Mere Inattentiveness Is Not Recklessness: The Emergency-Response Immunity Standard in City of Houston v. Gomez

I. Introduction

The Supreme Court of Texas’s per curiam decision in City of Houston v. Maria Christina Gomez, No. 23‑0858 (Tex. June 20, 2025), continues a clear trajectory in Texas jurisprudence: governmental units enjoy robust immunity from tort liability for vehicle accidents occurring during emergency responses unless the plaintiff can produce evidence of truly egregious, willful, or wanton conduct by the responding officer.

The case concerns a Houston police officer responding to an armed-robbery call who collided with another motorist at an intersection. The core legal question is whether the Texas Tort Claims Act’s “emergency exception” preserves the City’s immunity or whether the officer’s conduct was so culpable it pierced that exception by constituting “conscious indifference or reckless disregard for the safety of others” under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 101.055(2).

The Fourteenth Court of Appeals had held there was a fact issue on recklessness, precluding a jurisdictional dismissal. The Supreme Court disagreed. Anchoring its reasoning in its recent trilogy of decisions in City of San Antonio v. Maspero, City of Houston v. Green, and City of Austin v. Powell, the Court held that the evidence showed, at most, ordinary negligence. Because the plaintiff failed to generate a genuine fact issue on recklessness, the emergency exception applied, the City’s immunity remained intact, and the claim had to be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

Beyond resolving this particular dispute, Gomez serves as a clarifying precedent on (1) the evidentiary threshold for “reckless disregard” in emergency-response vehicle cases, (2) the plaintiff’s burden to negate statutory exceptions to immunity, and (3) the limits of the law-of-the-case doctrine when intervening Supreme Court authority demonstrates that an earlier appellate holding was clearly erroneous.

II. Case Background

A. Factual Setting

On the morning of December 24, 2011, Houston Police Officer Bobby Joe Simmons was on patrol in a marked police vehicle. Dispatch reported an armed robbery in progress. Because of heavy rain, the call was downgraded to a “Priority Two” call. That designation left it to Simmons’s discretion whether to activate emergency lights, the siren, or both.

The record reflected:

• There was “moderate” traffic and the streets were wet.
• Simmons never exceeded the posted 35‑mph speed limit on his way to the scene.
• He did not activate his siren (undisputed).
• He testified that he turned on his emergency lights; there was some evidence to the contrary, so that point was disputed.

As Simmons approached the intersection where the collision occurred, he reached down to raise the volume on his police radio. When he looked up again, the traffic light ahead had turned yellow. He immediately applied his brakes but, due to the wet roadway, his vehicle slid into the intersection.

At that moment, Maria Christina Gomez was driving through the intersection. She testified by affidavit that she had a green light when she entered. Her vehicle’s front left collided with the front right of the police car.

Following an internal investigation, Simmons was reprimanded as being “at fault,” which he did not contest. However, he was not cited for violating any traffic law.

B. Procedural History

1. Trial Court (First Plea):
   Gomez sued the City of Houston for negligence under the Texas Tort Claims Act (TTCA), alleging injuries from the collision. The City filed a plea to the jurisdiction, arguing it retained immunity under the TTCA’s “emergency exception” in § 101.055(2) because Simmons did not act with reckless disregard or conscious indifference. The trial court granted the City’s plea.
2. First Appeal – Gomez I:
   The Fourteenth Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, reversed. In Gomez v. City of Houston (Gomez I), 587 S.W.3d 891 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2019, pet. denied) (en banc), a divided court held that a material fact issue existed as to whether Simmons acted recklessly, preventing jurisdictional dismissal.
3. Remand and Supplemental Plea:
   On remand, the City supplemented its plea with a new affidavit aimed at establishing Simmons’s good faith for purposes of official immunity (a distinct but related doctrine). The trial court this time denied the City’s plea. The City took an interlocutory appeal under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 51.014(a)(8).
4. Second Appeal:
   The City again argued (a) official immunity based on good faith, and (b) that there was no fact issue on recklessness, particularly in light of the Texas Supreme Court’s intervening decision in City of San Antonio v. Maspero, 640 S.W.3d 523 (Tex. 2022). The court of appeals affirmed the denial, holding that Gomez I remained the law of the case on the emergency exception and that Maspero was fact-bound and did not change the analysis. City of Houston v. Gomez, 693 S.W.3d 523, 532 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2023).
5. Supreme Court Review:
   The City petitioned for review. The Supreme Court granted the petition, reversed the court of appeals, and rendered judgment dismissing the claim for lack of jurisdiction—without oral argument, under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 59.1. Justice Busby did not participate.

III. Summary of the Supreme Court’s Opinion

The Supreme Court held that:

• The Texas Tort Claims Act’s emergency exception, § 101.055(2), preserved the City’s immunity.
• To avoid the exception, Gomez had to raise a fact issue that Officer Simmons acted with “conscious indifference or reckless disregard for the safety of others.”
• Under the Court’s precedents, the evidence—viewed in Gomez’s favor—showed, at most, a “momentary lapse of judgment” or inattentiveness amounting to ordinary negligence, not recklessness.
• Because there was no fact issue on recklessness, immunity was not waived; the trial court should have granted the City’s plea to the jurisdiction.
• The court of appeals erred in:
  • Distinguishing Maspero on its facts instead of applying its broader legal principles; and
  • Invoking the law-of-the-case doctrine to adhere to Gomez I despite intervening Supreme Court authority (Maspero, Green, and later Powell) demonstrating that Gomez I was clearly erroneous regarding recklessness.

Accordingly, the Court reversed the court of appeals and rendered judgment dismissing Gomez’s claim against the City for lack of jurisdiction.

IV. Legal Framework

A. Governmental Immunity and the TTCA

The Court situates the case within the “foundational rule” of Texas governmental immunity:

• As a political subdivision, the City of Houston is immune from suit unless that immunity is clearly waived by statute.
• The plaintiff bears the burden of:
  1. Identifying a statutory provision that “clearly and affirmatively” waives immunity; and
  2. Negating any exceptions in the statute that would withdraw that waiver.
  The Court quotes City of Austin v. Powell, 704 S.W.3d 437, 447 (Tex. 2024), and Rattray v. City of Brownsville, 662 S.W.3d 860, 867 (Tex. 2023), to underscore this dual burden.

Under the Texas Tort Claims Act:

• Immunity is waived for certain tort claims, including those involving the “operation or use of a motor-driven vehicle” by a governmental employee acting in the scope of employment. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.021(1)(A).
• But that waiver is subject to multiple exceptions. One of those—central to this case—is the emergency exception in § 101.055(2).

B. The Emergency Exception – § 101.055(2)

Section 101.055(2) provides that the TTCA’s waiver of immunity does not apply to:

a claim arising . . . from the action of an employee while responding to an emergency call or reacting to an emergency situation if the action is in compliance with the laws and ordinances applicable to emergency action, or in the absence of such a law or ordinance, if the action is not taken with conscious indifference or reckless disregard for the safety of others.

The Court, following Powell, describes a two-part inquiry:

1. Compliance prong: Was the officer’s conduct in compliance with any “laws and ordinances applicable to emergency action”? If not, immunity may be waived.
2. Recklessness prong (fallback): If no such law or ordinance applies, did the officer act “with conscious indifference or reckless disregard for the safety of others”? If yes, immunity is waived; if no, immunity remains.

Here:

• It was undisputed that Simmons was “responding to an emergency call.”
• Gomez did not argue that he violated any specific law or ordinance applicable to emergency driving.
• Thus, the case turned entirely on the second prong: whether Simmons acted recklessly or with conscious indifference.

C. Standard of Review: Plea to the Jurisdiction

The Court applied the familiar standard from Tex. Dep’t of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 217, 228 (Tex. 2004):

• The denial of a plea to the jurisdiction is reviewed de novo.
• If there is no disputed material fact on the jurisdictional issues, the court decides the plea as a matter of law.
• As with summary judgment, courts must:
  • Credit evidence favorable to the nonmovant (the plaintiff); and
  • Draw all reasonable inferences in the nonmovant’s favor.

Nonetheless, even under this plaintiff-friendly evidentiary posture, the Court found no fact issue on recklessness.

V. Precedents and Authorities Cited

A. City of San Antonio v. Maspero, 640 S.W.3d 523 (Tex. 2022)

Maspero is the leading case defining “recklessness” for purposes of § 101.055(2). In Maspero:

• The Court equated the TTCA emergency-exception standard of “reckless disregard” with the Transportation Code’s definition of “reckless driving” in § 545.401(a): “wilful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property.”
• The Court emphasized that recklessness:
  • Requires “conscious indifference” or “subjective awareness of an extreme risk” (citing Tarrant County v. Bonner, 574 S.W.3d 893, 902 (Tex. 2019)); and
  • Demands more than a simple failure to exercise reasonable care.
• Even though the officer in Maspero was speeding in a car chase, the Court held that the evidence did not rise to the level of reckless disregard.

In Gomez, the Court criticizes the court of appeals for treating Maspero as highly fact-specific and therefore distinguishable. The Supreme Court insists that Maspero announced general principles about the recklessness standard that apply broadly to emergency-response vehicle cases, including this one.

B. City of Houston v. Green, 672 S.W.3d 27 (Tex. 2023)

Green is especially close factually:

• A Houston officer responding to a Priority Two call drove through a red light and collided with another vehicle.
• There were fact disputes about whether the officer:
  • Was speeding; and
  • Had activated his siren.
• The City moved for summary judgment on the emergency exception, which the lower courts denied.
• The Supreme Court reversed, holding there was no fact issue on reckless disregard.

Green reinforced Maspero by holding that reckless disregard “involves more than a ‘momentary judgment lapse’” (quoting Maspero, 640 S.W.3d at 531). Even assuming the officer had failed to use his siren or had exceeded the speed limit, the evidence did not show conscious indifference or a willful/wanton disregard for safety.

In Gomez, the Court notes that Green was decided two months before the court of appeals’ later opinion yet was not properly incorporated into the lower court’s analysis. The Supreme Court applies Green directly and treats Gomez as a straightforward application of its reasoning.

C. City of Austin v. Powell, 704 S.W.3d 437 (Tex. 2024)

Powell further refines the recklessness analysis and the plaintiff’s burden regarding statutory exceptions:

• Facts: An officer in a high-speed chase lost control of his vehicle and collided with a car stopped at an intersection.
• The Court held that even if the officer had been inattentive, such evidence would amount to “only ordinary negligence,” not recklessness.
• The Court described “failure to pay attention” as “a paradigmatic example of negligence and [one that] does not by itself constitute reckless conduct.”
• Powell also articulates the requirement that a plaintiff:
  • Establish that the statute clearly waives immunity; and
  • “Negate any provisions that create exceptions to, and thus withdraw, that waiver” (quoting Rattray).

In Gomez, the Court relies on Powell for the conceptual distinction between inattentiveness and recklessness and for the description of plaintiff’s burden in immunity cases.

D. Tarrant County v. Bonner, 574 S.W.3d 893 (Tex. 2019)

Bonner provides the general definition of “recklessness” as involving:

• “Conscious indifference” or
• “Subjective awareness of an extreme risk.”

Gomez invokes Bonner (via Maspero) to emphasize that the TTCA emergency-exception standard is stringent and subjective: the officer must actually appreciate a very high degree of risk and proceed regardless.

E. Texas Transportation Code § 545.401(a)

Section 545.401(a) defines “reckless driving” as driving “in wilful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property.” The Court in Maspero and again in Gomez uses this statute to harmonize the meaning of “reckless” across:

• Traffic offenses (reckless driving), and
• Immunity doctrines (TTCA emergency exception).

By aligning the standards, the Court ensures consistency: only conduct that would be considered criminal-level recklessness (willful or wanton disregard) can satisfy the TTCA’s recklessness requirement.

F. Briscoe v. Goodmark Corp., 102 S.W.3d 714 (Tex. 2003) – Law-of-the-Case

Briscoe addresses the law-of-the-case doctrine. Key points:

• The doctrine is discretionary, not mandatory.
• It does not bind a court when the prior decision was “clearly erroneous.”

In Gomez, the court of appeals believed it was bound by its earlier en banc decision in Gomez I to hold that a fact issue existed on recklessness. The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that:

• The subsequent Supreme Court decisions in Maspero and Green showed that Gomez I was clearly erroneous on recklessness; and
• Thus, under Briscoe, the law-of-the-case doctrine should not have been applied to perpetuate that error.

G. Other Authorities

• Tex. Dep’t of Parks & Wildlife v. Miranda, 133 S.W.3d 217 (Tex. 2004): Sets out the standard of review for pleas to the jurisdiction and the summary-judgment-like standard for resolving fact disputes on jurisdictional issues.
• City of Houston v. Rodriguez, 704 S.W.3d 462 (Tex. 2024): Cited for the proposition that a governmental employer’s immunity is not waived if its employee enjoys official immunity, and for linking TTCA § 101.021(1)(B) to the requirement that the employee be personally liable.
• Rattray v. City of Brownsville, 662 S.W.3d 860 (Tex. 2023): Provides the rule that a plaintiff must negate statutory exceptions that withdraw otherwise applicable waivers of immunity.

VI. The Court’s Legal Reasoning in Gomez

A. Step One: Emergency Call and Compliance with Laws

The Court adopted the two-step framework articulated in Powell:

1. Determine whether the officer was responding to an emergency call and whether he complied with laws and ordinances governing emergency action.
2. If there is no noncompliance with such laws, examine whether the officer acted with conscious indifference or reckless disregard for the safety of others.

In this case:

• Both parties agreed that Simmons was responding to an emergency call when the accident occurred.
• Gomez did not argue that he violated any “laws and ordinances applicable to emergency action.”

Because the first prong was therefore satisfied in the City’s favor, the entire analysis turned on the second prong—the “reckless disregard” question.

B. Step Two: Did Simmons Act with Reckless Disregard?

The Court assessed Simmons’s conduct under the strict recklessness standard derived from Maspero, Green, and Powell. Key facts, construed in Gomez’s favor, included:

• Heavy rain and wet roads.
• Moderate traffic.
• Officer was responding to a downgraded but still emergency (Priority Two) robbery call.
• Simmons may or may not have had his emergency lights on (fact dispute); he definitely did not have his siren on.
• He never exceeded the 35‑mph speed limit.
• As he approached the intersection, he momentarily looked down to adjust his radio volume, and when he looked back up, the light was yellow.
• He immediately hit the brakes, but the car slid due to the wet road into the intersection, where it collided with Gomez’s vehicle.

The Court concluded:

• At worst, Simmons’s conduct showed a “momentary lapse of judgment” or inattentiveness; this aligns squarely with ordinary negligence.
• Under Powell, “failure to pay attention” is the paradigm of negligence and is insufficient, by itself, to constitute reckless conduct.
• The evidence did not show “willful or wanton disregard” or “subjective awareness of an extreme risk” as required by the recklessness standard.
• Because Simmons had discretion under departmental policy to decide whether to use lights and siren, his failure to use the siren (and even a possible failure to use lights) did not, without more, amount to reckless disregard. The Court relied on Green for the proposition that discretionary choices about siren use, standing alone, do not ordinarily constitute recklessness.
• Simmons was not speeding and did attempt to brake upon recognizing the risk (the yellow light), suggesting an effort to avoid harm—not indifference to it.

Thus, even with all reasonable inferences drawn in Gomez’s favor, the record could not support a finding of conduct approaching the “conscious indifference” threshold. The Court stressed that to convert such facts into recklessness would collapse the doctrinal distinction between negligence and recklessness, contrary to legislative intent and prior precedent.

C. The Court of Appeals’ Errors

The Supreme Court identified two principal errors in the court of appeals’ analysis:

1. Mischaracterizing Maspero as Fact-Bound

The court of appeals attempted to sidestep Maspero by focusing on factual differences between the two cases. The Supreme Court rejected this approach, emphasizing:

• While police-vehicle emergency cases are “highly fact-intensive,” Maspero sets out controlling legal standards for recklessness that apply across cases.
• Those standards were subsequently applied and reinforced in Green and Powell.
• The factual differences between Maspero and Gomez did not justify ignoring those broader principles.

2. Misuse of the Law-of-the-Case Doctrine

The court of appeals treated its earlier en banc opinion in Gomez I as binding under the law-of-the-case doctrine, concluding it could not revisit whether a fact issue on recklessness existed. The Supreme Court held this was incorrect because:

• The doctrine is discretionary and does not apply where the earlier decision is “clearly erroneous.”
• Maspero and Green, both decided after Gomez I, made clear that ordinary negligence and inattentiveness—like those shown in this record—do not meet the recklessness threshold.
• Thus, Gomez I’s conclusion that the summary-judgment-type record raised a fact issue on recklessness conflicted with later, binding Supreme Court authority and was clearly erroneous.

The Court approvingly cites the dissenting justice in the second court-of-appeals decision (Wilson, J.), who recognized that Maspero and Green conflicted with Gomez I’s recklessness analysis.

VII. Complex Concepts Simplified

A. Negligence vs. Recklessness vs. Conscious Indifference

The opinion turns on distinctions among terms that often sound similar in everyday language but carry specific legal meanings:

• Ordinary negligence:
  • Failure to use the degree of care that a reasonably prudent person would use under similar circumstances.
  • Examples: failing to look both ways, following too closely, briefly taking one’s eyes off the road to adjust a device.
• Recklessness / “wilful or wanton disregard”:
  • A much higher level of culpability.
  • Requires that the actor actually recognize an extreme risk of serious harm and proceed anyway.
  • In statutory terms, “wilful or wanton disregard” (Transp. Code § 545.401(a)).
• Conscious indifference / subjective awareness:
  • The actor is aware of the danger but does not care whether the risk materializes.
  • This is more than simply failing to notice a risk; it involves noticing and disregarding.

In Texas’s TTCA context, only the last two—recklessness and conscious indifference—are enough to overcome the emergency exception. Ordinary negligence, no matter how unfortunate its consequences, is not.

B. Plea to the Jurisdiction

A plea to the jurisdiction is a procedural mechanism used by governmental units to challenge the court’s subject-matter jurisdiction—often based on immunity. Instead of waiting for trial:

• The governmental entity asserts that the court lacks power to hear the case at all because immunity has not been clearly waived.
• The court may consider evidence (like affidavits, deposition excerpts, etc.), much as in a summary-judgment motion.
• If there is no fact issue on the jurisdictional questions, the court resolves them as a matter of law. If immunity applies, the case must be dismissed.

This front-loads immunity determinations, reflecting the idea that immunity is not just a defense to liability but a protection from suit itself.

C. Law-of-the-Case Doctrine

The law-of-the-case doctrine provides that:

• When an appellate court has decided a legal question and remanded the case, that decision generally governs the same issue in later stages of the same case.
• But the doctrine is not absolute. It does not require adherence to a prior ruling if:
  • The prior decision is clearly wrong; or
  • There has been an intervening change in the law.

In Gomez, intervening Supreme Court decisions (Maspero, Green) sharpened the recklessness standard, effectively showing that Gomez I had overstated what constitutes a fact issue on reckless disregard. That made law-of-the-case inapplicable.

D. Official Immunity (Why It Was Not Reached)

The City separately argued that Simmons was entitled to official immunity, a doctrine that generally protects governmental employees from personal liability when they:

• Perform discretionary duties;
• Within the scope of their authority; and
• In good faith.

If Simmons were protected by official immunity, the City’s immunity would likewise remain intact because TTCA § 101.021(1)(B) only waives immunity if the employee would be personally liable. The Supreme Court, however, did not reach this official-immunity argument because it resolved the case entirely under the TTCA’s emergency exception. Once it concluded that immunity was not waived under § 101.055(2), any further analysis was unnecessary.

VIII. Doctrinal Significance and Practical Impact

A. Cementing a High Threshold for Waiver Under the Emergency Exception

Gomez, in combination with Maspero, Green, and Powell, solidifies several critical points:

1. Recklessness requires more than bad driving.
   Speeding, failing to use a siren, misjudging a light, or momentarily looking away from the road—even in combination—will often be insufficient to show reckless disregard unless coupled with evidence of:
   • Knowledge of an extreme risk, and
   • A decision to proceed despite that awareness.
2. Inattentiveness is paradigmatic negligence, not recklessness.
   The Court repeatedly uses this language (Powell, applied in Gomez) to signal that plaintiffs must identify something qualitatively worse than simple distraction or misjudgment.
3. Discretionary choices about lights and sirens are rarely, by themselves, reckless.
   Both Green and Gomez involve Priority Two calls, where policy granted officers discretion about emergency equipment. The Court treats these as context that cuts against a recklessness finding.

The net effect is to make it significantly harder for plaintiffs to overcome the emergency exception in vehicle-collision cases involving police responses.

B. Effects on Plaintiffs and Litigation Strategy

For plaintiffs injured in collisions with emergency vehicles:

• The decision underscores the importance of:
  • Identifying and pleading any specific statutory or ordinance violations governing emergency driving; or
  • Developing evidence of truly extreme conduct—e.g., racing at dangerous speeds in congested areas, ignoring obvious, severe hazards, or deliberately flouting known safety requirements—while subjectively aware of the risk.
• Plaintiffs must be prepared to meet their dual burden early:
  • Show that the TTCA’s motor-vehicle waiver applies; and
  • Affirmatively negate § 101.055(2) by either:
    • Proving a violation of applicable emergency-driving laws/ordinances, or
    • Showing evidence of conscious indifference/reckless disregard.

Failing to meet this threshold will result in dismissal at the plea-to-the-jurisdiction stage, before a jury ever hears the case.

C. Guidance for Law Enforcement Agencies and Municipalities

For cities and law-enforcement agencies, Gomez provides:

• Reassurance about the scope of immunity for accidents occurring during emergency responses, provided officers:
  • Stay within or reasonably close to speed limits;
  • Make discretionary use of emergency equipment consistent with policy; and
  • Attempt to avoid collisions (e.g., braking, slowing, yielding when possible).
• A reminder that:
  • Internal determinations of “fault” (like Simmons’s reprimand) do not control the legal recklessness analysis.
  • Disciplinary actions can coexist with immunity; an officer may be negligent under departmental standards yet not legally reckless under the TTCA.

Agencies may still wish to maintain or strengthen training and protocols concerning intersection entry, radio use, and emergency-equipment deployment, but Gomez makes clear that such internal standards do not define the TTCA’s recklessness threshold.

D. Implications for Appellate Practice and the Law-of-the-Case Doctrine

Gomez sends a cautionary signal to intermediate courts:

• Law-of-the-case should not be used to entrench earlier rulings that conflict with later Supreme Court precedent.
• When the Supreme Court clarifies or tightens a legal standard (as it did on recklessness in Maspero and Green), intermediate courts must conform their earlier positions, even in the same case on remand.

For practitioners, this reinforces the importance of:

• Monitoring intervening Supreme Court decisions between remand and further appellate proceedings; and
• Arguing explicitly that earlier law-of-the-case rulings are clearly erroneous in light of new binding authority.

IX. Key Takeaways

• High bar for recklessness: The TTCA emergency exception remains a robust shield. To defeat it, plaintiffs must show more than ordinary negligence; they must show willful or wanton disregard backed by subjective awareness of an extreme risk.
• Inattentiveness is not enough: Momentary lapses in judgment—such as briefly adjusting a radio and misjudging a light—are insufficient to establish “reckless disregard.”
• Burden on the plaintiff: The plaintiff must not only invoke the TTCA’s motor-vehicle waiver but also negate the emergency exception by evidence of violation of applicable emergency laws or by evidence of recklessness.
• Precedents matter more than factual distinctions: Maspero, Green, and Powell supply controlling principles on recklessness that apply across varying fact patterns.
• Law-of-the-case is limited: Intermediate appellate courts cannot rely on the doctrine to maintain earlier rulings that have been undermined by intervening Supreme Court decisions.
• Official immunity left unresolved: The Court resolved the case purely on the TTCA’s emergency exception, leaving the City’s official-immunity arguments unaddressed.

X. Conclusion

City of Houston v. Gomez is a pivotal reaffirmation and refinement of Texas’s emergency-response immunity regime. Building on Maspero, Green, and Powell, the Court cements a stringent recklessness standard that sharply limits municipal liability for accidents occurring while officers respond to emergencies.

The opinion underscores that the Texas Legislature, through the TTCA, struck a deliberate policy balance: governmental entities are only to be held liable for emergency-driving decisions in rare cases where officers act with something approaching criminal-level indifference to public safety. Routine errors, misjudgments, and distractions—even those that cause real injury—fall on the immunity side of that line.

At the same time, Gomez clarifies the allocation of burdens in immunity litigation and the proper application of law-of-the-case when intervening Supreme Court authorities alter the analytical landscape. As such, it is not only a police-vehicle case but a significant procedural and doctrinal marker for future TTCA litigation in Texas.