§ 79.004.Liability for Training Exercises

The chapter's closing section, matching the fire department provision enacted in the same session.

Except in a case of reckless conduct or intentional, wilful, or wanton misconduct, a person who is immune from civil liability for giving care, assistance, or advice with respect to the management of an incident to which this chapter applies is immune from civil liability for an act or omission during the execution of a training exercise intended to prepare the person to give that care, assistance, or advice.

The immunity is derivative and coextensive. It runs to a person who is immune under the chapter, and it gives exactly what the chapter gives for the real incident.

Hazardous material and disaster response training is realistic by necessity — live agents, actual equipment, real conditions — and the exercises carry the same risks as the events.

Without the section, an expert immune while advising at an actual chemical spill would have carried ordinary liability while training for one, which discourages the preparation that makes the response competent.

Note that the exclusion is restated rather than assumed. Reckless conduct and intentional, wilful, or wanton misconduct are outside the training immunity as they are outside the underlying one.

The fire department chapter contains the parallel provision, and the two were added together in 2015 — the same gap identified in both places at once.