§ 101.024.Exemplary Damages

Six words of operative text: this chapter does not authorize exemplary damages.

Whatever the conduct, a claimant recovering under the Act recovers compensatory damages only, within the caps.

The reason is who pays. Exemplary damages punish and deter, and a judgment against a governmental unit is paid by taxpayers who did nothing wrong. Punishing the public for an employee's conduct achieves neither purpose.

The section works with the waiver rather than against it. Immunity is waived only "to the extent of liability created by this chapter," and this chapter creates no liability for exemplary damages — so the immunity is never lifted as to them.

The bar is on this chapter authorising them, which leaves other routes untouched. A claim against an individual employee outside the Act, or under another body of law with its own remedies, is not governed by this section — though the election of remedies provision makes suing both the unit and the employee impossible.

Read with the caps, the effect is that the maximum exposure of a Texas governmental unit for a tort is a fixed and modest compensatory sum, whatever the degree of fault.