Reviewed by Ryan Orsatti, Texas personal injury attorney.
Quick Answer
- Premises liability is the Texas law that governs injuries caused by dangerous property conditions: falls, collapsing fixtures, broken stairs, missing railings, flooded walkways, inadequate lighting, and assaults enabled by poor security.
- What the property owner owes you depends on your legal status on the property. Customers and business visitors (invitees) get the most protection; social guests (licensees) less; trespassers the least.
- For a customer, the claim requires proof the owner knew or reasonably should have known about the condition and failed to use reasonable care, the standard from Corbin v. Safeway Stores, Inc.
- The general deadline to file suit is two years under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003, with far shorter notice deadlines when a government entity controls the property.
Key Takeaways
- Texas property owners are not automatically liable for every injury on their land. Liability turns on the owner’s knowledge, your status, and what a reasonable owner would have done.
- Texas draws a hard line between a premises defect (a condition, like a broken step) and a negligent activity (ongoing conduct, like a forklift strike). The theories have different rules, and pleading the wrong one can sink a real case.
- Negligent security is premises liability too: an owner in control of property can owe a duty to protect visitors from foreseeable criminal acts of third parties, the rule applied by the Texas Supreme Court in Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith.
- Landlords, management companies, maintenance contractors, and franchisors can share responsibility; the right defendant is often not the name on the front door.
- Evidence in these cases (video, inspection logs, prior incident reports, work orders) belongs to the defendant and disappears fast. Preservation letters in the first days matter more than anything else you can do.
- Shared fault reduces but does not bar recovery unless your responsibility exceeds 50 percent under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001.
What Counts as a Premises Liability Case in Texas?
Any injury caused by the condition of land or a building can be a premises case. In San Antonio the fact patterns we see most often include:
- Slip and trip hazards in stores, restaurants, and hotels: spills, freshly mopped floors without cones, produce on the floor, torn mats, uneven thresholds;
- Broken stairs, missing or loose handrails, and code-defective steps in apartment complexes;
- Parking lot hazards: potholes, unmarked wheel stops, ice on rare freeze days, and lighting so poor the hazard cannot be seen;
- Falling merchandise and collapsing fixtures in big-box stores;
- Swimming pool injuries and drownings where barriers, latches, or supervision failed;
- Assaults and robberies enabled by inadequate security at apartments, bars, gas stations, and motels;
- Dog attacks on someone else’s property, which run under their own rules; see the firm’s San Antonio dog bite page;
- Injuries on construction sites, which overlap with the firm’s construction accident practice and carry their own statutory rules for property owners.
For the fall-specific version of these claims, including the time-notice rule that decides most of them, see the firm’s San Antonio slip and fall page.
Your Legal Status Decides What the Owner Owed You
Texas premises law sorts visitors into three categories, and the owner’s duty changes with each.
| Visitor status | Who that usually is | What the owner owes |
|---|---|---|
| Invitee | Customers, business visitors, tenants in common areas | Reasonable care to inspect, and to fix or warn of conditions the owner knows of or should discover (the Corbin elements) |
| Licensee | Social guests, people present with permission for their own purposes | Not to injure willfully or through gross negligence, and to warn of or fix known dangers the guest does not know about |
| Trespasser | People present without permission | Only not to injure willfully, wantonly, or with gross negligence; children near attractive nuisances are a separate analysis |
Status is not always obvious. A tenant’s guest in a stairwell, a delivery driver in a loading area, a child at an apartment pool: where you fit is a legal question that changes the whole case, and it is one of the first things a lawyer should pin down.
Premises Defect or Negligent Activity? Texas Makes You Choose
Texas treats an injury from a condition of the property (the broken step, the standing water) differently from an injury caused by ongoing activity on the property (a pallet jack strike, an active spill in progress). The distinction sounds academic and is anything but: the jury questions differ, the knowledge requirements differ, and defendants routinely move to dismiss cases pleaded under the wrong theory. If the harm came from a condition left behind, it is a premises defect case and the owner’s knowledge is the battleground. If the harm came contemporaneously from what someone was doing, it is a negligence case about the activity. Serious injuries deserve a pleading strategy that gets this right at the start.
Negligent Security: When the Danger Is Another Person
An owner who controls property can owe a duty to use ordinary care to protect invitees from criminal acts of third parties when the owner knows or has reason to know of an unreasonable and foreseeable risk of harm. The Texas Supreme Court applied that duty in Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith, 307 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. 2010), where a resort bar let a visibly escalating confrontation build for ninety minutes before it erupted. Foreseeability is usually measured by factors drawn from Timberwalk Apartments v. Cain: how recent, how frequent, how similar, and how near prior crimes were, and what publicity they received; Del Lago confirmed that conduct unfolding right in front of the owner can make violence foreseeable even without a history of prior crimes.
In practice these are apartment complex shootings, motel assaults, bar fights, and gas station robberies. The case is rarely against the attacker, who is judgment-proof; it is against the property that ignored the risk. Lighting audits, prior 911 call logs for the address, broken gate work orders, and security staffing records are the evidence that decides them. Where the underlying crime is a sexual assault, the firm’s civil sexual assault practice addresses both the perpetrator and the property.
Who Is the Right Defendant?
The name on the building is a starting point, not an answer. Depending on control and contract:
- Owners and occupiers in control of the area where you were hurt;
- Management companies that contracted to inspect and maintain;
- Maintenance and janitorial contractors whose logs show what was and was not done;
- Landlords, for common areas they control and, in some circumstances, known dangers on leased premises;
- Franchisors, where the franchise agreement retains control over the relevant safety function.
Texas also has special statutes that shape these cases: Chapter 75 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code limits the duty landowners owe recreational users of their land, and Chapter 95 limits an owner’s liability to contractors’ employees working on improvements. Whether one of those statutes applies can decide a case before the facts are ever reached, which is another reason early legal analysis matters.
What to Do After a Serious Injury on Someone Else’s Property
- Report it in writing before you leave (manager, landlord, or property office) and keep proof of the report.
- Photograph everything: the condition, the lighting, the absence of warnings, the wider scene, and your injuries.
- Identify witnesses and anyone who complained about the condition before.
- Get medical care the same day and report every symptom, including hits to the head.
- Send preservation letters fast: surveillance video, inspection and sweep logs, work orders, incident reports, gate and lock records, staffing schedules. Most of this is overwritten or discarded on short cycles.
- Keep what you wore, unwashed, and start a file of bills, receipts, and missed work.
- Decline recorded statements until you understand the status, knowledge, and comparative-fault fights the insurer is setting up.
Attorney Insight. The most underused evidence in Texas premises cases is the property’s own paper: prior incident reports for the same hazard, inspection checklists that stopped being filled out, work orders that sat open for months, and, in security cases, the 911 call history for the address. In matters we handle, that paper does two jobs at once. It proves the owner knew, and it proves what reasonable care would have cost, which is usually trivial next to the injury. Juries respond to a $40 handrail repair that never happened.
Damages and Deadlines
Texas premises claims carry the standard damages categories: past and future medical expenses, lost earnings and earning capacity, physical pain, mental anguish, physical impairment, and disfigurement. Where the injury is a brain injury or otherwise catastrophic, the future-damages workup is the case; see the firm’s traumatic brain injury and catastrophic injury pages. Expect subrogation and lien claims against any recovery, including hospital liens under Texas Property Code Chapter 55, which have their own attachment and cap rules.
The general filing deadline is two years from the injury under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003(a). Minors get tolling under Section 16.001, but a parent’s medical-expense claim does not. If a city, county, school district, or state agency owns or controls the property, the Texas Tort Claims Act imposes strict written-notice requirements measured in months, and some city charters shorten them further. Government-property cases should be evaluated within days, not months.
Working With a San Antonio Premises Liability Lawyer
Premises cases are evidence races. The proof of knowledge, the video, the logs, the prior complaints: all of it sits in the defendant’s hands and most of it is gone within weeks. Ryan Orsatti Law handles premises liability claims for injured people and families in San Antonio and across Texas, from store and apartment falls to negligent security assaults, alongside its car accident and wrongful death practices. On a premises file that means fixing your legal status early, pleading the right theory, preserving the property’s records before they cycle out, and building damages the way serious injuries deserve.
If you were seriously hurt on someone else’s property in San Antonio, you can talk through your options with Ryan Orsatti Law in a free consultation. Calls are answered 24 hours a day, and consultations are available in English and Spanish. The firm works on a contingency fee. You pay nothing unless the firm recovers money for you, and that covers case expenses as well as the fee: if there is no recovery, you owe no attorney’s fee and no case expenses. Ask for the fee agreement and read the fee and expense section before you sign anything.
Frequently Asked Questions About Texas Premises Liability
What do I have to prove in a Texas premises liability case?
For a customer or business visitor: that the owner had actual or constructive knowledge of a condition, that the condition posed an unreasonable risk, that the owner failed to use reasonable care to fix or warn, and that the failure caused your injury. Those elements come from the Texas Supreme Court’s decision in Corbin v. Safeway.
Does it matter that I was a guest and not a customer?
Yes. Social guests are licensees, and the owner’s duty drops to warning of or fixing known dangers the guest does not know about, plus not acting with gross negligence. Many apartment and house-party injuries turn entirely on this status question, so establishing why you were on the property matters.
Can I sue an apartment complex after an assault?
Possibly. An owner in control of the property can owe invitees a duty to protect against foreseeable third-party crime. Foreseeability looks at prior crime on and near the property and at what the owner watched happen. Gate, lighting, and security records plus the address’s 911 history usually decide these cases.
The property owner says the danger was obvious. Is that the end?
No. Texas law generally imposes no duty to warn of open and obvious dangers, but exceptions exist, including when you necessarily had to use the dangerous area. And obviousness usually becomes a percentage-of-fault argument, which only bars recovery if your share exceeds 50 percent.
Who pays a premises liability settlement?
Almost always an insurer: commercial general liability coverage for businesses, landlord policies for rental property, homeowners coverage for private residences. Identifying every policy, including layers above the primary, is part of the lawyer’s job, because the listed owner is often a thinly capitalized entity.
How long do I have to bring a premises claim in Texas?
Generally two years from the injury date under Section 16.003. Shorter deadlines apply to claims involving governmental property under the Texas Tort Claims Act, sometimes only months, and evidence like surveillance video disappears in days or weeks. The practical deadline is far shorter than the legal one.
What if I was hurt while working on someone’s property?
Workers’ compensation, non-subscriber rules, and Chapter 95 can each change the analysis depending on who employed you and what you were doing. These overlapping rules are exactly the kind of question a free consultation sorts out quickly, and getting it wrong early can forfeit real claims.
Source Notes
- Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Sec. 16.003 (limitations) and Sec. 16.001 (legal disability): statutes.capitol.texas.gov
- Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Sec. 33.001 (proportionate responsibility): statutes.capitol.texas.gov
- Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 75 (limitation of landowners’ liability, recreational use) and Chapter 95 (property owner liability for acts of independent contractors): statutes.capitol.texas.gov
- Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 101 (Texas Tort Claims Act): statutes.capitol.texas.gov
- Texas Property Code Chapter 55 (hospital and emergency medical services liens): statutes.capitol.texas.gov
- Corbin v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 648 S.W.2d 292 (Tex. 1983) (invitee elements)
- Austin v. Kroger Texas, L.P., 465 S.W.3d 193 (Tex. 2015) (open and obvious; exceptions)
- Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith, 307 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. 2010) (duty to protect invitees from foreseeable third-party crime)
- Timberwalk Apartments, Partners, Inc. v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749 (Tex. 1998) (foreseeability factors)
Contact
Ryan Orsatti Law
4634 De Zavala Rd, San Antonio, TX 78249
Phone: 210-525-1200
ryanorsattilaw.com
Responsible attorney: Ryan Orsatti. Principal office: San Antonio, Texas.
This blog is for informational purposes only, not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results do not guarantee future results.