Slip & Fall Lawyer in Texas

Two years under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003 for a claim against a private landowner. For government property, the Texas Tort Claims Act (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.101) requires formal notice of claim within six months against state entities, but local government entities can set much shorter deadlines by municipal charter — the City of Houston requires 90 days, and some smaller Texas cities require notice as short as 30 days. Missing the applicable municipal notice deadline bars the entire case, regardless of how much time remains on the main two-year statute. Damages against government defendants are also capped under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 101.023: $250,000 per person and $500,000 per occurrence for state claims, $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence for municipal claims.

For a business invitee, Keetch v. Kroger Co., 845 S.W.2d 262 (Tex. 1992) requires proof of four elements: (1) the owner had actual or constructive knowledge of the condition, (2) the condition posed an unreasonable risk of harm, (3) the owner failed to exercise reasonable care to reduce or eliminate the risk, and (4) the failure proximately caused the injury. Constructive knowledge generally requires showing the hazard existed long enough that a reasonable inspection would have discovered it — which makes inspection logs, cleaning schedules, and surveillance video the central evidence in every Texas retail slip-and-fall case. Preservation letters need to go out within days to prevent routine document destruction.

Under Austin v. Kroger Texas, L.P., 465 S.W.3d 193 (Tex. 2015), a Texas landowner generally has no duty to warn or protect an invitee from conditions that are open and obvious or actually known to the invitee. Limited exceptions apply — for example, where the invitee had no reasonable alternative to encountering the hazard, or in some criminal-activity contexts. Combined with Texas's 51% modified comparative fault bar under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001, the doctrine means a plaintiff who failed to notice or avoid an obvious hazard may be barred from recovery entirely. This makes Texas the most defense-friendly of the four focus states on obvious-hazard cases.

Yes. Texas retains the traditional invitee / licensee / trespasser framework. A business invitee (a customer at a store, a visitor at a commercial property) is owed reasonable care plus a duty to inspect for hazards under CMH Homes, Inc. v. Daenen, 15 S.W.3d 97 (Tex. 2000). A licensee (a social guest, most non-paying visitors) is owed a duty not to be injured willfully or through gross negligence and must be warned of known dangers the licensee is unlikely to discover. A trespasser is owed only a duty to avoid willful or wanton injury. Which category the plaintiff falls into is a threshold legal issue and can determine whether the case is viable at all.