The Texas Supreme Court on Friday rejected an appeal by Robe Elementary School students and teachers who argued that errors by the Department of Public Safety and Uvalde County resulted in a poor response to a 2022 shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers.
The court’s order, without comment, upheld a February ruling by the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio that dismissed the lawsuit.
DPS and the county are being sued for negligence by five teachers and 20 students who were at the school but not in the classroom where the shooting occurred.
“Most people were barricaded in nearby classrooms, gunfire could be heard, and some saw the gunman walking across the campus. The gunman also fired into the windows of at least one classroom where the appellant was located,” the appeals court noted. “Several appellants lost friends and cousins in the shootings, and others were injured during the evacuation. All were traumatized.”
The lawsuit alleges that DPS and Uvalde County failed to protect students and teachers — an allegation that the court acknowledged, “frankly, we cannot disagree with.”
Even so, the appeals court said their lawsuit alleges that DPS and the county were negligent under the Texas Tort Claims Act, a law that does not apply to their claims.
Students and teachers claim law enforcement officers failed to use communications equipment and protective gear to intervene and protect those inside the elementary school after waiting for more than an hour.
They also claimed that rescuers used “defective operating equipment that delayed the rescue and caused apparent harm” because the radio could only be used within a 10-foot radius of the building.
The students and teachers were injured “not only as a result of the shooter’s actions, but also as a result of delays in the rescue itself,” the lawsuit states.
The Court of Appeal ruled that under the Tort Claims Act, students and teachers must prove that “the use of the property must actually cause the plaintiff’s injury.”
The court ruled that the lawsuit provided no evidence that a properly functioning radio would have minimized or eliminated delays in rescue.
Additionally, many of the lawsuit’s claims revolve around law enforcement’s failure to use body armor, shields, firearms and protective gear. The appeals court ruled, however, that “publicly known failure to use the property” did not waive the county and Department of Public Safety’s immunity from lawsuits under tort law.
“As judges, we are bound by the maxim that ‘the waiver of governmental immunity is a matter for the Legislature, not the courts,'” the opinion said.
This article first appeared in The Texas Tribune.
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