§ 78.054.Individual Immunities

The individual counterpart to the department provision.

A fire fighter is liable for damages described by the applicability section only to the extent an analogous employee of the governmental unit with which the nonprofit fire department is contracting would be liable, and is entitled to the common law immunities applicable to the employee of the governmental unit.

Two things are given, and the second is the more valuable. The liability ceiling matters, but official immunity is what usually decides these cases.

A governmental employee performing a discretionary act in good faith within the scope of authority is immune outright. Firefighting is discretionary in exactly the sense that doctrine contemplates — decisions made rapidly, on incomplete information, among imperfect options.

"Analogous employee" is the measure, so the comparison is to someone doing the same work for the contracting unit rather than to public employees generally.

The immunity here also protects the department. Under the Tort Claims Act's motor-vehicle branch, a governmental unit is liable only if the employee would be personally liable — so an individually immune fire fighter defeats liability on that branch for the department too.

Read with the preceding section, the two provisions place both the department and its personnel exactly where the public body they serve alongside would be.