If you were hurt on someone else’s property in Texas, the business or homeowner who controlled that space does not get to walk away simply because the injury happened on their land rather than behind the wheel. State law holds property owners and occupiers to a specific standard of care, and understanding how that standard works can make a significant difference in the outcome of your claim.
What Does Premises Liability Mean Under Texas Law?
Premises liability is the legal principle that holds a property owner or occupier responsible when a dangerous condition on their property causes someone’s injury.
Unlike a car accident claim, which usually centers on someone’s driving conduct, a premises liability claim centers on the condition of a property, a spill, a broken stair, an exposed wire, or an unsecured entrance. Liability does not automatically rest with whoever holds the deed. A property management company, maintenance contractor, or tenant in control of the space where the hazard existed can also be responsible, and it is common for a case to involve more than one liable party.
How Does Your Status as a Visitor Affect Your Claim?
The duty a property owner owes you depends on your legal classification as an invitee, licensee, or trespasser at the time you were injured.
Invitees, such as customers and people entering property held open to the public, are generally owed the highest duty of care. Owners and occupiers must use reasonable care to protect invitees from concealed, unreasonably dangerous conditions they knew about or reasonably should have discovered, including by making the condition safe or providing an adequate warning. Licensees, such as social guests, are owed a narrower duty; owners must warn of dangers they already know about but are not required to actively search for hazards. Trespassers are generally owed the least protection; an owner or occupier ordinarily must not injure them through willful, wanton, or grossly negligent conduct. Special rules may apply when a child is injured by an artificial condition that meets the legal requirements of the attractive-nuisance doctrine.
Your classification is not always fixed for the entire visit. A customer who wanders past a posted employees-only door, for example, may lose invitee protection for that part of the trip, a factual dispute that often shapes how a case is investigated from the start.
What Types of Accidents Fall Under Premises Liability?
Premises liability covers many property-condition cases beyond ordinary slip-and-fall accidents, including negligent security, pool, and structural-hazard claims.
Around McAllen and the Rio Grande Valley, the claims we see most often include slip-and-fall accidents in grocery stores and restaurants, negligent security incidents at apartment complexes and hotels that failed to provide adequate lighting or locks despite known crime in the area, swimming pool accidents involving inadequate fencing or supervision, and injuries from falling merchandise, malfunctioning elevators, or structural failures like collapsed staircases.
What Do You Have to Prove to Win a Premises Liability Case?
You must show the owner had a duty of care, breached it by failing to fix or warn of a hazard they knew or should have known about, and that the breach caused your injury.
The “knew or should have known” element is usually where these cases are decided. If a spill sat on a grocery store floor for twenty minutes before you fell, that is a very different case than one where it appeared seconds earlier. Maintenance logs, incident reports, and surveillance footage often become the deciding evidence, which is why property owners and their insurers frequently argue the hazard was open and obvious, that you already knew about it, or that it simply had not existed long enough for them to catch it.
What Happens If You Were Partly at Fault?
Texas law allows you to recover compensation even if you share some fault, but you are barred from recovery if you are found more than 50 percent responsible.
Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 33.001, your compensation is reduced by your percentage of responsibility. If you are found 20 percent at fault for not noticing a hazard, your award is reduced by 20 percent. Insurance adjusters routinely lean on this rule to shift blame onto injured visitors, which makes it important to document the scene and your account of what happened as early as possible.
Do Different Rules Apply to Contractors and Government Property?
Yes, construction workers and claims against government entities are each governed by their own, more restrictive set of rules.
In certain claims by workers performing construction, repair, renovation, or similar work on real property, Chapter 95 can limit an owner’s liability unless the owner exercised or retained control over the manner of the work and had actual knowledge of the specific danger. If your injury happened on a scaffold or active job site, see our guide on what to do after a scaffolding accident for the immediate next steps. If an injury involves a government entity, the Texas Tort Claims Act may apply, but only in limited circumstances and subject to strict notice rules. Written notice is generally due within six months, and some local governments impose shorter deadlines; missing the applicable deadline can bar an otherwise valid claim.
How Long Do You Have to File a Premises Liability Claim?
Texas law generally gives you two years from the date of your injury to file a lawsuit.
Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Section 16.003 sets this two-year deadline, and missing it typically bars you from recovering compensation permanently. A few exceptions can shift that timeline: the clock generally pauses for minors until they turn 18, a narrow discovery rule can apply when an injury was not reasonably discoverable right away, and wrongful death claims generally run two years from the date of death rather than the date of the underlying incident.
Work With Garza Law on Your Premises Liability Claim
If you were injured on someone else’s property in McAllen or anywhere in the Rio Grande Valley, Garza Law is ready to help you understand what happened and what your claim may be worth. We investigate the property, the parties involved, and the evidence before insurance companies have a chance to control the narrative.
Call us or contact us to schedule a free consultation. Our team is here to answer your questions in plain language so you can move forward with confidence.
