§ 117.005.Other Laws Not Affected

The chapter adds protection. This section makes sure it subtracts none.

Nothing in the chapter affects a defense, immunity or jurisdictional bar available to the state or a local government, or to an official, employee or contractor of either.

Three different things are named, and they operate differently. A defense defeats the claim on the merits, an immunity bars liability, and a jurisdictional bar keeps the court from hearing the case at all.

Governmental immunity survives. A claimant suing a city or the state still meets the Tort Claims Act and the rest of the immunity law.

Official immunity survives for individuals, alongside the statutory immunity this chapter creates.

The section forecloses an inference. A statute that grants immunity in one situation could be read as implying its absence elsewhere, and this sentence stops that reading.

Read with the closing subsections of Sections 117.002 and 117.003, which preserve statutory damage limits, the chapter is additive throughout.

Sovereign and governmental immunity belong to the entity. This chapter protects individuals, and the entity’s own immunity is a separate question answered by other law.

Official immunity belongs to the individual. A public employee sued for discretionary acts in good faith within the scope of authority has that protection, and this chapter adds to it.