City of Houston, Texas, Petitioner, v. Chelsea Manning, Individually and as Next Friend of T.N., Aaliyah Mitchell, and Cierra Williams, Respondents
No. 24-0428
Supreme Court of Texas
May 23, 2025
When certain statutory conditions are satisfied, the Texas Tort Claims Act waives governmental immunity from suit for injuries caused by “negligence.” We are asked to decide whether that waiver includes injuries caused by negligence per se. We hold that it does in this case because the statutory standards of care used to measure negligence per se “merely [] define more precisely what conduct breaches” the “common law duty,” so that “violating the statutory standard[s] . . . would usually also be negligence under [the] common law.” Perry v. S.N., 973 S.W.2d 301, 306 (Tex. 1998).
I
After the Houston Fire Department received a 9-1-1 dispatch call about an ongoing dumpster fire at an apartment complex, Fire Engine 82 was dispatched to the scene. The fire truck‘s operator, William Schmidt, drove the engine southbound on Fondren Road. Near that same time, Chelsea Manning was driving three passengers westbound on Ludington Drive, which intersects Fondren Road. Approaching the Fondren-Ludington intersection, Manning slowed and stopped at a red traffic light. When the light turned green, Manning proceeded into the intersection.
Meanwhile on Fondren Road, which has a posted speed limit of 35 mph, Schmidt drove the fire truck at about 45 mph. Schmidt had activated the fire truck‘s siren, emergency lights, and Opticom transmitter, which turns oncoming traffic lights green.1 As the fire truck entered the Fondren-Ludington intersection, it began changing lanes and struck Manning‘s car.2 The Houston Police Department‘s investigation concluded that Schmidt “failed to proceed with duty and care through the intersection.”
Manning sued the City of Houston, asserting various claims including negligence and negligence per se and invoking the waiver of immunity in the Texas Tort Claims Act (TTCA). Manning based her allegations of negligence per se on Schmidt‘s violation of three sections of the Transportation Code. See
The court of appeals affirmed in relevant part.4 See ___ S.W.3d ___, 2024 WL 973806, at *1 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Mar. 7, 2024). The court concluded that the TTCA waives governmental immunity for claims based on a government employee‘s negligence per se. Id. at *8. In rejecting the City‘s
II
The City‘s first issue asks whether the TTCA waives governmental immunity for claims of negligence per se. As always, we begin with the statutory text, which reads: “A governmental unit in the state is liable for . . . property damage, personal injury, and death proximately caused by the wrongful act or omission or the negligence of an employee acting within his scope of employment if,” as relevant here, the injury “arises from the operation or use of a motor-driven vehicle” and “the employee would be personally liable to the claimant according to Texas law.”
As a textual matter, the City argues that the TTCA‘s language is plain: it includes only negligence, not negligence per se. If the Legislature wanted to waive governmental immunity for harm resulting from negligence per se, it could have done so expressly. It did not, the City argues, so a narrow construction of the TTCA favoring the retention of immunity demands the dismissal of Manning‘s claim of negligence per se. This issue has divided some of our courts of appeals. Like the court in this case, some courts reason that negligence per se falls within the waiver because it is just another method of proving breach of duty, a necessary element in every negligence cause of action.5 One court of appeals has disagreed, declining to include negligence per se claims within the TTCA‘s waiver.6
Under the plain language of the statute and our precedent, we conclude that the negligence per se claim in this case falls within the scope of the waiver. As noted above, the statutory waiver is for the “wrongful act or omission or the negligence of an employee acting within his scope of employment.”
In addition, we have defined “negligence” for purposes of the waiver to encompass “three degrees or grades of negligence, including gross negligence, ordinary negligence, and slight negligence” or “high degree of care.” VIA Metro. Transit v. Meck, 620 S.W.3d 356, 370 (Tex. 2020) (internal quotation marks omitted). In many cases, the penal statute that provides the basis for a negligence per se claim does not clearly abrogate the grade of negligence that applies under the common law;8 it functions “merely to define more precisely what conduct breaches” the “common law duty.” Perry, 973 S.W.2d at 306.9 In other words, negligence per se is generally “a species of negligence, in which the breach of duty element is established by showing the violation of a statute or regulation.” Tenaris Bay City Inc. v. Ellisor, No. 23-0808, ___ S.W.3d ___, slip op. at 10 (Tex. May 23, 2025) (citing Mo. Pac. R.R. v. Am. Statesman, 552 S.W.2d 99, 102 (Tex. 1977)). In such cases, the claim remains one for negligence and falls within the scope of the waiver.
“For example, the overwhelming majority of this Court‘s negligence per se cases have involved violations of traffic statutes by drivers and train operators—actors who already owed a common law duty to exercise reasonable care toward others on the road or track.” Perry, 973 S.W.2d at 306 (collecting cases). “When a statute criminalizes conduct that is also governed by a common law duty, as in the case of a traffic regulation, applying negligence per se causes no great change in the law because violating the statutory standard of conduct would usually also be negligence under a common law reasonableness standard.” Id.
Those are the kinds of statutes at issue here. Manning alleges that Schmidt was negligent per se because he violated various statutory standards:
TEX. TRANSP. CODE § 546.001(2) : “In operating an authorized emergency vehicle the operator may,” among other things, “proceed past a red or stop signal or stop sign, after slowing as necessary for safe operation . . . .”TEX. TRANSP. CODE § 546.005(1) : “This chapter does not relieve the operator of an authorized emergency vehicle from . . . the duty to operate the vehicle with appropriate regard for the safety of all persons . . . .”
Section 546.001(2)‘s standard of “as necessary for safe operation” and Section 546.005(1)‘s standard of “appropriate regard for the safety of all persons” are simply “more precise[]” articulations of what conduct breaches the common-law standard of reasonable care in a particular factual context. Perry, 973 S.W.2d at 306. “Statutes and regulations generally requiring a party to act safely or reasonably do not substitute a legislatively imposed standard
For these reasons, we conclude the court of appeals correctly rejected the City‘s argument that Manning‘s claims of negligence per se are outside the scope of the waiver statute. We disapprove those cases holding otherwise.11
III
The City‘s other issues concern the court of appeals’ holdings on official immunity, the emergency exception, and the 9-1-1 exception. The trial court denied the City‘s motion for summary judgment, and the court of appeals affirmed, concluding there were genuine issues of material fact regarding these exceptions to the waiver of immunity. We recently clarified the correct approach to those issues in City of Houston v. Rodriguez, 704 S.W.3d 462 (Tex. 2024), City of Austin v. Powell, 704 S.W.3d 437 (Tex. 2024), and City of Killeen–Killeen Police Dep‘t v. Terry, ___ S.W.3d ___, 2025 WL 1196743, at *1 (Tex. Apr. 25, 2025).
Accordingly, without hearing oral argument, we grant the petition for review, vacate the court of appeals’ judgment in part, and remand this case to that court to reconsider these issues in light of our recent decisions. See
OPINION DELIVERED: May 23, 2025