Court Opinion

ID: 9777003
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:51:08.662206+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:46.083837
License: Public Domain

GAMMAGE, Justice,
dissenting.
The question before the court is whether a concurrent judgment against a governmental unit and its employee whose negligence proximately caused the harm is barred as to the employee by section 12(a) of the Texas Tort Claims Act, now codified as Tex.Civ.PraC. & Rem.Code § 101.106. The majority holds there is no recovery against the employee. In my view the majority has chosen the path least consistent with legislative intent and most suspect under the Open Courts provision of our constitution. I respectfully dissent.
The legislature directed us to construe the Texas Tort Claims Act liberally to effectuate its purposes. Lowe v. Texas Tech University, 540 S.W.2d 297, 298 (Tex.1976).1 One of those purposes is to provide a remedy against the government for the misuse of tangible property when a private person would be liable,2 but expressly not to take away a claimant’s other remedies because “[t]he remedies authorized by this chapter are in addition to any other legal remedies.”3
Against this backdrop of general purpose, this court must decide whether a concurrent judgment against both the government and the employee should or should not bar recovery against the employee. I think it is clear that the liberal construction and preservation of other legal remedies provisions of the Act dictate that recovery against the individual is not barred. Not requiring a separate suit against the individual is a practical construction that promotes judicial economy and *363avoids a multiplicity of suits and procedural maneuvering.
The legislative history of section 101.106 as a specific section likewise supports this construction. The legislature did not intend to insulate the employee from all personal liability. Section 12(b) of the Tort Claims Act as originally introduced provided that the remedy against a governmental unit was to “be exclusive of any other civil action or proceeding by reason of the same subject matter against the employee.” Tex.H.B. 456, 61st Leg., R.S. § 12(b) (1969). The legislature deleted this language from the enacted version of the bill at the request of the governor.4 The Texas Tort Claims Act implicitly recognizes that employees may be held hable for their own negligence by providing that a governmental unit may buy insurance for its employees. Tex.Civ.PrAC. & Rem.Code § 101.027.
I think our principles of construction and legislative history require construing the statute not to bar recovery against the individual when the court simultaneously tries the causes of action and renders a concurrent judgment against both. The majority’s claim that one “may still opt to pursue the full common law remedy against the responsible employee, foregoing or postponing any attempt to recover against the government,”5 is a design for inefficient use of judicial resources and unnecessarily eliminates other existing common law remedies. It does violence to the intent of the legislature and the express language of the statute, and it should not be adopted.
Moreover, the majority misses the point of the Open Courts attack. It is the common law remedy against the employee that is well recognized. Adding an additional remedy against the governmental unit, but providing that a concurrent judgment bars the recovery thereby pronounced against the individual, unreasonably burdens the claimant’s common law rights against the employee. Sax v. Votteler, 648 S.W.2d 661, 665 (Tex.1983). It is no answer to say the claimant may forego or postpone suing the governmental unit until his recovery against the individual is complete. The Act states the remedy is in addition to others he may have. On the face of the statute, there is no reason to anticipate that an open courts problem will arise. The point is not whether the trade-off of giving a “limited” maximum $250,000 recovery against the governmental unit is a reasonable “fair trade” for the unlimited but potentially uncollectible liability of the individual. We should not even consider that construction, but should pursue the clear construction that complies with legislative intent and the rules of construction, and avoids raising a question of the statute’s constitutionality under the Open Courts provision. For these reasons I respectfully dissent.

. Section 13 of the original Act was omitted from the recodification because the revisor concluded section 3.03 of the Code Construction Act and similar general construction statutes would require the same principle of construction. 3 Vernon's Texas Codes Annotated, Civil Practices & Remedies Revisor's Note 539 (1986).

. Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code § 101.021.

. TexCiv.Prac & Rem Code § 101.003.

. Although bills have repeatedly been submitted to amend section 101.106 to force claimants to elect between suing the governmental entity or the employee, the legislature has failed to enact such amendments.

. 895 S.W.2d at 358.