Texas Premises Liability Lawyers

As a customer or other invited visitor, generally four things: that a dangerous condition existed on the property, that the owner knew about it or should have discovered it through reasonable inspection, that they failed to make it safe or adequately warn you, and that the condition caused your injury.

The fact that you were hurt on the property is not by itself enough. Most of the fight is over the second element.

Either actual knowledge or constructive knowledge will do. Constructive knowledge means the condition was there long enough that a reasonable inspection should have caught it.

This is why timing evidence matters so much. A spill two minutes old and a spill two hours old are very different cases, and the cleaning logs and video are what tell them apart.

Not necessarily, and the report is often useful to you — it fixes the date, time, and location and confirms the business knew about the incident.

What matters is what you wrote in it. Speculation about your own carelessness, or downplaying the injury before you have been examined, is the part that gets used against you later.

Probably. Texas uses proportionate responsibility: as long as you are 50% or less at fault, you can recover, with the award reduced by your share.

There is a separate defense for conditions that are open and obvious, but a hazard being visible in hindsight is not the same as it having been obvious at the time.

It varies widely — some retail systems overwrite in as little as seven days, many within thirty. Once it is gone, it is gone.

A preservation demand sent while the footage still exists is one of the highest-value things that can happen in the first week of a premises case.

Yes. A landlord's duties to tenants and their guests cover common areas, stairwells, walkways, lighting, and in some circumstances security.

Your lease will matter to the analysis, and so will whether the complex had notice of the condition — maintenance requests and prior complaints are usually the starting point.

Nothing up front. We work on a contingency fee, which means our fee is a percentage of what we recover for you and there is no fee at all if we do not recover anything.

The case review is free, and you are not obligated to hire us after it.

In most cases, two years from the date of the injury. Miss that window and the court will almost always dismiss the case regardless of its merits.

The exceptions matter in both directions: the clock is paused for a child until their 18th birthday, while a claim against a city, county, or state agency requires written notice far sooner — six months under state law, and as little as 45 or 90 days under some city charters. Because the deadline depends on who is at fault, it is worth confirming early.

You can still recover. Texas uses proportionate responsibility: as long as you are 50% or less at fault, you collect damages reduced by your share of the blame. At 51% you recover nothing.

That threshold is exactly why adjusters work so hard to pin blame on the injured person early. Fault is argued, not decided at the scene.