Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Longview Police Department Officer Timothy Blickhahn was dispatched to back up an officer who was alone conducting a pedestrian stop involving two subjects. Although the call was coded as Priority 6 and carried a two-hour response window, Blickhahn and his field-training officer believed the circumstances required an immediate response because the solo officer was outnumbered and had not canceled the request for backup.
While responding without emergency lights or sirens, Blickhahn stopped at an intersection before turning left on a steady green light without a protected arrow. A pickup in an opposing lane obstructed his view of the outside lane, where Luis Enrique Castanon was approaching with a green light. The vehicles collided. Castanon sued the City for negligence and negligence per se, and the trial court granted the City’s plea to the jurisdiction based on governmental immunity.
The Court’s Holding
The Sixth Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Blickhahn was entitled to official immunity and therefore would not be personally liable under the Texas Tort Claims Act. Because employee liability was a prerequisite to the Act’s waiver in this context, official immunity preserved the City’s governmental immunity.
The court concluded that Blickhahn was performing a discretionary duty because he exercised judgment in assessing the backup call’s urgency and deciding how to respond. It also held that the City established good faith: under the circumstances, a reasonably prudent officer could have believed that the need to provide immediate backup outweighed the risk of making the turn after stopping and assessing traffic. Castanon did not meet his elevated burden to raise a fact issue showing that no reasonably prudent officer could have made that assessment. Because official immunity was dispositive, the court did not decide whether the TTCA’s emergency-response exception independently barred the suit.
Key Takeaways
- A police response can qualify as discretionary even when the dispatch code does not formally designate the call as an emergency.
- The relevant inquiry examines the officer’s overall discretionary function and its connection to the injury-producing conduct, rather than isolating the precise driving maneuver that caused the collision.
- Once the government presents competent evidence of good faith, the plaintiff must show that no reasonably prudent officer in the same position could have believed the conduct was justified; evidence of negligence or a reasonable alternative is insufficient by itself.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the breadth of official immunity when officers exercise professional judgment about the urgency and manner of responding to calls for assistance. A department’s nominal priority classification and the availability of safer alternatives do not necessarily defeat immunity when evidence supports the conclusion that a reasonable officer could have viewed immediate action as warranted.
For governmental defendants and personal-injury plaintiffs, the opinion also illustrates that official immunity may resolve a jurisdictional challenge without requiring a court to address the TTCA’s separate emergency-response exception.