Court Opinion

ID: 9620491
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:42:50.975101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:24.129160
License: Public Domain

TERRIE LIVINGSTON, Justice,
concurring.
I respectfully concur to the majority opinion in this case to discuss the “use” prong of the Texas Tort Claims Act. The 2004 Texas Supreme Court case of San Antonio State Hospital, v. Cowan clearly held that the triggering governmental “use” of personal property had to be just that; “section 101.021(2) waives immunity for a use of personal property only when the governmental unit is itself the user.” 128 S.W.3d 244, 245-46 (Tex.2004); see also Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 101.021(2) (Vernon 2005). Thus here, because Ignacio was the one who actually used the shoestring, bunk bed, and jail cell, as opposed to the governmental unit, immunity has not been waived for purposes of section 101.021(2). See Cowan, 128 S.W.3d at 246. This description of “use” has also been followed by the supreme court in a recent case, Texas A & M University v. Bishop. 156 S.W.3d 580, 583-84 (Tex.2005).
In Bishop, the faculty advisor provided a real knife to a student actor for use in a drama club production. Id at 582. The student actor, using the real knife, missed the stab pad and actually stabbed one of his co-actors. Id. The injured actor sued Texas A & M for “deciding to use a real knife and in failing to provide an adequate stab pad” and for violating the university’s prohibition of deadly weapons on campus. Id The supreme court held that simply furnishing the knife to the actor was insufficient to establish a “use” of personal property by the governmental unit. Id at 583. As in Cowan, merely providing personal property for use by someone else is insufficient to establish the statutory waiver of immunity. See id; Cowan, 128 S.W.3d at 246.
A similar approach has been used by the Dallas Court of Appeals in Texas Depart*844ment of Criminal Justice v. Hawkins, 169 S.W.3d 529 (Tex.App.-Dallas 2005, no pet.). In that case, Irving Police Officer Aubrey Hawkins was killed when escapees from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) stole weapons from TDCJ during their escape from the Connally Unit in Huntsville, Texas in 2000. Id. at 531. Hawkins’s survivors asserted claims against TDCJ for negligence. Id. at 531-32. The Dallas Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s denial of TDCJ’s plea to the jurisdiction. Id. at 534-35. The court agreed that TDCJ did not “use” the weapons within the meaning of the tort claims act’s use waiver of governmental immunity. Id. at 533. Citing both Cowan and Bishop, the Dallas court determined that the escapees’ use of the weapons did not constitute negligent misuse of the weapons by TDCJ and that TDCJ had merely negligently provided access to the property which is insufficient to constitute “use” under the tort claims act. Id. at 533.
I believe the decision in our case turns simply upon the lack of “use” by a governmental unit. I do not believe that we reach the issue of causation, as the majority has, until we first review the governmental unit’s alleged “use.” If we agree that the governmental unit “used” the property, only then do we look to its “use” in terms of causation. For this reason, I respectfully concur.