Whether a bicyclist was riding on government property for recreation or not was the deciding factor in a personal-injury lawsuit that the Texas Supreme Court decided in favor of a government agency Friday.

The University of Texas at Austin has governmental immunity against a lawsuit by a bicyclist, April Garner, who was hurt when a university employee hit her with a vehicle, because she was on the property of the university to meet a friend to go ride bikes on a trail, said the opinion in The University of Texas at Austin v. Garner.

Garner claimed in her personal injury suit that the Tort Claims Act waived the university's governmental immunity. The high court found differently: Since she was recreating, the Recreational Use Statute applied. That law limits liability for all landowners, public and private.

"The governmental unit owes that person only the degree of care owed to a trespasser—that is, the duty not to injure intentionally or through gross negligence—and thus retains immunity from ordinary negligence claims even when the Tort Claims Act would otherwise waive such immunity," the opinion said.

At the trial-court level, the university lost a plea to the jurisdiction, and an intermediate appellate court upheld that ruling. The Supreme Court's decision overturns both lower-court rulings, and dismisses the case.

Attorneys in the Texas Office of the Attorney General represented the university, including Jeffrey Mateer, Joseph David Hughes, Matthew Jason Warner and Kyle Hawkins. No one from the attorney general's press office immediately responded to an email seeking comment.

James Rodman and Samantha Penturf, both of the Rodman Law Office in Austin, represented Garner. Rodman and Penturf didn't immediately return a call seeking comment.

Read the ruling: