The Texas Tort Claims Act (Chapter 101, CPRC) waives sovereign immunity for “property damage, personal injury, and death proximately caused by the wrongful act or omission or the negligence of an employee acting within his scope of employment if: (A) the property damage, personal injury, or death arises from the operation or use of a motor-driven vehicle or motor-driven equipment; and (B) the employee would be personally liable to the claimant according to Texas law.” § 101.021. The Act further caps damages at $250,000 for the state and municipalities and $100,000 for units of local government and emergency service organizations. § 101.023.
The question before the Texas Supreme Court in The Gulf Center v. Daniel Curry, Jr. (No. 20-0856; issued December 30, 2022) was whether the Act’s caps on damages “implicate the court’s jurisdiction and limit the scope of the Legislature’s waiver of a governmental unit’s immunity from suit.” In a per curiam opinion, the Court concluded that it did and, consequently, that a governmental defendant “retains its immunity from suit as to a claim that exceeds the statutory cap, so courts lack jurisdiction to render a judgment for an amount exceeding the cap.”
The issue arose out of a lawsuit brought by a pedestrian who was injured by a vehicle driven by an employee of the Gulf Coast Center, an entity that provides mental health services in Galveston and Brazoria Counties. Following trial, a jury found Gulf Coast negligent and awarded $216,000 in damages to Plaintiff, who sought judgment for the full amount on the basis that the verdict did not exceed the $250,000 cap. Gulf Coast objected that, as a unit of local government, Gulf Coast’s liability for damagers was limited to $100,000 and moved to reform the judgment to reflect that. The trial court denied the motion. The Houston [1st] Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the damages caps are affirmative defenses that a governmental entity must plead and either secure a jury finding or present conclusive evidence that the lower cap applies. Since Gulf Cost did neither, the trial court did not err in applying the higher cap.
SCOTX rejected the court of appeals’ reasoning. Noting that § 101.025 provides that “[S]overeign immunity to suit is waived and abolished to the extent of liability created by this chapter” and that a “person having a claim under this chapter may sue a governmental unit for damages allowed by this chapter,” SCOTX held that the TTCA’s waiver of immunity extends to the cap and no further. The caps are not affirmative defenses, but limits on the scope of jurisdiction courts may exercise in TTCA cases. Gulf Coast was thus not required to plead the $100,000 cap as an affirmative defense, obtain a jury finding as to which cap was applicable, or conclusively prove that it was a unit of local government. Conversely, Plaintiff bears the burden of establishing which cap applies as a jurisdictional issue. That means that trial court, not the jury, must determine what its jurisdiction is. In the absence of any evidence supporting the higher cap (the evidence, in fact, showed that Gulf Coast was a unit of local government), “the trial court was barred from rendering a judgment exceeding the $100,000 cap.”
We flagged this case for two reasons. First, we try to monitor as many sovereign immunity cases as we can to identify whether any cracks in the doctrine are developing. In this vein, we think “taxpayer immunity” is more accurate terminology than “sovereign immunity.” Second, we look for cases implicating judicial powers more generally. SCOTX has been meticulous about guarding the jurisdiction of the courts, both from judicial interpretations that extend the scope of jurisdiction (as in this case) and from claimants and other external agents asking the courts to do so. We applaud the Court for doing this critically important work and keeping the courts clear of matters better left to the other branches of government.
