Court Opinion

ID: 9683759
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 13:36:22.119638+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:49.768857
License: Public Domain

ELSA ALCALA, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the portion of the majority opinion in which it addresses the Montoyas’ allegation that the bus driver was negligent by “failing to stop the bus before Marcos reached the emergency exit, opened it, and fell through it.” I would construe this portion of the Monto-yas’ petition as alleging that them eight-year-old, mentally retarded child was injured because the bus driver negligently continued to drive the moving bus while *340the child opened the emergency exit door and fell through it.
The majority opinion holds that the child’s conduct, which it terms his “affirmative act,” caused the injuries he sustained and that, “at most, the driver’s negligent use simply furnished the condition” that “enabled Marcos to exit the bus and injure himself.” I would hold, instead, that the pleadings allege the necessary nexus between the bus driver’s negligent conduct — continuing to drive the bus while a child opened the emergency exit door— and the injuries that the child sustained from his fall from the moving bus through the emergency door. See Tex. Civ. PRAC. & Rem.Code Ann. §§ 101.021(1)(A), 101.025(a) (Vernon 1997) (conditioning waiver of governmental immunity and resulting governmental liability for personal injury on injury’s “aris[ing] from the operation or use of a motor-driven vehicle ”) (emphasis added); see also Dallas Area Rapid Transit v. Whitley, 104 S.W.3d 540, 543 (Tex.2003) (noting that supreme court has “consistently required a nexus between the operation and use of the motor-driven vehicle or equipment and a plaintiffs injuries”).
The majority opinion suggests that, for the bus driver’s actions here to rise to the level of nexus with the injuries to Marcos, the driver would have to have done something more than merely continue to drive. I disagree. If, for example, a child runs in front of a car, the driver should not continue to drive, even at the speed limit, but should stop to prevent injuring the child. In this example, if the car struck a child who had run in front of the car, the mere act of continuing to drive would constitute the necessary nexus with injuries to the child, even if the child was also at fault by running in front of the car. Similarly, if a child opens an emergency door on a bus, the mere act of continuing to drive under that condition furnishes the element of dangerousness to an activity that would otherwise not necessarily be dangerous if the bus were stationary. In other words, the child’s conduct of opening the emergency door on the bus is ordinarily not dangerous if the bus is stationary; what created the danger here was the bus driver’s moving the bus while the child opened the door.
The school bus here was more than simply the location of the injury. See LeLeaux v. Hamshire-Fannett Sch. Dist., 835 S.W.2d 49, 51 (Tex.1992) (noting that empty school bus was parked and that driver was not aboard as significant factors in upholding lower courts’ rulings that school district had not waived immunity from suit). The distinction from LeLeaux that, in my view, the majority opinion does not consider, is that the pleadings here allege injuries that resulted from the combination of two acts, specifically, the child’s dangerous act of opening an emergency door on a moving bus and the driver’s dangerous act of continuing to drive the bus while this happened. In this case, therefore, and in contrast to the LeLeaux case, I would conclude that the pleadings allege that the bus was more than merely the location for the injury. See id.; see also Whitley, 104 S.W.3d at 543 (restating “mere location” rule). Rather, the pleadings allege that the movement of the bus as the child opened the emergency door caused the child’s extensive injuries.
Moreover, although there must be a nexus between the injury and the operation or use- alleged, Whitley, 104 S.W.3d at 543, the statute does not require that the use or operation of the motor vehicle constitute the sole cause of the injury. See Id. (noting that Whitley failed to show that use of bus “contributed to” Whitley’s injuries); see also Austin Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Gutierrez, 54 S.W.3d 860, 866 (Tex.App.-Austin 2001, pet. denied) (noting that bus *341driver’s honking to indicate safety of crossing road “may have contributed” to accident that resulted in passing car’s striking and killing child). Thus, although the child’s conduct in opening the door may certainly have contributed to his injuries, the Montoyas’ pleading that the bus driver continued to operate the bus under the circumstances also alleges that the driver contributed to the child’s harm.
The majority opinion further suggests that the substance of the Montoyas’ pleadings alleges only claims for negligent supervision, for which the Legislature has not waived HISD’s immunity from suit, rather than claims for negligent operation or use of a motor vehicle, for which the Legislature has waived HISD’s immunity from suit pursuant to sections 101.021(1)(A) and 101.025(a). Regardless of whether the child was negligently supervised, it was the movement of the bus by the bus driver that caused the serious injuries to the child from his fall through the emergency door of the moving bus.
I would hold that the Legislature has waived HISD’s immunity from suit for the injuries to Marcos that his parents allege were caused by the driver’s continuing to operate the bus while the child opened the emergency door and fell through it, and that the trial court therefore has jurisdiction to address this pleading only.