Court Opinion

ID: 9646690
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 13:08:03.375457+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:40.791583
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Appellee has on motion for rehearing raised for the first time on appeal the contention that the school district is not an appropriate party for suit, because of the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Mount Pleasant Independent School District now argues that this is not a situation which falls within the limited waiver of governmental immunity provided by the Texas Tort Claims Act. Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 101.001 et seq. (Vernon 1986 & Supp.1988).
Points of error raised for the first time on motion for rehearing may not normally be considered by this Court. It has been held that an exception to this rule exists when an appellee fails to advance an argument in his reply brief, because he is attempting to preserve the judgment of a lower court. Chesshir v. First State Bank of Morton, Tex., 620 S.W.2d 101 (Tex.1981).
In the present case, however, appellant has failed to'preserve error below for our review. The argument of sovereign immunity was raised by special exception and as an affirmative defense below, but the record does not reflect that any ruling on this contention was ever rendered by the trial court.
Special exceptions which are not called to the attention of the trial court or upon which the record does not show that the trial court acted are waived. Saikowski v. Manning, 720 S.W.2d 275 (Tex.App.—Fort Worth 1986, no writ); Elliot Valve Repair v. B.J. Valve & Fitting Co., 675 S.W.2d 555 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1984), rev’d on other grounds, 679 S.W.2d 1 (Tex.1985); Rio Grande Valley Sugar Growers v. Campesi, 580 S.W.2d 850 (Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi), rev’d on other grounds, 592 S.W.2d 340 (Tex.1979); Rothchild v. Fannin Bank, 407 S.W.2d 878 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1966, writ ref’d n.r.e.). Accordingly, nothing on this point has been preserved for review by this Court.
The appellees seek to distinguish some of the cases from other jurisdictions cited in our original opinion on the basis that the school buses were operated by the bus owners who contracted with the school districts rather than being owned by the school districts. The school children, who are passengers on the buses, are basically in the same situation whether the school district owns the buses or contracts with another for their services. We do not deem this distinction to be controlling as to the duty owed to the passengers.
Appellees also contend on the motion for rehearing that no duly was owed to the child, because the child had safely alighted from the conveyance and was no longer a passenger at the time of the injury. As the court stated in Houston Transit Co. v. McQuade, 223 S.W.2d 64 (Tex.Civ.App.—Galveston 1949, writ ref d), “By law bus carriers are under the duty to discharge their passengers into a (reasonably) safe place....” Whether this was done in the present case is a question of fact for the jury.
The motion for rehearing is denied.