HOUSTON – An appellate court has reversed a trial court's order and rendered a take-nothing judgment in favor of Harris County in a case over an auto accident involving a deputy.
The 14th Court of Appeals reversed the 127th District Court of Harris County's ruling that denied the county's motion for summary judgment in a case involving a Harris County police deputy and George Spears.
Spears had sued the county over allegations of negligence after an auto accident at an intersection in Harris County in January 2014. The deputy was responding to an emergency call at the time of the accident, the ruling states.
According to Justice William Boyce's opinion filed on Sept. 25, the trial court erred in a July 2017 ruling when it denied Harris County's motion for summary judgment and plea to the jurisdiction.
According to the ruling, Harris County had filed the motion and plea asserting that Spears could not file a claim, citing the deputy's official immunity and the Texas Tort Claim Act’s emergency response exception.
The Texas Tort Claims Act waives sovereign immunity for injuries caused by a governmental employee’s operation of a vehicle or motor-driven equipment or the use of personal property, and injuries caused by dangerous conditions on government property.
Boyce wrote in his opinion in part that the evidence satisfied the emergency response exception when the deputy responded to the emergency call at the time of the collision, adding that the deputy did not act recklessly when he entered the intersection just prior to the accident.
According to the ruling, after receiving the call for a medical emergency on Jan. 25, 2014, the deputy "activated his patrol vehicle emergency lights and siren and drove to the scene of the incident." As the deputy approached a red light at an intersection, he "slowed almost to a complete stop behind several cars stopped at the red light," the ruling states.
According to the ruling, the cars moved to permit the deputy "to proceed through the intersection." As he drove through the intersection, a vehicle driven by Spears hit the rear passenger side of the deputy's patrol vehicle.
An independent police review board also conducted a review of the incident and found in part that the deputy "failed to exercise due care when operating a county patrol vehicle by running a red light and failing to properly clear the intersection prior to entering it while running emergency equipment," the ruling states.