Trinity River Authority v. Williams
| Decision Date | 27 February 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. C-2530,C-2530 |
| Parties | TRINITY RIVER AUTHORITY et al., Petitioners, v. Carla Leigh WILLIAMS et al., Respondents. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Mayor, Day & Caldwell, Roger Rider and Mark R. Zeidman, F.J. Coleman, Jr., City Atty., David Lee Crawford, Asst. City Atty., Houston, for petitioners.
W. James Kronzer, Maurice A. Lehmann, Houston, Bill Jones, Livingston, Coy U. Spawn, Jr., Houston, for respondents.
This is a wrongful death action involving issues of governmental immunity, maritime law and contributory negligence. Plaintiffs, as legal survivors of Richard Michael Williams and Mark Phillips Magaziner, sued the Trinity River Authority (TRA) and the City of Houston (City). Based on the jury's verdict, the trial court rendered judgment for the plaintiffs, although reducing damages by the percentage of contributory negligence attributed to the decedents. The trial court also limited TRA's liability to $100,000 per decedent pursuant to the Texas Tort Claims Act. The court of appeals modified and affirmed the trial court's judgment so as to eliminate the damage reduction for contributory negligence. 659 S.W.2d 714. The judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part.
Williams and Magaziner drowned in 1977 while fishing in the Trinity River below the Livingston dam and spillway. They put their boat into the water below the "restricted area" of the dam, but the back currents of the water caught the boat and drew it up into the restricted area near the The jury found that TRA and the City were joint operators of the Livingston Dam project; the City was found to be an owner-occupier of the premises. In addition, the jury found that TRA and the City each failed to give adequate warning of the dangerous back currents existing in the waters below the restricted area of the dam and such failure was negligence, proximately causing the deaths. The jury also found that TRA and the City each negligently failed to maintain a floating warning cable across the surface of the Trinity River below the Livingston Dam, proximately causing the deaths.
dam. Williams and Magaziner drowned when the boat was pulled into a turbulent main current and capsized.
The jury found that Williams and Magaziner were contributorily negligent and that such contributory negligence proximately caused their deaths. Negligence was apportioned as follows:
TRA ........ 45%
City ....... 25%
Williams ... 15%
Magaziner .. 15%
The jury found total damages to be $750,000 for Williams' survivors and $50,000 for Mazaginer's survivors. The trial court rendered judgment on the jury verdict, reducing each survivor's award by the fifteen percent contributory negligence of the decedents. TRA and the City were held jointly and severally liable, subject to TRA's statutory liability limitation.
The court of appeals overruled one group of TRA's points of error that claimed it had governmental immunity based on the so-called "floodgate" provision of the Texas Tort Claims Act. The court of appeals held that the floodgate exception to liability did not apply since plaintiffs did not allege the operation of the floodgates was negligently performed but rather relied upon allegations of failure to warn of and protect against the dangerous back currents.
Section 3 of the Texas Tort Claims Act provides, in part:
Each unit of government in the state shall be liable for money damages for ... personal injuries or death when proximately caused by the negligence or wrongful act or omission of any officer or employee ... arising from the operation or use of a motor-driven vehicle and motor-driven equipment, other than motor-driven equipment used in connection with the operation of floodgates or water release equipment by river authorities created under the laws of this state, ... or death or personal injuries so caused from some condition or some use of tangible property, real or personal....
Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6252-19, § 3(b) (Vernon Supp.1984) (emphasis added).
It is the area of motor-driven equipment, wherein the legislature responded to various river authorities and provided a specific exemption for waiver of sovereign immunity for floodgate operations. Greenhill & Murto, Governmental Immunity, 49 Tex.L.Rev. 462, 468 (1971). The Act, however, further provides that its provisions will be given a liberal construction in order to effect the legislative intent. Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 6252-19, § 13 (Vernon Supp.1984). The other part of section 3 providing for waiver of governmental immunity, for injuries caused by "some condition or some use of tangible property," is a category especially subject to a broad interpretation, Salcedo v. El Paso Hospital District, 659 S.W.2d 30, 32 (Tex.1983), and we agree with the court of appeals that this provision is applicable.
In this case, the plaintiffs maintained that TRA, as owner-occupier of the Livingston Dam project, negligently failed to warn about dangerous back currents and negligently failed to maintain a barrier cable across the river. These failures are independent of the "operation of floodgates or water release equipment" provision. Accordingly, we hold that the "floodgates" exception does not apply and affirm the
judgment of the court of appeals in this respect.
The court of appeals opinion concluded that federal maritime law did not apply because decedents' accident did not involve "traditional commercial maritime activity." 659 S.W.2d at 725 (emphasis added). The court of appeals incorrectly required a commercial element; the Supreme Court expressly disapproved the "commercial" requirement in Foremost Insurance Co. v. Richardson, 457 U.S. 668, 675-76, 102 S.Ct. 2654, 2659, 73 L.Ed.2d 300 (1982).
Respondents claim that the maritime law issue is material because if such law applies, the judgment of the trial court should be reformed so as to afford complete relief against both TRA and the City. We disagree. Even if maritime law should apply, this fact situation is within the terms of the Texas Tort Claims Act. Sovereign immunity has been waived; however, in waiving sovereign immunity, the state is free to limit the terms of the consent to be sued. Great Northern Life Insurance Co. v. Read, 322 U.S. 47, 53-54, 64 S.Ct. 873, 876, 88 L.Ed. 1121 (1944); Lyons v. Texas A & M University, 545 S.W.2d 56, 58 (Tex.Civ.App.--Houston [14th Dist.] 1977, writ ref'd n.r.e.). The fifth circuit, in addressing the Texas Tort Claims Act, found the notice of death requirement "obviously ... a limitation which the state clearly intended to apply to tort claims under the Act whether or not they are under state or maritime law." Kamani v. Port of Houston Authority, 702 F.2d 612, 615 (5th Cir.1983). Likewise, the dollar limitation represents the state's intent to limit the waiver of sovereign immunity. Therefore, the $100,000 limitation on TRA's liability remains whether state or federal law is applied.
The jury found that Williams and Magaziner were negligent "[i]n entering the Trinity River, under the circumstances in question, in the boat, and with the motor in question" and that such negligence proximately caused their deaths. The jury, however, in another issue refused to find that Williams and Magaziner knew or should have known of the dangerous back currents. The court of appeals held that no causal connection existed between the harm and the negligent acts because, without knowledge of the back currents, Williams and Magaziner had no basis to anticipate danger. We disagree.
It is not necessary that the exact path leading to injury be anticipated as long as the general danger surrounding the event is appreciated. Clark v. Waggoner, 452 S.W.2d 437, 440 (Tex.1970). The issue involved "is not what the wrongdoer believed would occur; it is whether he ought reasonably to have foreseen that the event in question, or some similar event, would occur." Id. at 440. There is evidence that Williams and Magaziner, at the very least, should have reasonably foreseen the dangerous events of capsizing and drowning when they entered the Trinity River "in the boat, and with the motor in question." Accordingly, we believe there was a...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Morris v. Massachusetts Maritime Academy
...in the Texas Tort Claims Act is a limitation on the State's waiver of immunity and applies to maritime claims); Trinity River Auth. v. Williams, 689 S.W.2d 883 (Tex.1985) ($100,000 limitation on liability in Texas Tort Claims Act limits claimant's maritime recovery); Gross v. Washington Sta......
-
Payne v. City of Galveston, B14-87-00793-CV
...River Authority v. Williams, 659 S.W.2d 714 (Tex.App.--Beaumont 1983) affirmed in part and reversed in part on other grounds, 689 S.W.2d 883 (Tex.1985). Where the government has created the condition, a duty at least to warn has consistently been held to exist. See: Smith v. State, 716 S.W.......
-
Sherrell By and Through Wooden v. City of Longview
...waiver of sovereign immunity for tort claims against the State of Texas or its subdivisions is the TTCA. Trinity River Authority v. Williams, 689 S.W.2d 883 (Tex.1985). The complaint in its present form presents no facts that would fit into the limited waiver of immunity contained in the As......
-
Rideau v. Jefferson County
...immunity for intentional acts. See TEX.CIV.PRAC. & REM.CODE ANN. § 101.057 (Vernon 1986); see also, e.g., Trinity River Auth. v. Williams, 689 S.W.2d 883 (Tex.1985). The county is immune from plaintiffs' pendent claims of assault and battery. See TEX.CIV.PRAC. & REM.CODE ANN. § 101.057(2) (......