§ 102.003.Maximum Payments

The caps, and they are the same figures the state indemnification chapter uses.

$100,000 to any one person or $300,000 for any single occurrence in the case of personal injury or death.

$10,000 for a single occurrence of property damage.

The property damage figure is strikingly low, and it has not been revised — a single vehicle can exceed it.

The caps do not limit the employee’s liability. A judgment above them stands in full; what is capped is how much of it public money will answer for.

That gap is the practical significance of the section. An employee facing a $400,000 negligence judgment may see $300,000 paid and remain personally liable for the rest.

The figures match the Texas Tort Claims Act limits for local governments, which is deliberate — indemnification of an employee should not exceed what the government itself could have been made to pay.

One exception lifts the property cap. Where the local government is liable in its capacity as guardian under the Estates Code and does not give a bond, payments may not exceed the amount of the actual property damages.

So the cap becomes the loss itself, without a fixed ceiling — the same trade the indemnification section makes in the guardianship situation.

The reasoning is consistent across both provisions. A local government that declined to post the bond protecting a ward’s estate assumes what the bond would have covered, and a $10,000 ceiling would leave the ward short.