Houston Slip and Fall Lawyer

Insurance carriers treat fall cases as easy wins. The script is always the same: the hazard was “open and obvious,” you should have watched where you were going, and nobody at the property knew anything. Texas premises liability law has an answer to every line of that script — if the right evidence is preserved before it disappears.

What a Texas slip and fall case actually requires

If you were hurt as a customer or invited guest, Texas law generally requires proof of four things: a condition on the property posed an unreasonable risk of harm; the owner knew or reasonably should have known about it; the owner failed to fix it or adequately warn you; and that failure caused your injuries.

The fight is almost always over the second element. A puddle on a grocery store floor is not a case by itself — the question is how long it was there, whether an employee walked past it, when the aisle was last inspected, and whether the same thing had happened before. That is proven with evidence the owner controls: inspection logs, sweep sheets, surveillance footage, incident reports and employee statements. Which is why the first thing we do in every premises case is send a preservation letter that legally obligates the property to keep all of it.

Where these injuries happen in Houston

• Grocery and big-box stores — spills, leaking coolers, freshly mopped floors without warning cones, merchandise in aisles
• Apartment complexes — broken stairs and railings, unlit walkways, pool areas, crumbling parking lots; Houston’s sprawling complexes are frequent defendants
• Restaurants and bars — greasy kitchens tracked into dining rooms, wet entryways during Gulf Coast downpours
• Hotels — bathroom falls, pool decks, lobby floors
• Parking lots and garages — potholes, wheel stops, poor lighting, uneven expansion joints
• Job sites — falls at work raise separate questions covered on our work injury page

Houston’s weather does real work for the defense: sudden downpours mean wet floors, and owners argue rain absolves them. It does not — foreseeable water at an entrance is exactly what mats, cones and inspection routines exist for.

“You should have seen it” — the 51% rule in fall cases

Texas follows proportionate responsibility with a 51% bar: if a jury puts more than half the fault on you, you recover nothing, and anything less reduces your recovery by your percentage. Premises insurers push comparative fault harder in fall cases than anywhere else, because “you weren’t looking” is free to argue. Having valued these claims from the defense side, we know the difference between a fault argument that survives a jury and one that collapses under the owner’s own inspection records — and we build the file to force that collapse.

Who you can hold responsible

Commercial property is layered: an owner, a management company, a tenant business, maintenance and cleaning vendors. Responsibility follows who controlled the area where you fell, and more than one company can share it. Each brings its own insurance policy. Identifying every responsible party — and every layer of coverage — is a large part of what a premises case is actually worth.

Deadlines: two years — sometimes 90 days

The general deadline to file suit is two years from the fall under Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code § 16.003. Falls on government property — a city sidewalk, a county building, a Metro facility — are different: the Texas Tort Claims Act can require formal written notice within six months, and the City of Houston requires it within 90 days. And the practical deadline is always the evidence: footage recycles, floors get repaired, and witnesses move on.

What your case may be worth

Falls are not minor cases. Hip fractures, wrist and shoulder injuries, spinal injuries and traumatic brain injuries are common — especially for older Texans, for whom a fall can permanently change independent living. Damages in a Texas premises case can include past and future medical care, lost earnings and earning capacity, physical pain and mental anguish, and impairment and disfigurement. Where a fall causes a severe permanent injury, our catastrophic injury approach applies: the case is valued on decades of future care, not the first hospital bill.