Opinion ID: 1560524
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Motor-Driven Equipment

Text: The TNRCC first maintains that the trial court lacked jurisdiction because the pump used on White's land is not motor-driven equipment. It bases this argument largely upon Schaefer, which it cites for the proposition that stationary electric motor-driven pumps do not fall within the meaning of section 101.021 motor-driven equipment. See Schaefer, 838 S.W.2d at 693. White counters that the pump should indeed be considered motor-driven equipment, citing 4 DG's Corp. v. City of Lockney, 853 S.W.2d 855, 857 (Tex.App.-Amarillo 1993, no writ). The Tort Claims Act does not define motor-driven equipment. It provides only that: Motor-driven equipment does not include: (A) equipment used in connection with the operation of floodgates or water release equipment by river authorities created under the laws of this state; or (B) medical equipment, such as iron lungs, located in hospitals. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM.CODE § 101.001(4). We hold that the pump is motor-driven equipment for two reasons. First, the pump falls within the generally accepted meaning of motor-driven equipment. Equipment, which is not specially defined either by the Tort Claims Act or an opinion of this Court, generally means [t]he articles or implements used for a specific purpose or activity. BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 558 (7th ed.1999). Motor-driven means, quite simply, driven by a motor. The pump in this case was an implement used for the purpose of dissipating fumes. It was drivenor made to perform its taskby a motor. It therefore fits the general definition of motor-driven equipment. The Seventh Court of Appeals, in 4 DG's Corp., 853 S.W.2d at 857, followed this same reasoning. In that case, the owner of a house near a governmental unit's sewage-removal pumps sued the governmental unit when a power outage caused the pumps to fail. Id. at 856. Sewage backed up into the owner's house, and the owner alleged that an employee of the governmental unit negligently failed to determine whether the pumps were operable after the power stopped. Id. The court of appeals reversed the trial court's summary judgment for the governmental unit based on sovereign immunity, reasoning that the sewage pumps, which were energized by motors, and ... used in the city's operation of its sanitary sewer system, could fit within the meaning of motor-driven equipment. Id. at 857. This construction of motor-driven equipment comports with the words' common-sense, plain-language meaning. Second, section 101.021's inclusion of both motor-driven equipment and a motor-driven vehicle convinces us that the TNRCC's limited interpretation is overly restrictive. The TNRCC argues that Schaefer, which noted that all the reported motor-driven equipment cases at that time dealt with motor-driven vehicles capable of transporting people, Schaefer, 838 S.W.2d at 692, construed motor-driven equipment correctly. But if the Legislature had meant motor-driven equipment to encompass only motor-driven vehicles, it surely would not have written both motor-driven vehicle and motor-driven equipment into the Act. We therefore disapprove of Schaefer to the extent it holds otherwise. We conclude that the TNRCC's stationary electric motor-driven pump is within the scope of section 101.021's motor-driven equipment.