§ 102.002.Payment of Certain Tort Claims

The indemnification power, and it is permissive rather than mandatory.

A local government may pay actual damages awarded against an employee where the damages result from an act or omission in the course and scope of employment and arise from a cause of action for negligence.

"May", not "shall". An employee has no right to indemnification; the local government decides.

That is a real limitation, and it distinguishes this chapter from the state one, which says the state shall indemnify.

Court costs and attorney’s fees awarded against the employee may also be paid, on the same terms.

Two categories may not be paid at all: damages arising from official misconduct, and damages arising from a wilful or wrongful act or omission or an act or omission constituting gross negligence.

The line is between error and misconduct. Public money can answer for a mistake made doing the job; it cannot answer for deliberate wrongdoing.

A local government may not pay to the extent damages are recoverable under an insurance contract or authorized self-insurance plan.

That prevents a double recovery and makes insurance the first source where it exists.

Subsection (e) contains a mandatory exception, and it is narrow. A local government that does not give a bond under the Estates Code shall pay damages otherwise excluded, where liability results from an employee’s appointment as guardian of a ward and the conduct was in the course and scope of employment.

The logic is that the bond would have answered. A local government that skipped the guardianship bond takes on what the bond would have covered.