City of El Paso v. Collins

483 S.W.3d 742, 2016 WL 240882
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedJanuary 20, 2016
DocketNo. 08-14-00319-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 483 S.W.3d 742 (City of El Paso v. Collins) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of El Paso v. Collins, 483 S.W.3d 742, 2016 WL 240882 (Tex. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinion

OPINION

STEVEN L. HUGHES, Justice

The Collins sued the City of El Paso raising premises liability and negligent use claims after their child suffered injuries at a City swimming pool. The City filed a plea to the jurisdiction seeking dismissal based on governmental immunity. The trial court denied the plea, and this interlocutory- appeal followed. We reverse the trial court in part and dismiss the Collins’ negligent use claim-for .lack of subject matter jurisdiction. We affirm the trial court’s refusal to dismiss the premises liability claim and remand that claim for further proqeedings in accordance with this opinion.

[745]*745BACKGROUND

On June 13, 2008, the Collins’ two six-year-old children, Jade and Jasmine, were taken on a field trip by their day care center to a swimming pool owned and operated by the City. Jade, who was unable to swim, went unsupervised into an area of the pool where she could not- stand up. According to -a police report attached to the Collins’ pleadings, an individual at the pool felt Jade bump against him while she was submerged in the water. The individual dove to the bottom of the pool to rescue her. The individual reported that he could not “tell if [Jade] was actually swimming due.to the water being extremely cloudy” and that he could not see the bottom of the pool until he dove into the water. Once he reached the bottom of the pool, the individual observed that Jade’s hand was “caught in the grooves” of the drainage grate, but he was nevertheless able to pull Jade out of the water and bring her to the surface. Although Jade survived, she was unconscious when pulled from the pool, and, according to the Collins, she suffered “severe and-substantial injuries from her near-death drowning[.]”

The Collins initially sued only the daycare center for its alleged negligence in failing to supervise Jade at the pool, asserting that Jade was under the daycare center’s “care and control” and that the daycare center was negligent in allowing Jade to swim in the pool given its cloudy condition. The daycare center subsequently filed a motion to designate the City as a responsible third party, claiming that Jade’s injuries were proximately caused by a defect in the pool’s filtration system that caused the water to become cloudy.

The Collins then amended their petition to name the City as a defendant as well. In their Fifth Amended Petition, the Collins raised three causes of action against the City: (1) a claim they labeled, “Responsible Third Party Designation,” asserting generally that the City was at least partially responsible for Jade’s injuries; (2) a premises liability claim, alleging both that the pool had a “defective drain, drain cover, and- filtration system which allowed children to become entrapped or entangled, thereby creating a drowning hazard,” and that there were malfunctions in the filtration! system that caused' the water in the pool to become “very cloudy, to the point that the black lines' at the bottom of the pool 'were unnoticeable”; and (3) a negligent use claim, based on City émploy-ees’ alleged “misuse” of property at the pool, which included using the pool’s allegedly defective equipment and allowing the public to “use” the cloudy water.

The City filed a plea to the jurisdiction with regard to the Collins’ Fifth Amended Petition, contending that the Collins had failed to properly plead any causes of action for which governmental immunity was waived under the Texas Tort Claims Act. The trial court denied the plea, and the City, filed its first interlocutory appeal, which we considered in City of El Paso v. Collins, 440 S.W.3d 879 (Tex.App.—El Paso 2013, no pet.) (“Collins I”).

The First interlocutory Appeal

In Collins 1, we were faced solely with the question whether the Cpllins’ pleadings stated a valid claim against the City for which governmental immunity had been waived. Id. at 883. We considered each of the Collins’ claims separately,- reaching varying-conclusions as to each.

First, we agreed with the’ City that the cause of action seeking to hold the City liable as a “responsible third party” did not state a cause of action for which governmental immunity had' been waived, and we reversed and rendered judgment, dismissing that claim. Id. ■ at 883, 888-89.

[746]*746Second, we recognized that a governmental entity’s immunity is waived for a valid premises liability, claim under the Tort Claims Act, but concluded that the Collins had failed to,-properly plead the requisite elements of a premises liability claim. Id. at 886-87. In particular, we held that the.Collins’ lawsuit was governed by the Recreational Use Statute, which requires a plaintiff to allege that a defendant who has opened his premises up to recreational use acted with gross negligence and in turn requires a .plaintiff to plead that the defendant engaged in an act that involved an extreme degree of. risk and that the defendant had actual subjective awareness of the risk involved but nevertheless proceeded with conscious indifference to the rights, safety and welfare of others. Id. at 886-86. We held that while the Collins had made conclusory allegations that the City acted with gross negligence, they had failed to make any allegations that the City ‘had subjective knowledge of any alleged defects or malfunctions in the pool’s equipment that posed an extreme risk that children‘swimming at the pool could become entrapped in the drain, or that the cloudy water prevented others from seeing that a child was trapped. Id. at 886. We also concluded that the Collins had failed to properly allege that the defects were the proximate cause of Jade’s injuries, id. at 886-87. Nevertheless, our review of the record convinced us that it was hot impossible for the Collins to plead the requisite elements of their premises liability claim, and we therefore remanded the case to give the Collins the opportunity to amend their pleadings to state a valid premises liability claim for which governmental immunity had been waived. Id.

Third, we construed the Collins’ third claim as an attempt to bring a negligent use cause of action against the. City under Section 101.021(2) of the Tort Claims Act, for the City’s alleged misuse of tangible property at the pool. Id. at 887. While we noted that the City’s immunity is generally waived for a valid negligent use claim under the Tort Claims Act, we declined to consider whether the Collins had properly pleaded a negligent use claim because the City had not directly raised that issue on appeal. Id at 888.

Proceedings on Remand

On remand, the Collins filed three additional amended petitions — a Sixth Amended, a Seventh Amended, and a Supplemental Petition — in which they alleged, in accordance with our opinion in Collins I, that the City had been “subjectively aware”'of the extreme risk of-harm that was posed by two separate allegedly dangerous conditions at the pool.1

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
483 S.W.3d 742, 2016 WL 240882, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-el-paso-v-collins-texapp-2016.