§ 74.151.Liability for Emergency Care

The Texas Good Samaritan statute, and its protection is broad but conditioned.

A person who in good faith administers emergency care is not liable in civil damages for an act performed during the emergency unless the act is wilfully or wantonly negligent. The section names two examples: a person administering care using an automated external defibrillator, and a volunteer first responder.

Ordinary negligence is protected. Only wilful or wanton negligence — conscious indifference rather than carelessness — defeats the immunity.

The remuneration exception is drawn carefully. The section does not apply to care administered for or in expectation of remuneration — but being legally entitled to receive remuneration does not by itself determine whether the care was administered in anticipation of it. A physician who stops at a roadside accident is not outside the section merely because they could bill for it.

The second exception is narrower and pointed: care by a person at the scene because they or a person they represent as agent was soliciting business or seeking to perform a service for remuneration.

Subsection (e) excludes the person who caused the emergency. The section does not protect a person whose negligent act or omission was a producing cause of the emergency for which care is administered — with a carve-back preserving protection for school districts and their officers and employees acting under a Education Code Subchapter G programme, other than for wilful or intentional misconduct.

Subsections (c) and (d) were deleted in the 2003 reforms.