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Texas: Police Sergeant’s Widow May Not Recover Wrongful Death Benefits Against Police Department

April 08, 2016 (1 min read)

A widow’s civil action to recover damages from the Houston Police Department related to an incident in which her husband, a police sergeant, was killed in the line of duty by a man who was present in this country illegally, and who was subsequently convicted of the police sergeant’s murder, was barred by the exclusive remedy provisions of the Texas Workers’ Compensation Law. Her allegations that her husband’s death resulted from the gross negligence and intentional acts of the police department were unavailing; the Texas exemplary-damages exception does not apply to a political subdivision.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Johnson v. City of Houston, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 3153 (Mar. 29, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 101.02.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

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