attorney General’s office sees it, Bond’s reference to
conversations about “contingency plans” for “alternative avenues to
maintain care in Texas” indicates that some of the discussions to which
he refers may have contemplated the continuation of transgender
treatments in Texas in violation of SB 14. PFLAG denies any such
conversations took place. It maintains that the affidavit’s reference to
“alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas” refers only to
treatments administered prior to the effective date of SB 14 or to
treatments that are not illegal under SB 14.
The district court agreed with PFLAG’s interpretation of the
affidavit. On that basis, it concluded that the Attorney General’s office
had no valid basis to believe that documents underlying the Bond
affidavit might aid the investigation of possible DTPA violations. As
between the parties’ competing interpretations of the affidavit, we need
not take a side in order to observe that the district court erred by
substituting its own interpretation of the affidavit for the Attorney
General’s. A court’s authority to set aside or modify a CID for “good
cause” is not a license for the court to substitute its own judgment about
an investigation’s likely fruitfulness for the reasonable judgment of the
Attorney General’s office.
The DTPA grants considerable, but not unlimited, investigatory
discretion to the Attorney General’s office. The office is entitled by

20
statute to issue a CID “[w]henever the consumer protection division9
believes that any person may be in possession, custody, or control of the
original copy of any documentary material relevant to the subject matter
of an investigation of a possible violation of this subchapter.” TEX. BUS.
& COM. CODE § 17.61(a) (emphases added). In other words, the Attorney
General’s statutory CID authority is triggered not by demonstration or
proof that the target of a CID has relevant material. It is instead
triggered by mere belief. The district court should not have faulted the

9 The “consumer protection division” is the department of the Attorney

General’s office traditionally charged with enforcing the DTPA. Whether a
particular “division” of the Attorney General’s office “believes” something is a
question that can only be answered, in the end, by the leadership of the
Attorney General’s office. Like all parts of the Attorney General’s office, the
consumer protection division is ultimately headed by the Attorney General
himself, typically through various deputies below the Attorney General in the
chain of command. Any legislative attempt to place executive discretion in
subordinates of the Attorney General without subjecting their decisions to the
Attorney General’s direction and control would raise obvious constitutional
concerns. Because we do not perceive the Legislature to have done so here, we
need not explore such questions. To the extent the district court was concerned
with whether particular lawyers or groups of lawyers within the Attorney
General’s office—as opposed to the Attorney General himself or those he has
authorized to speak for his office—believed PFLAG may possess relevant
information, this inquiry was misdirected. By issuing the CID, the Attorney
General’s office formally stated its belief that PFLAG may be in possession of
relevant material. Any judicial inquiry into whether this was truly the belief
of the “consumer protection division” would be misplaced.
Likewise, inquiry into whether the consumer protection division (or
anyone else) was already investigating the matter prior to the CID’s issuance
served no valid purpose. A decision by the Attorney General or his authorized
agents to investigate possible DTPA violations provides an adequate basis,
under the statute, for issuance of a CID regarding those possible violations.
The investigation need not pre-date the CID. Rather, the CID itself is a
sufficient indication that “an investigation of a possible violation of this
subchapter” exists. TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE § 17.61(a).

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Attorney General’s office for failing to “produce evidence to suggest that
PFLAG likely possessed information relevant to the OAG’s
investigation.” Jdgmt. at 8. That was not the Attorney General’s
burden. Under the statute’s plain text, belief—not proof—will suffice.
This relatively lenient standard reflects an investigatory reality.
Often, an investigator will be unable to prove that the recipient of a CID
has material that would aid a DTPA investigation without first seeing
what the recipient has, which it cannot do without the CID. And as
explained above, if the investigator’s belief turns out to be wrong and
the recipient’s responsive documents are not useful in enforcing the
DTPA, then section 17.61(f) shields them from disclosure.
This is not to say the Attorney General’s office is entitled to issue
a CID to anyone it claims to believe has material relevant to a DTPA
investigation. There must of course be a reasonable basis for the belief,
to which a reviewing court can be directed. But the question for a court,
under this statutory scheme, is not whether the belief is true. The
question is whether there is a reasonable basis for the belief, which
allows the court to satisfy itself that the CID is not merely arbitrary,
harassing, or punitive. If the Attorney General’s office can proffer no
reasonable explanation for why it believes the CID recipient may have
information relevant to possible DTPA violations, a court would surely
have good cause to set aside the CID. But if a reasonable person could
share the Attorney General’s belief that the recipient of the CID may
have relevant material, then the courts should honor the judgment of
the executive office entrusted by the Legislature with investigating such
matters.

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The CID statute indicates that, when the Attorney General’s
office issues a CID, it must have in mind one or more possible DTPA
violations, against which the relevance of the requested material may
be judged. See TEX. BUS. & COM. CODE § 17.61(a). In this regard, section
17.61(b)(1) requires the Attorney General’s office to “state the statute
and section under which the alleged violation is being investigated, and
the general subject matter of the investigation.” Subsection (b)(2) then
requires the CID to “describe the class or classes of documentary
material to be produced with reasonable specificity so as to fairly
indicate the material demanded.” In these ways, although no lawsuit
has been filed, the statute contemplates a theoretical, “possible” DTPA
lawsuit and essentially authorizes the Attorney General to issue a
discovery request within that theoretical case. Subsection (c) explicitly
confirms the statute’s creation of a process akin to civil discovery: “A
civil investigative demand may contain a requirement or disclosure of
documentary material which would be discoverable under the Texas
Rules of Civil Procedure.” Id. § 17.61(c).
As in civil discovery, a reviewing court may police the breadth of
the document requests to ensure they are tailored to seek material
relevant to the subject matter of the investigation. If no responsive
documents exist, then of course the CID recipient need not produce
anything. But PFLAG does not deny that responsive documents exist.
It denies that its responsive documents would aid investigation of a
possible DTPA violation. Yet like any party seeking discovery, the
Attorney General’s office is not required to take PFLAG’s word for what
is in PFLAG’s responsive documents. Under the statute, the Attorney

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General’s reasonable belief that the CID recipient’s documents may be
relevant to a DTPA investigation triggers the Attorney General’s right
to demand the documents. This right is subject, of course, to recognized
objections such as privilege. And, crucially, if using the documents is
not necessary for DTPA enforcement, the Attorney General’s office may
not disclose them to anyone. Id. § 17.61(f). But a party’s assurance that
its responsive documents will not be useful to the party seeking
discovery is not a recognized objection.
It appears the district court did not review any of PFLAG’s
documents and instead deferred to PFLAG’s assurances about their
contents. This was error. But even if the court had reviewed PFLAG’s
documents, the statute does not empower the court to withhold
documents responsive to a properly tailored CID based merely on the
court’s view that the documents are unlikely to aid a DTPA
investigation. Subject to privilege and other recognized objections, the
Attorney General’s office is generally entitled to see the documents and
make that determination for itself, as would a litigant in civil discovery.
It is not, however, entitled to use or disseminate the documents in any
way unless doing so is necessary for DTPA enforcement. Id. In sum, a
court’s job is to protect the CID recipient’s recognized legal rights within
this statutorily authorized discovery process—not to protect the CID
recipient from the process itself. 10

10 Like the district court, we decline the Attorney General’s invitation

to import the “Powell factors” or other federal caselaw arising from the federal
courts’ experience handling objections to administrative subpoenas issued by
federal agencies. See United States v. Powell, 379 U.S. 48 (1964). The DTPA
plainly states the standards governing CIDs in Texas, which are not

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2.
With the inquiry properly framed, we return to the contents of the
Bond affidavit. In our view, there is little question the affidavit gave the
Attorney General’s office a reasonable basis to believe PFLAG may be
in possession of documents relevant to an investigation into deceptive
billing of treatments administered in violation of SB 14. Bond’s
reference to “contingency plans” for “alternative avenues to maintain
care in Texas” suggests that the underlying documents may point
investigators toward planned or actual violations of SB 14. Of course,
they may not. But so long as it is reasonable to conclude that they may—
as is the case here—the CID statute entitles the Attorney General’s
office to obtain the documents and judge their contents for itself.
The affidavit also refers to a search for “leads on affirming general
practitioners” in case “primary providers stop providing
gender-affirming medical care” because of SB 14. This statement could
likewise be interpreted by a reasonable investigator to suggest that
PFLAG may have documents regarding plans by some providers to
continue offering or facilitating treatments in violation of SB 14. We

particularly complicated or difficult to apply, especially given the statute’s
helpful reference to the well-known rules governing civil discovery. See TEX.
BUS. & COM. CODE § 17.61(c). We have summarized the statutory standards
and attempted to elucidate them to the extent necessary to decide this matter.
The federal courts’ approach to similar questions may of course prove helpful
in future CID litigation. To take one obvious example, if the information
sought is already in the Attorney General’s possession, there is no need for a
CID, and a court would have good cause to set one aside. See Powell, 379 U.S.
at 57–58. In all cases, however, the touchstone for a Texas court reviewing a
CID under the DTPA should remain the text of the DTPA and the civil
discovery rules, not federal caselaw.

25
need not reject the contrary, more innocuous interpretation of the
affidavit adopted by PFLAG and the district court. The mere existence
of competing, reasonable interpretations of Bond’s statements in the
affidavit—which no doubt were carefully worded for litigation
purposes—was enough to trigger the Attorney General’s statutory right
to inquire further by obtaining the documents supporting Bond’s
statements. The district court’s factual inquiry into what Bond really
meant by his disputed statements or how likely it was that PFLAG’s
responsive documents (which were never proffered) would be relevant to
a DTPA investigation complicated the proceedings unnecessarily and
served no valid purpose. 11
The district court correctly observed that the Bond affidavit says
nothing about insurance or medical billing, that PFLAG does not

11 The district court found “no basis in Texas law for an expedited
proceeding” and thought the only way it could dispose of the petitions was by
summary judgment or trial. We agree that summary judgment—but not a full
trial on the merits—is an appropriate procedural vehicle for disposing of
petitions filed under section 17.61 or 17.62. The summary process afforded
need not be long or complicated. Evidentiary hearings will rarely be necessary.
Discovery is generally inappropriate. These petitions raise what are
essentially pre-suit discovery disputes, and they should not be allowed to
blossom into a “case within a case,” as seems to have happened here. Rather
than analogize CID petitions to an original petition in civil litigation, as do
PFLAG and the district court, we think the better analogy is to a Rule 202
petition for pre-suit discovery, a familiar tool for obtaining discovery without
initiating all the procedural trappings of a civil lawsuit. See TEX. R. CIV. P.
202. Although Rule 202 contains few hard-and-fast limitations on the process
a court may provide, it contemplates a simple, speedy proceeding culminating
in a hearing and a final order. Depending on the timing, an initial, preliminary
order may also be necessary to extend the CID recipient’s response date until
the court is able to promptly resolve the matter. No more should be needed to
properly dispose of most CID petitions.

26
provide medical care, and that PFLAG is unlikely to have any
information directly reflecting insurance fraud. The Attorney General’s
office does not vigorously contend otherwise. Instead, it suspects that
medical providers who have violated SB 14 by continuing to provide
prohibited treatments have concealed their illegal actions using
deceptive billing or other deceptive practices. In order to identify doctors
who have violated the DTPA in this way, investigators would first need
to identify doctors who have provided treatments in violation of SB 14.
The Bond affidavit provides a reasonable basis for the office’s belief that
PFLAG may have documents relevant to that inquiry, which is a
necessary factual predicate to the suspected DTPA violations.
PFLAG objects that the timeframe of the document demands is
not limited to communications post-dating the effective date of SB 14.
The Bond affidavit, however, could suggest to a reasonable reader that
discussions about how to circumvent SB 14 after the law went into effect
began taking place earlier, when it became apparent the law might be
enacted. The Attorney General’s office acted within its discretion by
taking that view of Bond’s statements and proceeding to investigate
accordingly.
As the district court acknowledged, the Attorney General’s
suspicion that medical providers have violated the DTPA to conceal
their violations of SB 14 is far from fanciful. Three such prosecutions
have already commenced. See supra note 2. The district court inferred
from the existence of these prosecutions that the Attorney General’s
office is capable of enforcing SB 14 without obtaining documents from
PFLAG. This was improper. The better inference points in the opposite

27
direction. The existence of multiple pending prosecutions of Texas
doctors alleged to have violated the DTPA and SB 14 in exactly the
manner contemplated by the CID buttresses the Attorney General’s
decision to use the investigatory tools at his disposal to determine
whether additional prosecutions are warranted.
Before leaving the topic of the affidavit, we must also observe that
by filing a lawsuit and submitting an affidavit supporting a request for
an injunction, a party naturally subjects the matters stated in the
affidavit to further inquiry by the counterparty. PFLAG of course has
every right to seek legal redress against the State. But like any party,
when it chooses to initiate litigation and then chooses to put certain
factual matters at issue, it can hardly claim unfair burden or
harassment when the opposing party seeks the documentary basis for
its testimony. True, the CID arose apart from, and is not part of, the
Loe litigation. But it remains the case that, by choosing to submit the
affidavit, PFLAG voluntarily invited further inquiry by the Attorney
General’s office into the affidavit’s contents. The privacy interests of
PFLAG’s members—individual families and children—are
acknowledged by all sides and should be adequately protected by the
Attorney General’s agreement to allow PFLAG to anonymize the
documents, as well as by section 17.61(f). But any privacy or
constitutional interests asserted by PFLAG on its own behalf carry little
weight given its decision to put the matters stated in the Bond affidavit
at issue in highly public litigation. 12

12There is perhaps unavoidable tension between PFLAG’s desire to
strictly maintain the confidentiality of information it receives from its

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C.
The above discussion addresses the bulk of the objections
advanced by PFLAG or adopted by the district court, many of which are
aimed solely at the original CID and therefore immaterial to our inquiry.
The remaining question is whether the document requests in the revised
CID are properly tailored to seek discoverable information on the subject
matter of an investigation of possible DTPA violations by medical
providers concealing their continued provision of treatments in violation
of SB 14.
The revised CID’s first request seeks:
1. All documents and communications that form the basis
of, or otherwise relate to, Brian K. Bond’s personal
knowledge of the information stated in paragraphs 7
and 13 of the [Bond affidavit].
This request seeks documents related to the relevant portions of
Bond’s affidavit. 13 Unlike the original CID, it zeroes in on the most
relevant portion of the affidavit. Like all requests in the revised CID,
this request incorporates the global consent of the Attorney General’s

members and its desire to rely on that information as the basis of litigation
advanced on their behalf. Litigation, particularly public-interest litigation
over matters of broad public concern, is necessarily highly public, and parties
who choose to engage in it necessarily subject their factual claims to searching
scrutiny by their opponents.
13 Paragraph 13 is the paragraph of the affidavit quoted above, supra at

1. Paragraph 7, however, merely lists PFLAG’s local chapters throughout Texas. The Attorney General’s office makes no effort in this Court to explain why discovery into PFLAG’s organizational structure or its relationship with local chapters is relevant to any DTPA investigation. As with the sixth document request discussed below, infra at 32–33, we do not conclude based on the information before us that PFLAG must produce documents underlying Paragraph 7 of the affidavit.

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office to PFLAG’s redaction of information identifying the PFLAG
members who communicated with PFLAG as described by Bond.
Because a reasonable interpretation of Bond’s testimony is that some of
the conversations he describes may have contemplated the provision of
continued treatments in violation of SB 14—violations which are a
necessary factual predicate of the DTPA violations under investigation
by the Attorney General’s office—a request for documents related to his
testimony is properly tailored to the subject matter of the investigation.
PFLAG must provide responsive documents. 14
The revised CID’s second request seeks:
2. All communications to, or from, PFLAG’s professional
staff, non-members, or Affiliates regarding, relating to,
or referencing, “contingency plans” and/or “alternative
avenues to maintain care,” as those phrases are used in
the [Bond affidavit].
This request focuses on the principal statement in the affidavit
that caused the Attorney General’s office to believe PFLAG may have
relevant documents. It seeks PFLAG’s internal communications
regarding or relating to that statement. Because Bond’s statement is
reasonably construed as a reference to potential violations of SB 14 that
may form the predicate of a DTPA violation, discovery of further related
communications is proper. PFLAG must produce responsive documents.

14 With respect to each of the document requests, PFLAG’s obligation to

produce the documents on remand is subject to its right to produce a privilege
log and establish, as to individual documents, the existence of a recognized
privilege applicable in civil litigation, such as the attorney–client or
work-product privilege. See TEX. R. CIV. P. 193.3.

30
The third request seeks:
3. All recommendations, referrals, and/or lists of pediatric
and/or adolescent health care providers in Texas that
PFLAG (or any of its professional staff or affiliates) has
created, maintained, received, or distributed since March
8, 2023.
The affidavit indicates that families contacted PFLAG seeking
“health care providers who specialize in medical care for gender
dysphoria” in an effort to identify “alternative avenues to maintain care
in Texas.” Given that the Attorney General’s office reasonably
interprets these statements to contemplate a search for continued
treatments in violation of SB 14, discovery of “recommendations,
referrals, and/or lists of pediatric and/or adolescent health care
providers” in PFLAG’s possession is relevant to the subject matter of the
investigation and is discoverable. PFLAG must produce responsive
documents.
The fourth request seeks:
4. In reference to the [Bond affidavit], produce documents,
meeting minutes, and communications sufficient to
show the factual basis for the statement that “PFLAG
families with transgender and nonbinary
adolescents . . . have been asking chapters for
alternative avenues to maintain care in Texas” (with
PFLAG having the option to redact identifying member
information in the manner described in Instruction
No. 7).
This is a straightforward request for documents providing the
factual basis for the key statement in the Bond affidavit. As with the
first request, demands for documents related to a party’s testimony are
a common feature of discovery. The request is proper. PFLAG must
produce responsive documents.

31
The fifth request seeks:
5. All communications to, or from, PFLAG’s professional
staff, non-members, or Affiliates regarding, relating to,
or referencing any of the individuals or entities
identified in the document attached hereto as
“EXHIBIT B2” since March 8, 2023.
Exhibit B2 lists Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of
Medicine, Seattle Children’s Hospital, QMed/QueerMed, QueerDoc, and
Plume Health, P.C. As the district court observed, these medical
providers are apparently the targets of the Attorney General’s
investigation into possible DTPA violations involving circumvention of
SB 14. Jdgmt. at 8. In other words, the DTPA investigation giving rise
to the contested CID concerns whether these particular entities, and
perhaps others, have deceptively concealed violations of SB 14. Given
PFLAG’s potential involvement in seeking “alternative avenues to
maintain care in Texas” as reflected in the Bond affidavit, the Attorney
General’s office reasonably believes that PFLAG’s communications
regarding the entities under investigation may contain relevant
evidence. However, because PFLAG and some of the listed entities have
a multi-state scope, the request should be limited to communications
related to Texas. With that caveat, PFLAG must produce responsive
documents.
The sixth request seeks:
6. All contractual and charter agreements between
PFLAG’s Texas chapters and national chapter.
Unlike the first five requests, the relevance of this request to the
subject matter of the Attorney General’s investigation is not readily
apparent. The Attorney General’s office acknowledges that PFLAG

32
itself is not a target of the investigation. It makes no effort in this Court
to explain the relevance to its DTPA investigation of the relationship
between Texas PFLAG chapters and the national organization. In the
absence of any argument in support of this request, we do not conclude
that PFLAG must produce responsive documents. On remand, the
Attorney General’s office may re-urge this request, which should be
considered in light of the standards stated in this opinion.
The seventh request seeks:
7. The governing documents and bylaws of PFLAG’s Texas
chapters and national chapter.
Like the sixth request, the Attorney General’s office does not
defend this request in this Court. The district court’s order indicates
that it has already ordered PFLAG “to provide the governing documents
and bylaws in its possession.” We see no contention otherwise from the
Attorney General’s office. We do not conclude that PFLAG must produce
documents responsive to this request. On remand, the Attorney
General’s office may re-urge this request, which should be considered in
light of the standards stated in this opinion.
III.
The district court’s “Final Declaratory Judgment and Injunction”
is reversed. The matter is remanded to that court for proceedings
consistent with this opinion. PFLAG shall produce responsive
documents as described herein, subject to assertions of a recognized
privilege. Assertions of privilege should be consistent with this opinion

33
and should comport with Rule 193.3 of the Texas Rules of Civil
Procedure.

James D. Blacklock
Chief Justice

OPINION DELIVERED: March 13, 2026

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