§ 109.001.Definition

One definition, borrowed rather than written, and the borrowing is deliberate.

"State agency" means any entity that constitutes the state government for purposes of Section 101.001 — the Texas Tort Claims Act definitions section.

Using that definition ties this chapter to the liability it exists to fund. The Tort Claims Act says which bodies the state is liable for; this chapter says how claims against those bodies are appropriated and paid.

A mismatch between the two would leave gaps. An entity liable under the Act but outside this chapter would have claims with no payment mechanism, and one inside this chapter but outside the Act would have a mechanism with nothing to pay.

The borrowed definition covers the state’s departments, commissions, boards, offices and other agencies, along with institutions of higher education.

The applicability section then confines the chapter further, to Tort Claims Act liability resulting from the conduct of a state agency and to indemnification under the state chapter.

So the definition is one of three filters, and it is the widest of them.

The exceptions section removes several categories from the chapter entirely — health care claims, medical schools, institutions of higher education and law enforcement and corrections agencies — which are among the largest sources of claims against the state.

Read the definition and the exceptions together and the chapter’s real scope is much narrower than the definition suggests.