Full Opinion

Opinion issued October 13, 2026 In The Court of Appeals For The First District of Texas ———————————— NO. 01-25-00033-CV ——————————— CITY OF HOUSTON, Appellant V. EDSON CARRIZALES CRUZ, Appellee On Appeal from County Civil Court at Law No. 4 Harris County, Texas Trial Court Case No. 1236419 OPINION The City of Houston appeals from the trial court’s order denying its motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction under Rule 91a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. We affirm. BACKGROUND Edson Carrizales Cruz sued the City for negligence. His suit arises out of an automobile accident. In his original petition, Carrizales alleged a City employee failed to keep a proper lookout, failed to yield the right of way, ran a red light, struck his vehicle, and caused him to sustain serious bodily injuries. Carrizales alleged on information and belief that this employee was in a vehicle owned by the City at the time of the accident and was operating it within the scope of his employment. Based on these facts, Carrizales invoked the motor-vehicle waiver of governmental immunity in the Texas Tort Claims Act. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 101.021(1) (waiver of governmental immunity for motor-vehicle accidents caused by negligence of governmental employee acting in scope of employment). The City moved to dismiss the suit under Rule 91a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. In its motion, the City argued that Carrizales’s allegations concerning its employee being within the scope of his employment at the time of the automobile accident are too conclusory to establish the waiver of its governmental immunity. The trial court denied the City’s motion to dismiss. The City appeals. DISCUSSION On appeal, the City reiterates the argument that it made below. It argues that Carrizales has alleged insufficient facts to bring him within the TTCA’s motor- vehicle waiver of governmental immunity. The City emphasizes that his petition is 2 silent as to its employee’s “manner and purpose at the time of the incident,” such that the employee could have been acting outside the scope of his employment. Standard of Review When, like here, a party moves for dismissal under Rule 91a, we review de novo the trial court’s ruling based on the allegations in the plaintiff’s petition, which we accept as true.1 In re Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 735 S.W.3d 719, 721 (Tex. 2026); see TEX. R. CIV. P. 91a.1, 91a.6. Analysis In his petition, Carrizales alleged his vehicle was struck by a City employee who ran a red light while driving a City vehicle within the scope of his employment. We have repeatedly held that allegations of this sort are sufficient to invoke the TTCA’s waiver of governmental immunity for motor-vehicle accidents and withstand a motion to dismiss under Rule 91a at this early stage of a suit. E.g., City of Houston v. Castro, No. 01-24-01028-CV, 2026 WL 2523444, at *2 (Tex. App.— Houston [1st Dist.] Aug. 27, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.); City of Houston v. Tennon, 1 Carrizales amended his original petition before the trial court ruled on the City’s motion, but he did not do so at least three days before the trial court heard the motion. We may therefore only consider his original petition in our review. See TEX. R. CIV. P. 91a.5(b)–(c) (trial court may not consider amendment filed less than three days before hearing); City of Houston v. Tapia, No. 01-25-00016-CV, 2025 WL 3275141, at *9 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Nov. 25, 2025, no pet.) (mem. op.) (appellate court cannot consider untimely amendment in its review); City of Houston v. Stephens, No. 01-25-00180-CV, 2025 WL 3275142, at *4 & n.6 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Nov. 25, 2025, no pet.) (mem. op.) (trial court errs if it considers untimely amendment). 3 No. 01-25-00391-CV, 2026 WL 168814, at *5–7 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Jan. 22, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.); Hsu v. Hernandez, No. 01-24-00948-CV, 2025 WL 3236294, at *3 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Nov. 20, 2025, no pet.) (mem. op.). Our sister court has reached the same conclusion. E.g., City of Houston v. Antonio, — S.W.3d —, 2026 WL 1979035, at *3 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] July 9, 2026, no pet.). Here, Carrizales benefits from a longstanding, well-recognized presumption: when a vehicle involved in an accident is owned by the defendant and driven by one of its employees, the law presumes, subject to contrary evidence, that the driver was acting within the scope of his employment when the accident took place. Robertson Tank Lines, Inc. v. Van Cleave, 468 S.W.2d 354, 357–58 (Tex. 1971). So, when a plaintiff, like Carrizales, pleads he was struck by a City employee driving a City vehicle, these allegations suffice to allege the employee was acting in the scope of his employment. See Lara v. City of Hempstead, No. 01-15-00987-CV, 2016 WL 3964794, at *4 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] July 21, 2016, pet. denied) (mem. op.) (stating that this presumption applies in TTCA automobile accident cases). The City argues that the application of this presumption is incompatible with controlling precedent on governmental immunity, like Rattray v. City of Brownsville, in which the supreme court emphasized that there is “a presumption against any waiver until the plaintiff establishes otherwise” by “alleging facts that 4 bring a claim within the waiver” being invoked. 662 S.W.3d 860, 866–67 (Tex. 2023). According to the City, application of a presumption that its employee was acting within the scope of his employment impermissibly excuses the plaintiff from his obligation to allege actual facts that plausibly suggest the employee was doing so. In this way, the City says, the presumption reverses the burden of proof, requiring it to prove that its governmental immunity remains intact, rather than requiring the plaintiff to establish jurisdiction by pleading a valid waiver of its immunity. We disagree. We have long applied this scope-of-employment presumption in evaluating governmental immunity under the TTCA. E.g., Lara, 2016 WL 3964794, at *4. As we have noted, the presumption functions only as a procedural device. Id. At this early stage of the litigation, a plaintiff must still allege particular facts—that the driver was a governmental employee and was driving a governmental vehicle— to invoke the TTCA’s motor-vehicle waiver of governmental immunity. See id. The presumption that the governmental employee was acting within the scope of his employment under these circumstances does not alter the burden of proof to establish a waiver of governmental immunity, which the plaintiff ultimately retains if the jurisdictional facts are disputed later in the litigation. Id.; see also City of Houston v. Wahhab, No. 01-25-00783-CV, 2026 WL 1025764, at *5–6 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Apr. 16, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.) (rejecting City’s contention that scope- 5 of-employment presumption places burden on City to prove governmental immunity in case in which it moved for traditional summary judgment based on immunity). Rattray does not require abandonment of this presumption. It did not address pleading requirements for alleging an employee was in his scope of employment. Nor is the application of a scope-of-employment presumption contrary to Rule 91a. It states a cause of action “has no basis in law if the allegations, taken as true, together with inferences reasonably drawn from them, do not entitle the claimant to the relief sought.” TEX. R. CIV. P. 91a.1. A presumption like this one, which is rebuttable, essentially is a limited “inference drawn from certain facts.” Presumption, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (12th ed. 2024) (defining “rebuttable presumption”); see Robertson Tank Lines, 468 S.W.2d at 358 (without additional evidence, fact that employee was driving employer’s vehicle will not support inference he was acting in scope of employment once presumption is rebutted). The City also urges us to construe the TTCA’s motor-vehicle waiver of governmental immunity, in tandem with Rule 91a, as requiring a plaintiff to allege what the governmental employee was doing at the time of the accident and why he was doing it because a given employee may not in fact have been performing his job duties. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 101.001(5) (scope of employment entails “performance for a governmental unit of the duties of an employee’s office or employment”); see also Lara, 2016 WL 3964794, at *4 (when disputed, whether 6 governmental employee was in scope of employment requires examination of what employee was doing at time of accident and why). It is true that an employee is not always acting within the scope of his employment when he is behind the wheel of a vehicle owned by his employer, and this is why the scope-of-employment presumption may be rebutted. However, as our sister court has correctly observed in the context of litigation about the TTCA’s motor-vehicle waiver of governmental immunity, “Rule 91a does not require a plaintiff to negate every hypothetical circumstance under which an employee might have acted outside the scope of his employment.” City of Houston v. Hazim, No. 14-25-00627-CV, 2026 WL 1792983, at *4 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] June 23, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.). Instead, the proper inquiry is “whether the facts alleged, taken as true, support a reasonable inference that the employee was acting within the scope of employment.” Id. Accounting for the presumption that an employee driving his employer’s vehicle at the time of an accident was acting in the scope of his employment, Carrizales’s factual allegations raise a reasonable inference that the City’s employee was acting in the scope of his employment. See, e.g., City of Houston v. Ward, No. 14-25-00583-CV, 2026 WL 1955933, at *3 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] July 7, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.) (allegations that driver was city employee entrusted with city vehicle sufficed to allege he was in scope of employment due to presumption); City of Houston v. Gabiola, No. 14-25-00725-CV, 2026 WL 7 1876169, at *2 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] June 30, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.) (same); see also City of Houston v. Villasante-Martinez, No. 14-25-00586-CV, 2026 WL 2123394, at *4 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] July 23, 2026, no pet.) (mem. op.) (allegations like these were “sufficient to support an inference, or give rise to a legal presumption,” that governmental employee was acting in scope of employment). We overrule the sole issue the City raises in this interlocutory appeal. CONCLUSION We affirm the trial court’s order denying the City’s motion to dismiss for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Rule 91a of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure. David Gunn Justice Panel consists of Justices Rivas-Molloy, Guerra, and Gunn. 8