§ 72.003.Effect on Other Liability

Two saving provisions marking what the guest statute does not touch.

Subsection (a): the subchapter does not affect judicially developed or developing rules under which a person is or is not totally or partially immune from tort liability by virtue of family relationship.

"Developing" is a deliberate word. The Legislature left this area to the courts and said so expressly, rather than freezing the doctrine as it stood. Parental and interspousal immunity have shifted considerably over time, and this section does not interfere.

The two bodies of law overlap heavily, since the guest statute is now itself confined to family members. A claim between relatives may face both the heightened standard here and a common law immunity.

Subsection (b) excludes two situations. The subchapter does not relieve the owner or operator of a vehicle being demonstrated to a prospective purchaser, nor a public carrier, of responsibility for injuries to a passenger.

Both make sense on the statute's own logic. A test drive is a commercial transaction rather than a gratuitous ride, and a public carrier owes its passengers a duty precisely because carrying them is its business — neither presents the collusion concern the guest statute addresses.