Court Opinion

ID: 9387230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-17 09:07:45.239159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:12.405428
License: Public Domain

In the
                    Court of Appeals
            Second Appellate District of Texas
                     at Fort Worth
                 ___________________________
                      No. 02-22-00310-CV
                 ___________________________

   THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER,
                         Appellant

                                V.

CELINA GONZALEZ, JOSE GONZALEZ AGUILAR, AND EDNA GONZALEZ
                      AGUILAR, Appellees

              On Appeal from the 348th District Court
                      Tarrant County, Texas
                  Trial Court No. 348-332573-22

               Before Kerr, Bassel, and Womack, JJ.
                     Opinion by Justice Kerr
                                     OPINION

              Death is unique. It is unlike aught else in its certainty and its
      incidents. A corpse in some respects is the strangest thing on earth. A
      man who but yesterday breathed and thought and walked among us has
      passed away. Something has gone. The body is left still and cold, and is
      all that is visible to mortal eye of the man we knew. Around it cling love
      and memory. Beyond it may reach hope. It must be laid away. And the
      law—that rule of action which touches all human things—must touch
      also this thing of death. It is not surprising that the law relating to this
      mystery of what death leaves behind cannot be precisely brought within
      the letter of all the rules regarding corn, lumber and pig iron. . . . In
      [developing rules and legal principles for dealing with remains,] the
      courts will not close their eyes to the customs and necessities of
      civilization in dealing with the dead and those sentiments connected with
      decently disposing of the remains of the departed which furnish one
      ground of difference between men and brutes.
                          —Louisville & N.R. Co. v. Wilson, 51 S.E. 24, 25 (Ga. 1905)

                                    Introduction

      Although this case has unsettling facts—not until an open-casket funeral

service did a California family discover that their loved one’s corpse was switched

with that of a stranger and, worse, had already been harvested for organs and

cremated in Texas—the legal issue before us is the prosaic one of sovereign immunity

and whether facts have been or can be alleged showing waiver of that immunity.

      Because we conclude that the deceased’s family did not and cannot plead facts

sufficient to show that the University of North Texas Health Science Center’s actions

fall within the Texas Tort Claims Act’s immunity waiver for personal injury caused by

a use or misuse of tangible personal property, we hold that the trial court erred by

denying UNTHSC’s Rule 91a motion to dismiss and will reverse and render judgment

                                           2
accordingly. We do so not without great sympathy for the appellees, Celina Gonzalez,

Jose Gonzalez Aguilar, and Edna Gonzalez Aguilar, who are the family of Jose Carlos

Gonzalez.

                        Background and Procedural History

       Jose,1 a long-haul trucker, fell ill while driving across Tarrant County, Texas,

and died on March 20, 2020, at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Grapevine.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office took possession of his body. Soon

after, Jose’s widow Celina arranged with a funeral home in Chula Vista, California, to

bring her husband’s body home for an open-casket service and burial. The California

funeral home contracted with the Brown, Owens and Brumley funeral home in Fort

Worth to pick up Jose’s body from the medical examiner’s office, embalm it, and have

it shipped to California.

       Brown, Owens and Brumley dutifully picked up a body, but the M.E.’s office

released the wrong one: that of Jesse Gonzalez. Jesse’s body was slated to go to the

Willed Body Program at UNTHSC, and the M.E.’s office sent Jose’s body, “thinking

it was Jesse Gonzalez, to [UNTHSC], wherein it was subsequently harvested for

organs and then cremated” by an outside entity, DMA Cremations, Inc.

       1
        Because Jose Gonzalez’s body was confused with that of a Jesse Gonzalez, in
discussing the facts we will use both men’s first names for clarity; we mean no
disrespect. The facts recited are all taken from the plaintiffs’ live pleading.

                                           3
      As arranged by Brown, Owens and Brumley, a corpse was transported in late

March or early April to California by Accucare Mortuary Services, which presumably

thought that it was taking Jose back to his family. 2 Later in April, at Jose’s funeral

service, his family first discovered that Jesse—a complete stranger—had been placed

in the coffin for viewing.

      Jose’s family (the Gonzalezes, collectively) sued UNTHSC and others for

negligence, gross negligence, DTPA violations, and negligent infliction of emotional

distress. UNTHSC moved for dismissal under Rule 91a, arguing that its sovereign

immunity had not been waived for the Gonzalezes’ claims (and that Texas does not

recognize the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress in any event). See Tex.

R. Civ. P. 91a; see also Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. §§ 101.001–.109 (Tort

Claims Act). The Gonzalezes responded that UNTHSC would be entitled to

governmental immunity only if its employees had official immunity and that discovery

was thus needed to identify the employees involved, to which UNTHSC replied that

official immunity—an affirmative defense—was irrelevant here.3 Cf. Kassen v. Hatley,

887 S.W.2d 4, 8 (Tex. 1994) (“If a plaintiff has a right of action against the

government due to the state’s waiver of sovereign immunity, this right is not affected

by whether a government employee has official immunity.”). Over a month and a half

      2
       The Gonzalezes do not allege that any of the parties sued in connection with
this awful mix-up knew that they were dealing with the wrong man’s body.
      3
       On appeal, official immunity is not an issue.

                                           4
after UNTHSC filed its Rule 91a motion, and two days before a visiting judge

conducted a hearing on it, the Gonzalezes filed a third amended petition.

       Consistent with the presiding judge’s earlier ruling on the medical examiner’s

earlier-filed plea to the jurisdiction, the visiting judge entered an order denying

UNTHSC’s motion to dismiss the Gonzalezes’ negligence claims “at this time,”

determining that “Plaintiff[s] should be given the opportunity to conduct limited

discovery and amend their petition as appropriate.”4 UNTHSC’s motion was granted

as to all other claims.

       UNTHSC perfected this interlocutory appeal from the trial court’s declining to

dismiss the negligence claims against it. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann.

§ 51.014(a)(8). The Gonzalezes have not cross-appealed the trial court’s dismissal of

their non-negligence-related claims, so we need address only one issue, which

UNTHSC frames as, “Do Plaintiffs’ pleadings allege facts affirmatively demonstrating

a waiver of [UNTHSC’s] immunity from suit under subsection 101.021(2) of the Tort

Claims Act for a negligent use or misuse of tangible personal property?”

       4
        The order on the M.E.’s jurisdictional plea had dismissed the Gonzalezes’
claims for gross negligence, DTPA violations, and negligent infliction of emotional
distress but allowed limited discovery to proceed on the negligence claims: Because it
was “possible that a waiver of immunity may apply” to the Gonzalezes’ negligence
claims, “the Court determines that Plaintiffs should be given the opportunity to
conduct limited discovery and amend their petition and the Medical Examiner’s Plea
to the Jurisdiction should be denied at this time with regard to Plaintiffs’ negligence
claims.” The visiting judge understandably followed the presiding judge’s lead.

                                          5
                    Sovereign Immunity and the Tort Claims Act

       Immunity from suit deprives a court of subject-matter jurisdiction. Tex. Dep’t of

Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 217, 224 (Tex. 2004) (op. on reh’g). To

establish subject-matter jurisdiction, a plaintiff must allege facts that affirmatively

demonstrate the court’s jurisdiction to hear the claim. Town of Shady Shores v. Swanson,

590 S.W.3d 544, 550 (Tex. 2019). In suits against the government, plaintiffs bear the

concomitant burden of establishing a waiver of sovereign immunity.5 Tex. Dep’t of

Transp. v. Jones, 8 S.W.3d 636, 638 (Tex. 1999). Whether a court has subject-matter

jurisdiction is a question of law, Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 226, and we interpret

immunity waivers narrowly because the legislature’s intent to waive immunity must be

clear and unambiguous, Mission Consol. ISD v. Garcia, 253 S.W.3d 653, 655 (Tex. 2008).

       The Tort Claims Act provides a limited immunity waiver under certain discrete

scenarios. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. §§ 101.021, .022, .025. The only

scenario relevant here, as the Gonzalezes note, is that an entity such as UNTHSC is

liable for “personal injury . . . so caused by a . . . use of tangible personal . . . property

if the governmental unit would, were it a private person, be liable to the claimant

according to Texas law.” Id. § 101.021(2). Later in this opinion we will discuss what

using tangible personal property means within this case’s facts.

       5
        The Gonzalezes agree that UNTHSC is a governmental unit.

                                              6
                          Rule 91a and Standard of Review

       We review de novo a trial court’s ruling on a plea to the jurisdiction, which is

essentially what UNTHSC raised through its Rule 91a motion to dismiss. See San

Jacinto River Auth. v. Medina, 627 S.W.3d 618, 621 (Tex. 2021) (treating river authority’s

Rule 91a motion as a jurisdictional plea); Bland ISD v. Blue, 34 S.W.3d 547, 554 (Tex.

2000) (noting that absence of subject-matter jurisdiction may be raised by different

procedural vehicles); Univ. of N. Tex. Health Sci. Ctr. v. Jimenez, No. 02-16-00368-CV,

2017 WL 3298396, at *3 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Aug. 3, 2017, pet. denied) (mem.

op.) (construing UNTHSC’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction

as functional equivalent of plea to the jurisdiction).

       A Rule 91a movant may seek dismissal of a cause of action on the ground that

it has no basis in law or in fact. 6 See Tex. R. Civ. P. 91a.1. A cause of action has no

legal basis if the allegations, taken as true together with inferences reasonably drawn

from them, do not entitle the claimant to the relief sought. Id. “Whether the dismissal

standard is satisfied depends ‘solely on the pleading of the cause of action.’” City of

Dallas v. Sanchez, 494 S.W.3d 722, 724 (Tex. 2016) (quoting Tex. R. Civ. P. 91a.6). We

review any type of Rule 91a ruling de novo. Id.

       A cause of action lacks a basis in fact if no “reasonable person could believe
       6

the facts pleaded.” Tex. R. Civ. P. 91a.1. The factual-plausibility standard is not
implicated here; UNTHSC’s position is that no set of facts exists that would waive its
immunity from suit.

                                             7
      When a Rule 91a motion challenges jurisdiction, we construe the pleadings

liberally in the plaintiff’s favor, looking to the pleader’s intent and accepting the

factual allegations as true, to determine whether the pleaded facts suffice to invoke a

waiver of immunity. Id. at 724–25; Edgefield Holdings, LLC v. Gilbert, No. 02-17-00359-

CV, 2018 WL 4495566, at *5 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Sept. 20, 2018, no pet.) (mem.

op.). But if a petition’s allegations negate jurisdiction, the petition is incurably

defective, and we must dismiss the case with prejudice without affording an

opportunity to amend. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d at 226–27.

                                       Analysis

      General legal principles involving corpses. Several Texas cases have

addressed the rights possessed by—and causes of action available to—those left

behind to deal with their loved ones’ remains, with the supreme court most recently

opining on this subject in SCI Texas Funeral Services, Inc. v. Nelson, 540 S.W.3d

539 (Tex. 2018).

      In that suit over a private funeral home’s allegedly negligent cremation of the

plaintiff’s mother’s remains, the supreme court discussed the unique legal status of

deceased bodies. Id. at 545. “Though it has long been established under the common

law that ‘a dead body is not the subject of property,’ we have recognized that next of

kin generally have a right to possess the body and control the burial, a right we first

called a quasi-property right more than 80 years ago.” Id. at 545 (quoting Evanston Ins.

                                           8
Co. v. Legacy of Life, Inc., 370 S.W.3d 377, 383 (Tex. 2012)). In Evanston itself, the

supreme court noted:

      Historically, the notion of a quasi-property right arose to facilitate
      recovery for the negligent mishandling of a dead body. If the plaintiff
      could show that his property right had been harmed, he would avoid the
      burden of proving that his emotional distress was accompanied by
      physical injury. . . . In reality, however, the primary concern of the right is not
      the injury to the dead body itself, but whether the improper actions caused
      emotional or physical pain or suffering to surviving family members.
      The injury is seldom pecuniary; rather, damages are grounded in the
      mental and physical injuries of survivors.

370 S.W.3d at 384 (emphasis added) (quoting Culpepper v. Pearl St. Bldg., Inc., 877 P.2d

877, 880 (Colo. 1994)). This reasoning led the Evanston court to conclude that “[t]he

common law . . . allows next of kin to sue for mental[-]anguish damages when acts are

performed on a decedent’s body or tissues without the next of kin’s consent in certain

circumstances.” Id. at 385.7

      7
        See also Serv. Corp. Int’l v. Guerra, 348 S.W.3d 221, 231 (Tex. 2011) (upholding
mental-anguish finding in widow’s favor after husband’s body was disinterred and
moved to another grave without permission); Classen v. Benfer, 144 S.W.2d 633,
635 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 1940, writ dism’d judgm’t cor.) (upholding damages
award, including for mental anguish, where corpse was moved from its resting place
without family’s consent and was later misplaced); Restatement (Second) of Torts
§ 868 & cmt. a (Am. Law Inst. 1979) (discussing cause of action for interfering with
dead body and commenting that while the “technical basis of the cause of action is
the interference with the exclusive right of control of the body, which frequently has
been called by the courts a ‘property’ or a ‘quasi-property’ right,” that basis “does not,
however, fit very well into the category of property, since the body ordinarily cannot
be sold or transferred, has no utility[,] and can be used only for the one purpose of
interment or cremation”).

                                              9
      From the caselaw, we see that the law has a proper and understandable desire

to compensate for the natural anguish that loved ones experience when a corpse is

desecrated, mishandled, or lost. We see also that this compensation is available not

because of any property right in the corpse or for injury to the dead body itself, but

rather because of a corpse’s sui generis categorization—a status one might view, in a

sense, as existing between heaven and earth.

      But in light of sovereign immunity, asserting such claims against a

governmental entity is altogether different, beginning with pleading requirements.

      Pleading the use of tangible personal property as waiving immunity

under the Tort Claims Act. Unless Jose’s family has alleged facts showing that

UNTHSC harmed them by negligently using tangible personal property, sovereign

immunity will dictate this case’s outcome. Although the trial court denied UNTHSC’s

Rule 91a motion on the negligence claim and allowed limited discovery so that the

Gonzalezes could seek evidence and amend their petition as needed, at oral argument

they disclaimed the need for any discovery and asserted that their current petition

suffices—with the possible exception of perhaps needing to beef up their proximate-

cause allegations—to establish an immunity waiver.

      But the third amended petition does not allege the negligent use of tangible

personal property; it does not mention that UNTHSC is a governmental entity, that

UNTHSC misused specific tangible personal property in some way, or even that their

claims implicate the Tort Claims Act. Cf., e.g., City of Raymondville v. Elizondo, No. 13-

                                           10
21-00375-CV, 2022 WL 1669438, at *2 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–Edinburg May

26, 2022, no pet.) (mem. op.) (noting that plaintiffs’ petition alleged that city’s

immunity was waived by the “use or misuse of tangible property, namely surveying

equipment probes, shovels[,] and other equipment utilized to lay[ ]out burial spaces,

locate available spaces[,] and also to determine that depth of spaces and bury

remains”); Noah v. Univ. of Tex. Med. Branch at Galveston, 176 S.W.3d 350, 355 (Tex.

App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2004, pet. denied) (reciting that plaintiffs’ petition “alleged

that their injuries had been caused by either a condition of, or by UTMB’s use or

misuse of, ‘tangible personal property’—specifically, the remains of the plaintiffs’

relatives [that had been commingled with others and thus unable to be returned to

plaintiffs] and the tools and equipment used in the cremation process” (footnote

omitted)).

      In their only references to UNTHSC, the Gonzalezes pleaded that

   • “DEFENDANT, THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS HEALTH
     SCIENCE CENTER, is a corporation doing business in the State of Texas.”

   • “The Court has continuing jurisdiction over Defendants[8] because Defendants
     are Texas residents. The Court has jurisdiction over the subject matter because
     the damages are within the statutory jurisdictional limits of the Court.”

   • “The body of Jesse Gonzalez was supposed to go to the Willed Body Program
     at the University of North Texas [Health] Science Center. Instead, the Tarrant
     County Medical Examiner’s Office sent the body of Jose Carlos Gonzalez,

      The defendants at the time of this amendment were the Tarrant County
      8

Medical Examiner; Brown, Owens and Brumley; Accucare; UNTHSC; DMA
Cremations; and Nizam Peerwani, M.D., P.A.

                                          11
       thinking it was Jesse Gonzalez, to the Willed Body Program, wherein it was
       subsequently harvested for organs and then cremated.”

   • “Through the process of exchanging written discovery with the other
     Defendants, Plaintiffs have learned that the body of [Jose] was cremated by
     DMA Cremations, LLC and not the Willed Body Program at [UNTHSC], as
     originally believed.”

The entirety of the global negligence claim against UNTHSC and the other

defendants reads:

       1. NEGLIGENCE AGAINST DEFENDANTS

             Defendants had a duty to exercise ordinary care, that is, failing
       to do that which a person of ordinary prudence would have done
       under the same or similar circumstances or doing that which a person
       of ordinary prudence would not have done under the same or similar
       circumstances. Ordinary care means that degree of care that would be
       used by a person of ordinary prudence under the same or similar
       circumstances.

             Defendants failed to use ordinary care in handling the
       remains of the Decedent, Jose Carlos Gonzalez. This failure
       proximately caused damages to the Plaintiffs, including mental
       anguish.

       Even after being put on notice of the jurisdictional issue through UNTHSC’s

Rule 91a motion and then amending their pleadings, the Gonzalezes’ latest petition

falls far short of alleging facts showing an immunity waiver. “If a plaintiff has been

provided a reasonable opportunity to amend after a governmental entity files its plea

to the jurisdiction, and the plaintiff’s amended pleading still does not allege facts that

would constitute a waiver of immunity, then the trial court should dismiss the

plaintiff’s action.” Harris Cnty. v. Sykes, 136 S.W.3d 635, 639 (Tex. 2004); see also Harris

                                            12
Cnty. Appraisal Dist. v. Braun, 625 S.W.3d 622, 636 n.21 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th

Dist.] 2021, no pet.) (citing Sykes in dismissing plaintiff’s claims without allowing

opportunity to replead and noting that where plaintiff amends petition after

governmental entity files jurisdictional plea, plaintiff isn’t entitled to yet another

opportunity to replead). Particularly because the Gonzalezes have disavowed the need

for any jurisdiction-related discovery, we thus could reverse and render on this basis

alone.

         But for thoroughness, we will examine the foundational question of whether

the Gonzalezes could allege facts to get around UNTHSC’s immunity. In answering

that question in the negative—meaning that another chance to amend would be

futile—we are persuaded by UNTHSC’s position that the Gonzalezes’ real complaint

is that intangible identifying information, not tangible personal property, was used or

misused and was the source of their harm.9

        The Gonzalezes take issue with UNTHSC’s “gravamen” argument, accusing it
         9

of an “attempted rewrite” of their allegations “in order to manufacture immunity.”
But the law instructs courts to look beyond how a party characterizes its cause of
action to find its “true nature.” B.C. v. Steak N Shake Operations, Inc., 512 S.W.3d 276,
283 (Tex. 2017) (“The gravamen of a claim is its true nature, as opposed to what is
simply alleged or artfully pled, allowing courts to determine the rights and liabilities of
the involved parties.”); see also CHRISTUS Health Gulf Coast v. Carswell, 505 S.W.3d
528, 534 (Tex. 2016) (instructing that in evaluating the type of claim, “we examine the
underlying nature and gravamen of the claim, rather than the way it is pleaded”); Univ.
of Tex. Health Sci. Ctr. at Hous. v. Dickerson, No. 14-13-00232-CV, 2014 WL 708521, at
*6 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Feb. 20, 2014, no pet.) (mem. op.) (“In
determining whether sovereign immunity has been waived, courts look to the real
substance of a plaintiff’s cause of action, not the plaintiff’s characterization of her
claims.”).

                                            13
      The Gonzalezes attempt to finesse this problem by arguing that they were

harmed by UNTHSC’s using organ-harvesting tools (tangible personal property) or by

UNTHSC’s misusing Jose’s body itself (tangible personal property) in harvesting his

organs, or both. But the Gonzalezes do not suggest that the process of harvesting Jose’s

organs was done negligently. They do not claim, for example, that UNTHSC

negligently used a hacksaw instead of a scalpel or that it negligently sliced a particular

organ in half.10 Indeed, at oral argument, the Gonzalezes explicitly disavowed a claim

of negligently performed organ harvesting or dissection and proposed that

UNTHSC’s negligence consisted, rather, of doing anything to Jose’s corpse at all.

      The gravamen of the Gonzalezes’ claim is that information concerning

Jose’s and Jesse’s identifications was mishandled. So how did UNTHSC end up

with Jose’s body in the first place? The answer is clear: his body was mistaken for

Jesse’s at some point—it was misidentified because of faulty information.

      And Texas law is equally clear that information, even when recorded on

something tangible such as paper, is intangible and thus does not fall under the Tort

Claims Act’s immunity waiver. See, e.g., Univ. of Tex. Med. Branch v. York, 871 S.W.2d

175, 176, 179 (Tex. 1994) (holding that information in medical records is not tangible

personal property within the meaning of the Tort Claims Act; “the fact that

information is recorded in writing does not render the information tangible

      With these examples, we don’t mean to suggest that such claims could waive
      10

immunity.

                                           14
property”); Zawislak v. Tex. Med. Bd., No. 03-17-00523-CV, 2019 WL 321993, at

*2 (Tex. App.—Austin Jan. 25, 2019, pet. denied) (mem. op.) (affirming sovereign-

immunity bar where a doctor, who was publicly reprimanded by governing state

entity, sued medical board for negligently using expert report and deposition in

administrative proceeding and noting that “[a]lthough the paper (or other format) on

which [the expert’s] report and deposition testimony was recorded is tangible, [the

doctor] does not allege that he was injured by the paper” but rather by information in

the paper); Seamans v. Harris Cnty. Hosp. Dist., 934 S.W.2d 393, 395 (Tex. App.—

Houston [14th Dist.] 1996, no writ) (holding no immunity waiver where information

about body’s donation was not timely relayed, making the anatomical gift worthless,

because use of county hospital’s gurney, morgue refrigeration units, transport vehicle,

etc., was “merely incidental”: “Seamans’ body would have been used for its intended

purpose if Ben Taub had successfully transmitted information regarding the donation to

the medical school”).

      Courts have applied this information-is-intangible principle in circumstances

closely resembling this case, in particular City of Raymondville, supra, and Dominguez v.

Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office, No. 10-06-00109-CV, 2007 WL 613792 (Tex.

App.—Waco Feb. 28, 2007, no pet.) (mem. op.). Each case demonstrates the

insurmountable immunity bar that the Gonzalezes face here.

      In City of Raymondville, a city employee gave a funeral home inaccurate plot

measurements; as a result, the deceased was buried in the wrong location and had to

                                           15
be disinterred and moved to the correct cemetery plot. 2022 WL 1669438, at *1, *5.

The deceased’s family members sued and alleged that immunity was waived by the use

of tangible personal property in the form of the equipment used to dig the grave and

move the remains. Id. at *2. The city challenged the trial court’s jurisdiction by

arguing, as one of two bases, that the use or misuse of information—the wrong

measurements—does not equate to use or misuse of tangible property. Id.

      The appellate court reversed the trial court’s denial of the City’s combined plea

to the jurisdiction and summary-judgment motion, id. at *3, *6, and rendered a

judgment of dismissal, id. at *6. Looking to the gravamen of the family’s claims, the

court held that “the use or misuse of information was the cause of appellees’ injuries,

not the use or misuse of tangible personal property.” Id. at *5. That is, if the city

employee had not passed along incorrect information, “Decedent’s remains would not

have been interred into the wrong plot and likewise would not have needed to be

moved.” Id. The “substance” of the family’s complaints involved the “misuse and

transmission of information,” and “the information did not become tangible personal

property by [the city’s] recording the information in writing.” Id.

      Dominguez similarly involved a family’s attempt to connect the use of tangible

personal property to their mental anguish, which in that case occurred when their

loved one’s burned remains were incorrectly identified.11 2007 WL 613792, at *1. The

      11
        Although the opinion is light on facts, it appears that the deceased in
question, Jermaine Ramirez, and another person died together in a fire. Dominguez,

                                           16
plaintiffs contended that tangible personal property in the form of charred driver’s

licenses and the burned corpses themselves were “misused.” Id. at *2, *3. Affirming

the trial court’s grant of the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s jurisdictional plea, the

appellate court agreed with the county that “its actions constituted the use of the

information on the driver’s licenses, not the use of the driver’s-license certificates as

tangible personal property,” citing cases holding that information is an abstract

concept that lacks corporeal, physical, or palpable qualities. Id. at *2 (citing Tex. Dep’t

of Pub. Safety v. Petta, 44 S.W.3d 575, 580 (Tex. 2001), and York, 871 S.W.2d at 179).

      As for the corpses themselves, Dominguez contended—as do the Gonzalezes

here—that “human remains are property.” Id. at *3 (quoting Dominguez’s appellate

brief). But the non-immunity cases on which Dominguez relied, although recognizing

that heirs have the right to select how remains are to be laid to rest, “do not stand for

the proposition that the corpse constitutes personal property concerning which a

party may sue the State for money damages.” Id.

      The Gonzalezes have not attempted to distinguish City of Raymondville or

Dominguez, whose reasoning we find sound. The gravamen of the Gonzalezes’ claim is

a use or misuse of information, not of tangible personal property, and that is a

jurisdictional chasm that cannot be bridged through repleading. See Tex. A&M Univ.

Sys. v. Koseoglu, 233 S.W.3d 835, 840 (Tex. 2007) (holding that appellate court erred by

2007 WL 613792, at *2 (“Dominguez argues that the County used the decedents’
driver’s licenses and corpses as tangible personal property.”).

                                            17
remanding for repleading because “Koseoglu’s pleading defects cannot be cured, and

he has made no suggestion as to how to cure the jurisdictional defect”). The fact is

that Jose’s and Jesse’s bodies would not have been confused but for the M.E.’s

“thinking,” as the Gonzalezes pleaded, that it was sending Jesse’s body to UNTHSC.

That misidentification, not UNTHSC’s organ harvesting, caused the Gonzalezes’

mental anguish.12 We must construe sovereign-immunity waivers narrowly, and these

facts simply do not fall within the Tort Claims Act’s waiver.

                                     Conclusion

      Having sustained UNTHSC’s sole issue, we reverse the trial court’s denial of

UNTHSC’s Rule 91a motion on the Gonzalezes’ negligence claims and render

judgment that those claims be dismissed with prejudice.

                                                      /s/ Elizabeth Kerr
                                                      Elizabeth Kerr
                                                      Justice

Delivered: April 13, 2023

      12
        That is true even if UNTHSC failed to confirm whose body it had received, a
theoretical duty that the Gonzalezes have not raised.

                                          18