Can a Texas county sheriff assign reserve deputies to work as paid security guards for private companies or other agencies?

Plain-English summary

The Harris County Attorney asked the Attorney General whether the county sheriff could call up reserve deputy sheriffs and assign them to work as security personnel for a separate governmental or private entity that would pay the deputies, either as employees or as independent contractors. The hook was section 85.004 of the Local Government Code, which deals with reserve deputies.

The office read that section narrowly. Section 85.004 lets a commissioners court authorize the sheriff to appoint reserve deputies and to call them "into service if the sheriff considers it necessary to have additional officers to preserve the peace and enforce the law." It says nothing about the sheriff lending or assigning deputies, reserve or regular, to outside public or private entities that would pay them. So the statute did not, by itself, authorize the arrangement described, and the office added that none of the other laws cited in the request supplied that authority either. The first question was answered no.

The County Attorney had also asked two follow-up questions: whether reserve deputies working as security personnel for outside entities would need a license under the Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies Act, and who would be liable for injuries they caused or suffered in that role. The office declined to reach either. Counties and county officers have only the powers the legislature expressly grants or that are necessarily implied, so the threshold question is whether the sheriff has authority to make the assignment at all. Having concluded no cited law gave that authority, the office said it would not be appropriate to address licensing or liability for an arrangement that had not been shown to be authorized in the first place.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1995. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here.

Section 85.004 of the Local Government Code on reserve deputies remains, but it and the surrounding county-law provisions have seen amendments since 1995, and the private-security statute the request mentioned (then V.T.C.S. art. 4413(29bb)) has since been recodified into the Occupations Code. Read this page for how the office analyzed the sheriff's authority as the law stood in 1995, and check the current Local Government Code and Occupations Code before relying on any specific provision here.

What the opinion meant for those who asked

For the Harris County Attorney: The opinion answered the first question directly: section 85.004 did not authorize the sheriff to assign reserve deputies as paid security personnel to outside entities, and the two related questions were left unanswered as premature.

For county sheriffs and commissioners courts: Under the opinion, the reserve-deputy power in section 85.004 reached calling up officers to preserve the peace and enforce the law, not detailing them to outside employers, and a county officer's authority has to be grounded in an express or necessarily implied grant.

For private-security licensing and liability questions: The opinion expressly declined to decide whether the Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies Act applied or who would bear liability, treating those as questions to address only after the threshold authority question was resolved.

Common questions

Could the Harris County Sheriff rent out reserve deputies as security guards?
Not under the statute the County Attorney cited. The opinion read section 85.004 to allow calling reserve deputies into service to preserve the peace and enforce the law, not to assign them as paid security personnel for outside governmental or private entities.

Why did the AG say the sheriff lacked authority?
Because counties and county officers have only the powers the legislature expressly grants or that are necessarily implied, and the office found no cited statute, section 85.004 or otherwise, that granted the power to make this kind of assignment.

Did the opinion decide whether the deputies would need a private-security license?
No. The office declined to reach the licensing question under the Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies Act, because the underlying authority to make the assignment had not been established.

Did it decide who would be liable for injuries?
No. The liability question was also left unanswered for the same reason; the opinion treated it as premature until the authority question was settled.

Background and statutory framework

Section 85.004 of the Local Government Code governed reserve deputy sheriffs, empowering a commissioners court to authorize the sheriff to appoint reserve deputies and to call them "into service if the sheriff considers it necessary to have additional officers to preserve the peace and enforce the law." The office found nothing in that section addressing the sheriff's provision of deputies to outside public or private entities that would pay them, and it noted that none of the other provisions cited in the request supplied that authority.

The request raised two further statutes-in-effect questions, both keyed to the Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies Act (V.T.C.S. art. 4413(29bb)): whether its licensing requirements would apply to reserve deputies serving as security personnel for other entities, and who would be liable for injuries connected to that service. Invoking the settled rule that counties and county officers possess only expressly granted or necessarily implied powers, the office concluded the authority question was the threshold issue and declined to address the licensing and liability questions in the opinion.

Citations

Statutory provisions discussed:

• Local Government Code § 85.004 (reserve deputy sheriffs; appointment and call into service)
• Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies Act, V.T.C.S. art. 4413(29bb) (raised but not reached)

Source

• Landing page: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/opinions/dan-morales/dm-0333
• Original PDF: https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/1995/dm0333.pdf

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain (including footnote numbering) — the linked PDF is authoritative.

Office of the Attorney General
State of Texas

DAN MORALES
ATTORNEY GENERAL

March 10, 1995

Honorable Mike Driscoll
Harris County Attorney
1001 Preston, Suite 634
Houston, Texas 77002-1891

Opinion No. DM-333

Re: Harris County Sheriff's authority to call up reserve deputy sheriffs to provide security personnel to separate governmental or private entities, and related questions (RQ-750)

Dear Mr. Driscoll:

You ask whether section 85.004 of the Local Government Code authorizes the Harris County Sheriff "to call a reserve deputy [sheriff] into service for the purpose of providing security personnel to a separate governmental or private entity that will pay the deputies on an employee or independent contractor basis." Elsewhere in your request, you characterize the contemplated arrangement as one where "a reserve deputy sheriff is assigned by the Sheriff to be employed . . . as security personnel with a separate governmental or private entity."

Section 85.004 generally empowers a commissioners court to authorize the sheriff to appoint reserve deputies and to call them "into service if the sheriff considers it necessary to have additional officers to preserve the peace and enforce the law." Section 85.004 in no way alludes to the sheriff's provision of deputies, reserve or otherwise, to other public or private entities which will themselves pay the deputies. Clearly, section 85.004 does not itself provide the authority you ask about, nor, we note, do any of the other provisions of law cited in your brief. We answer your first question in the negative.[1]

You ask additionally whether the licensure requirements of the Private Investigators and Private Security Agencies Act, V.T.C.S. art. 4413(29bb), apply to reserve deputies assigned as security personnel to other entities, and also who could be held liable for injuries suffered or inflicted by them while acting in such capacity. In view of our response to your first question, that neither section 85.004 nor any other law you have cited authorizes the sheriff's assignment of reserve deputies to other entities as security personnel, we do not think it appropriate to attempt to reach these questions here. Since counties and county officers have only such powers as are expressly granted by legislation or necessarily to be inferred therefrom, we believe that it must be established as a threshold matter whether and if so, under what circumstances the use of reserve deputies you ask about is authorized.[3]

SUMMARY

Section 85.004 of the Local Government Code, which generally empowers a commissioners court to authorize the sheriff to appoint reserve deputies and to call them "into service if the sheriff considers it necessary to have additional officers to preserve the peace and enforce the law," does not in itself authorize the Harris County Sheriff to call a reserve deputy sheriff into service for the purpose of providing security personnel to a separate governmental or private entity that will pay the deputies on an employee or independent contractor basis.

DAN MORALES
Attorney General of Texas

JORGE VEGA
First Assistant Attorney General

SARAH J. SHIRLEY
Chair, Opinion Committee

Prepared by William Walker
Assistant Attorney General