Court Opinion

ID: 9771273
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:38:20.769577+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:27.957844
License: Public Domain

DOGGETT, Justice,
dissenting.
The adage “any port in a storm” did not hold true for John Guillory. Had his accident occurred at the Port of Galveston or the Port of Orange, he would be entitled to his actual'damages as determined by a jury. Because, however, his employer rented a truck with defective brakes and no seatbelts from the Port of Houston, this court limits his recovery to only a fraction of what a jury determined to be reasonable. Because today’s ruling denies a worker the equal protection of our laws guaranteed by the Texas Constitution, I dissent.
I.
John Guillory was unloading cargo at the Port of Houston Authority when the leased truck he was attempting to drive from the hull of a ship stalled halfway up a ramp, reared into the air, and tossed him around the inside of the cab. As a result Guillory underwent two surgeries and remains permanently disabled. At least thirty other workers also suffered severe injuries from deficiencies in trucks leased by the Authority. At times the only available means to *816stop the loaded vehicles, which had no seat belts and frequently no functioning brakes, was to ram them into the sides of ships, but even this unsatisfactory option was unavailable to Guillory, going uphill without sufficient power to exit the ship’s hold. Although admitting its awareness of this problem, the Port continued to lease defective trucks.
II.
When it applies, the Texas Tort Claims Act limits the liability of local governmental units for a single occurrence of bodily injury to $100,000 per person. Tex.Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 101.023(b). While the Act generally covers torts committed by local governmental units as well as the State, the Legislature did not limit the liability of a municipality arising from its “proprietary functions, which are those functions that a municipality may, in its discretion, perform in the interest of [its] inhabitants.” Id. § 101.0215(b).1 Since leasing motor vehicles is not required of municipalities by law, a city would be fully liable for any injuries it tortiously caused through such an operation.
Unfortunately for Guillory and others severely injured through its negligence, the Port of Houston is not a municipality. In passing the Tort Claims Act the Legislature limited the liability of other units of government, such as navigation districts, for misconduct arising from their proprietary activities. However, since port authorities that are owned and operated by municipalities are not subject to any damages limitation, anyone incurring more than $100,000 damages as a result of tor-tious proprietary activity by the Ports of Galveston or Orange is legally entitled to full compensation, but those suffering identical injuries under identical circumstances at the hands of a navigation district of legislative origin such as the Port of Houston are not.
Article I, Section 3 of the Texas Constitution states that “All free men ... have equal rights, and no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive separate public emoluments, or privileges.” This provision expresses the will of the people that the Legislature may not create legal categories which result in different treatment of similarly situated individuals or groups. This constitutional command for equal protection of our citizens prohibits enactments that bear “no reasonable relationship between the classes created and the purposes to be accomplished or the evils to be prevented.” 2 San Antonio Retail Grocers, Inc. v. Lafferty, 156 Tex. 574, 297 S.W.2d 813, 816 (1957); see also Brown v. State on Behalf of Jarvis, 808 S.W.2d 628, 632 (Tex.App.—Austin 1991, writ denied) (“the equal protection clause ... requires that the classification be reasonable, not arbitrary, and rest on some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation so that all persons similarly situated will be treated alike”). The majority does not and cannot explain what purpose of the Tort Claims Act is potentially *817served by differentiating between the proprietary functions of municipalities and those of navigation districts, or how that distinction rationally relates to this undisclosed purpose.
While admitting that its result is “ano-mal[ous] and inconsisten[t],” at 814, the majority nonetheless determines it is also “rational” because the Port of Houston is a direct creation of the Legislature, while the Port of Galveston, though operated by a legislatively empowered municipal corporation, is not. The difference in origin of the Port of Houston from municipal ports is entirely unrelated to the purposes of the Tort Claims Act, which was designed to lessen some of the harsh effects of absolute governmental immunity without authorizing unrestricted liability for every type of mistake. See generally Joe Greenhill and Thomas Murto, Governmental Immunity, 49 Tex.L.Rev. 463 (1971) (discussing the legislative history of the Act). Distinguishing between municipalities and other local governmental entities without regard to their functions does not advance that objective. Such a classification protects neither the coffers of the state treasury nor policymaking authority of state government. The Port of Houston is an independent body with its own tax base and receives no state funds. Its primary business is to provide cargo and docking services to shipowners for profit, and it is “almost entirely free of state administrative agency and control.” G. Sidney Buchanan, Texas Navigation Districts and Regional Planning in the Texas Gulf Coast Area, 10 Hous.L.Rev. 533, 578 (1973).
Simply because the Legislature created the Port of Houston is no reason it should be entitled to greater immunity than municipally owned ports. As a Michigan court articulated in holding that counties should not have greater immunity than municipalities:
Rightfully, we inquire again what distinguishes a constitutional “body corporate” from a “municipal corporation.” In candor, we must say the distinction, if any, is one without a difference.
Myers v. Genesee County Auditor, 375 Mich. 1, 133 N.W.2d 190, 193 (1965). Nor is this distinction made rational because it was part of the common law or because the Constitution declared that navigation districts are “bodies politic.” Tex. Const, art. XVI, § 59(b). “[Wjhen the Constitution and the Legislature declare that a water improvement district shall be a ‘body politic and corporate’ it does not classify it either as more nearly like a county or city because both are bodies politic, and both are corporate.” Bennett v. Brown County Water Improvement Dist. No. 1, 153 Tex. 599, 272 S.W.2d 498, 507 (1954) (Wilson, J., dissenting).3 While there may be some circumstances affording a rational basis for granting greater immunity to some governmental units than others, none is present here.
Courts in our sister states have also struck down immunity classifications between functionally similar levels of government. In Flax v. Kansas Turnpike Auth., 226 Kan. 1, 596 P.2d 446 (1979), the court held that a statute granting immunity to local units of government violated equal protection as applied to a legislatively created turnpike authority. The court found that there was no rational basis for treating motorists injured on one type of roadway differently from those hurt on others controlled by different governmental units. 596 P.2d at 451-52. Similarly, a statute creating a shorter limitations period for suits brought against counties was found unconstitutional as lacking any “rational permissible reason” for distinguishing between victims of misconduct on the basis of the type of governmental entity causing it. Jenkins v. State, 85 Wash.2d 883, 540 P.2d 1363, 1367 (1975) (en banc); see also Har*818vey v. Clyde Park Dist., 32 Ill.2d 60, 203 N.E.2d 573, 576 (1964) (statute granting immunity to park districts but not other governmentally operated recreational facilities violates equal protection). Statutes granting one municipality greater immunity than is available to others have also been invalidated on equal protection grounds. See Peddycoart v. City of Birmingham, 354 So.2d 808, 810 (Ala.1978) (statute granting immunity to state’s largest city unconstitutional); Ryszkiewicz v. City of New Britain, 193 Conn. 589, 479 A.2d 793, 800 (1984) (no “financial, climatic, topographic, demographic, or other circumstances” justifying unique limitation on liability for one city).
Employing rhetorical misdirection to avoid explaining the inexplicable, the majority states that “one governmental unit cannot be denied the immunity to which it would otherwise be entitled simply because the Legislature has waived immunity for another governmental unit.” At 815. Such analysis of legislative classifications would read the rational basis requirement entirely out of the law. The majority cannot rightfully avoid its constitutional responsibility to enforce the guarantee of equal protection by deferring to the Legislature all considerations pertaining to the scope of governmental immunity. The Legislature has made an arbitrary choice to provide the Port of Houston protection for its irresponsible activities when similarly situated ports must fully compensate the victims of their misconduct. This discriminatory classification sanctioned by the majority cannot withstand scrutiny under the equal protection provisions of the Texas Constitution, and it is the duty of this court to police the mandate of the people there embodied.
SPECTOR, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. Thus, a municipality’s liability is not statutorily limited for torts arising from operation of a public utility, id. § 101.0215(b)(1); operation of municipally owned amusements, id. § 101.-0215(b)(2); administration of a federal development loan program, Houston v. Southwest Concrete Constr., Inc., 835 S.W.2d 728, 732 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1992, writ denied); and any other activity fitting the statutory definition that is not also listed as a governmental activity in § 101.0215(a).
At the time of Guillory’s accident, the Tort Claims Act expressly excluded torts arising from the proprietary functions of municipalities but neither defined the term nor included a list of proprietary or governmental activities. See Acts 1969, 61st Leg., ch. 292, § 18(a), 1969 Tex.Gen.Laws 874, amended by Acts 1987, 70th Leg., 1st C.S., ch. 2, § 3.02, 1987 Tex.Gen.Laws 48. At common law, Guillory’s injuries would have been considered to have arisen from a "proprietary function" because they were caused by a defective motor vehicle. See City of Houston v. Shilling, 150 Tex. 387, 240 S.W.2d 1010, 1012 (1951). While the current version of the Tort Claims Act provides that maintenance of motor vehicles and equipment is a governmental activity, see Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code § 101.-0215(a)(24), the statute does not specifically address whether leasing motor vehicles for profit should be considered a proprietary function.

. While certain statutes may require more intense scrutiny and heightened justification, it is not necessary to determine the applicable standard of review here, since this legislative classification lacks even a rational basis.

. Although I am inclined to agree with Guillory that Bennett was poorly decided, it need not be overruled. The equal protection problem at issue here is the Legislature’s decision to treat municipalities differently from functionally similar governmental entities. Even if Bennett had never been issued or had held that navigation districts are not immune when exercising proprietary functions, the damages limitation in the Tort Claims Act would still be unconstitutional as applied here.