Merardo Bonilla sustained injuries in an automobile accident that occurred when a Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) trooper ran a red light while allegedly pursuing a reckless driver. Bonilla sued DPS, relying on the Texas Tort Claims Act’s sovereign-immunity, waiver.
We have jurisdiction to consider the matter due to a conflict between the court of appeals’ .opinion and our precedent establishing the good-faith standard applicable to DPS’s official-immunity defense.
Official immunity is an affirmative defense that protects a governmental employee from personal liability and, in doing so, preserves a governmental employer’s sovereign immunity from suit for vicarious liability.
Good faith is- a test of objective legal reasonableness.
Good faith does not require proof that all reasonably prudent officers would have resolved the need/risk analysis in the same manner under similar circumstances.
The court of appeals held that DPS failed to conclusively establish the good-faith element of its derivative immunity defense because “[ujnder the facts adduced by Bonilla, ... a reasonably prudent police officer could determine that the need to stop the speeding truck in order to prevent an accident was outweighed by a more immediate risk of causing an accident himself’ under the particular circumstances in this case.
Viewed properly, the good-faith standard is analogous to an abuse-of-discretion standard that protects “ ‘all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law,’ ”
‘ Although the court of appeals framed the good-faith test inaccurately in this case, remand for reconsideration would be fruitless if the court were correct that DPS’s summary-judgment evidence is fatally deficient. The court of appeals' determined, in an alternative holding, that DPS’s summary-judgment evidence was not competent to establish good faith because it failed to address whether the trooper considered alternative courses of action as an essential part of the need/risk balancing inquiry.
Evidence of an officer’s good faith must be substantiated 'with' facts showing the officer assessed both the need to apprehend the suspect, and the risk of harm to the public.
To establish good faith in this case, DPS relied almost exclusively on the trooper’s account of the incident, as reflected in his affidavit, deposition testimony, and incident report.
The court of appeals held that DPS’s summary-judgment evidence was not competent to prove good faith because it did not “establish! ] that [the trooper]‘ considered whether any alternative course of action was available to stop the speeding truck.”
Magic words are not required to establish that a law-enforcement officer considered the need/risk balancing factors.
“[T]he suspect [in a physical altercation on university property] had not been identified before he fled the foot patrol officers[, and] [t]he manner in which the suspect operated his vehicle and the high rate of speed at which he traveled ... posed a danger to the public.”27
Another officer’s affidavit was likewise sufficient to. address alternatives by averring:
“[I] followed the suspect at a distance and was not able to get close enough to the suspect vehicle to obtain its license plate number. I had expected the suspect vehicle to stop when the driver observed my overhead lights and siren behind him,” but he did not.28
Though not elaborately discussed in DPS’s summary-judgment proof, we conclude DPS’s evidence is not significantly > different from the evidence in Clark that we found adequate to address the alternative-options element of the need/risk analysis. DPS’s summary-judgment evidence detailed the specific circumstances giving rise to pursuit and emphasized the potential danger to the public due to the subject vehicle’s erratic and unsafe activity. Although not explicitly addressing alternatives to pursuit, the, trooper implicitly discounted the viability of other alternatives based on his stated belief that immediate action was necessary and his inability to identify the driver at that time. The fact that the trooper did not expressly identify “alternatives” that may have been considered does not render the evidence deficient. The court of appeals erred in holding otherwise.
Having determined that the court of appeals applied an inaccurate good-faith standard and erroneously concluded that DPS failed to adduce evidence addressing alternatives to pursuit, we reverse the court’s judgment and, without hearing oral argument, remand the cause to that court
. See Tex. Civ. Prac, & Rem. Code § 101.021.
. See id. § 101.055 (excluding certain governmental functions, from immunity waiver); Univ. of Hous. v. Clark, 38 S.W.3d 578, 580 (Tex.2000) ("When official immunity shields a governmental employee from liability,' sovereign immunity shields the governmental employer from vicarious liability.”).
. 481 S.W.3d 646, 649-50, 654-56, No. 08-13-00117-CV, 2014 WL 2451176,*1, *6-8 (Tex.App.-El Paso May 30, 2014).
. See Tex Gov’t Code §§ 22.001(a)(2), (e), •225(c); City of San Antonio v. Ytuarte, 229 S.W.3d 318, 319 (Tex.2007); Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 580-81; Wadewitz v. Montgomery, 951 S.W,2d 464, 466 (Tex.1997); City of Lancaster v. Chambers, 883 S.W.2d 650, 656 (Tex.1994).
. Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 580 (citing Chambers, 883 S.W.2d at 653 and DeWitt v. Harris County, 904 S.W.2d 650, 653 (Tex.1995)); see also Tex Civ, Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.021 (governmental unit liable if'“the employee would be personally liable to the claimant according to
. Wadewitz, 951 S.W.2d at 466.
. Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 580-81; Ytuarte, 229 S.W.3d at 320.
. See, e.g., Ytuarte, 229 S.W.3d at 321; Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 581; Wadewitz, 951 S.W.2d at 466 & 467; Chambers, 883 S.W.2d at 656; see also Telthorster v. Tennell, 92 S.W.3d 457, 465 (Tex.2002) (in arrest cases, good faith exists if "a reasonably prudent officer, under the same or similar circumstances, could have believed that his conduct was justified based on the information he possessed when the conduct occurred"),
. Ytuarte, 229 ,S.W.3d at 320.
. See Chambers, 883 S.W.2d at 657.
. Id.
. Id.
. 481 S.W.3d at 655-56, 2014 WL 2451176, at *7.
. Ytuarte, 229 S.W.3d at 321,
. Id. (quoting Chambers, 883 S.W.2d at 656 & 657 n.7).
. Wadewitz, 951 S.W.2d at 467 n. 1.
. Id.
. Chambers, 883 S.W.2d at 657.
. 481 S.W.3d at 656, 2014 WL 2451176, at *8.
. Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 581.
. See Wadewitz, 951 S.W.2d at 467 (elaborating on the good-faith test's need and risk elements and identifying several factors implicated by those inquiries); see also Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 581, 583, 587-88 (explaining that a law-enforcement officer's summary-judgment proof does not offer a suitable basis for determining good faith unless it sufficiently addresses all the Wadewitz need/risk factors).
. Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 588 ("The availability of alternatives to pursuit is just one factor of the need/risk balancing test and the existence of alternatives to pursuit does not alone determine good faith.”); cf. id at 583 ("We recognize that, depending on the. [exigent] circumstances, an officer may not be able to thoroughly analyze each need or risk factor, and that this alone, should not prevent the officer from establishing good faith.”).
. Bonilla disputes the trooper’s version of events in several material respects, but Bonil-la's controverting evidence is not germane to the competence of DPS's evidence in the first instance.-
. 481 S.W.3d at 656, 2014 WL 2451176, at *8.
. Wadewitz, 951 S.W.2d. at 467 (delineating factors that must be assessed in determining good faith in an emergency-response action); see also Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 586 (consideration of Wadewitz factors required to evaluate good faith in pursuit case).
. Clark, 38 S.W.3d at 586.
. Id. at 585.
. Id. at 586.