When injuries occur on public roadways, plaintiffs often look beyond the immediate parties and sue the engineers and contractors who designed or built the roadway. Many states have statutes that attempt to shield those parties from liability. Whether immunity attaches in a given case is often a matter of statutory interpretation. For example, in Texas, contractors who construct or repair a highway, road, or street for the Texas Department of Transportation are immune from liability for personal injuries provided that the contractor complied with contract documents material to the condition that caused the injury (see Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. § 97.002). This seems straightforward enough, but what if the contractor was hired by a county to work on a road that will be maintained by the Texas Department of Transportation?
This issue was addressed in a decision released last week by the Supreme Court of Texas in Third Coast Services, LLC v. Castaneda, No. 23-0848, 2025 WL 3558839 (Tex. Dec. 12, 2025). In that case, the decedent was killed in a fatal automobile accident at an intersection under construction. The decedent’s family sued the general contractor and one subcontractor (collectively “the contractors”) responsible for building the roadway and installing traffic lights. The general contractor had a contract with the county, not the state, however the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) had agreed to assume responsibility for the roadway’s operation and maintenance once construction was complete. The contractors raised an affirmative defense under a Texas state statute that precludes liability for contractors who constructed or repaired a highway, road, or street “for” TxDOT. The lower courts found that the contractors worked for the county — not TxDOT — therefore falling outside of the statute’s protection. The Texas Supreme Court disagreed.
Focusing on the statute’s plain language, the court held that the term “for” is not limited to construction projects where TxDOT directly hired the contractor. The court emphasized that the ordinary meaning of “for” (based on dictionaries from around the statute’s enactment) was that the result of an identified activity would be received, owned, or used by the person the activity is “for.” With that in mind, the court found the work of the contractors was “for” TxDOT, because TxDOT agreed that it would bear responsibility for the operation and maintenance of the roads once completed. Accordingly, the court held that the statutory protection applied, and the lower courts erred in denying the contractors’ affirmative defense.
The case is a nice win for roadway contractors in Texas and a good reminder that who you work for matters. A copy of the court’s decision is available here.