§ 79.003.Disaster Assistance

The disaster assistance immunity, and its most useful feature is who else it protects.

Except in a case of reckless conduct or intentional, wilful, or wanton misconduct, a person is immune from civil liability for giving care, assistance, or advice on managing an incident that:

is a man-made or natural disaster endangering individuals, property, or the environment, including a major disaster declared by the president or a disaster declared under the Government Code; and in which the assistance is provided at the request of either an authorized representative of a local, state, or federal agency — including a fire department, police department, emergency management agency, or disaster response agency — or a charitable organization as the charitable immunity chapter defines it.

A formal declaration is not required. The disaster need only endanger or threaten to endanger; declared disasters are named as included, not as the test.

The request requirement is the real gate. Self-directed help is outside the section — the assistance must have been asked for by an agency or a qualifying charity.

Subsections (c) and (d) are the significant additions. Notwithstanding the Tort Claims Act or any other law, the requesting entity and its authorized representative are not liable for the acts of a person assisting on request. Notwithstanding the charitable immunity chapter, a requesting charitable organization is not liable either.

So asking for help creates no exposure. Without that, an agency would hesitate to request volunteers, and the immunity for the volunteer alone would achieve little.

Subsection (b) excludes paid assistance on the same terms, and subsection (e) makes the immunities additional to others, naming the emergency care subchapter, chapters 78 and 78A, and the Government Code.