§ 89.002.Liability for Damages from Donated Device

The protection, and the four listed characteristics describe what goes wrong with donated equipment.

A person authorized to possess a device is not liable for personal injury, property damage, or death resulting from the nature, age, packaging, or condition of a device that the person donates in good faith to an entity authorized to possess the device that is a nonprofit health care organization, for use in providing free or reduced cost care.

Age and condition are the realistic risks. Donated medical equipment is usually second-hand — a wheelchair someone no longer needs, a hospital bed from a closed facility — and the donor rarely knows its full service history.

Two authorisation requirements bracket the transfer. The donor must be authorized to possess the device, and so must the recipient. Some medical equipment is restricted, and the chapter does not protect a transfer that should not have happened.

"In good faith" is the qualifying condition, and the exceptions section then withdraws the protection from a donor who knew the device would be harmful, acted with conscious indifference, or donated in violation of law.

The chapter follows the food donor model closely: the same "donate" definition, the same structure of protection plus exceptions, and the same underlying problem — a donor who gains nothing and would rationally discard the item rather than risk a claim.