§ 118.003.Damages

One sentence, and it fixes both the kind of recovery and its ceiling.

The recovery is actual damages. The section names no exemplary damages, whatever the school’s conduct is found to have been.

The maximum is $500,000 for each claimant. The cap is per claimant rather than per occurrence, so an incident affecting several students is not divided among them.

That distinction is worth noticing. Many Texas liability caps limit a single occurrence, which forces claimants to share; this one does not.

Caps are the price of the waiver. A public school pays from public money, and the legislature set a figure it was prepared to expose districts to.

Fees and costs sit outside this section. Section 118.004 makes court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees available to a prevailing party on their own terms.

The remedy is not exclusive. Section 118.005 keeps other legal remedies available, so this cap governs a claim under this chapter and not every claim arising from the same events.

The section does not itemize actual damages. What that phrase covers is left to ordinary Texas damages law rather than defined in the chapter.

The cap does not limit other claims. Section 118.005 keeps other remedies available, so a claim arising from the same events under different law is measured by its own rules.