Tex. Dep’t of Pub. Safety v. Bonilla
No. 14-0694
Case Summary written by Adam J. Ondo, Staff Member.
The facts leading up to this case began with a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) trooper pursuing a speeding truck that was recklessly weaving in and out of traffic. During the chase, the officer ran a red light, causing an accident that resulted in Merardo Bonilla sustaining injuries. Bonilla then sued DPS, asserting that the Texas Tort Claims Act’s sovereign immunity waiver was applicable to his case. DPS moved for summary judgment on the basis that it retained immunity due to the trooper’s official immunity and the emergency-response exception. The trial court denied DPS’s motion.
DPS made an interlocutory appeal, but the court of appeals affirmed the trial court’s decision to deny the motion. The court of appeals held, “(1) DPS failed to conclusively establish the good-faith element of its official-immunity defense, (2) DPS’s summary-judgment evidence was incompetent to establish good faith because it failed to address whether the trooper considered alternative courses of action, and (3) Bonilla raised a fact issue regarding applicability of the emergency-response exception.” DPS appealed the decision to the Texas Supreme Court, which reversed the court of appeals’ judgment and remanded the case, signaling to the court of appeals that it needed to use a different legal standard when evaluating the “good faith” element of DPS’s official-immunity defense.
The Court explained that official immunity, when invoked as an affirmative defense, protects government employees from personal liability, but also preserves the employer’s sovereign immunity if the plaintiff attempts to sue under the theory of vicarious liability. One of the elements of the official immunity defense is good faith. The Court described the good faith standard as not analogous to a general negligence test, but rather an abuse-of-discretion standard.
For purposes of this case, the Court instructed the court of appeals to use this test: “whether any reasonably prudent officer possessed of the same information could have determined the trooper’s actions were justified.” According to the Court, the court of appeals erred by requiring DPS to show that all reasonably prudent officers would have responded in the same manner as the officer in this case. This test of whether any reasonably prudent officer—rather than all reasonably prudent officers—would have assessed the situation in the same way stems from City of San Antonio v. Ytuarte. 229 S.W.3d 318, 321 (Tex. 2007).
Before remanding the case, the Supreme Court of Texas addressed another issue. The court of appeals had determined that DPS’s summary judgment evidence failed to establish good faith because the evidence did not explore whether the officer considered alternative courses of action before chasing the subject. The Court determined that the trooper did not have to expressly identify alternative courses of action because his statement that he believed immediate action was necessary to catch the driver suggested that he discounted other alternatives.
After underscoring, once again, that the good faith standard used by the court of appeals was inaccurate, the Court remanded the case for reconsideration.