§ 150.004.Liability for Services Rendered by Certified Municipal Inspector During Emergency or Disaster

The companion to the design professional immunity, drawn on the same five conditions.

It applies only to a certified municipal inspector whose inspection services are: within the scope of their national model code group certification or plumbing inspector’s license; provided voluntarily and without compensation or the expectation of compensation from any source; in response to and during a proclaimed emergency or declared disaster; provided at the request or with the approval of a public official; and related to a structure, building, premises, piping, or other system.

The protection is identical to the design professionals’: no liability for civil damages including personal injury, wrongful death, property damage or other loss, unless the conduct constitutes gross negligence or wanton, wilful, or intentional misconduct.

Note one difference in the volunteer condition — this section says without compensation or the expectation of compensation from any source. The design professional provision does not carry those last three words.

That fits the inspector’s position: they are a full-time employee of a political subdivision, so a provision silent about the source of payment would raise a question about their salary.

The work these inspectors do after a disaster is the point of the section. Determining whether a damaged building may be re-entered is a fast judgment made on incomplete information, and one an inspector will decline to make at all if an error means personal liability.

Unlike the preceding section, this one carries no business-solicitation exclusion and no provision about entitlement to compensation — neither of which arises for a salaried public inspector.