Call Now
713-521-0059
Usually not automatically. In Texas an employer is generally not liable for an employee’s sexual assault just because he was on the job, because the assault is treated as outside the scope of his employment. The employer can still be liable for its own negligence in hiring, keeping or supervising him, if it knew or reasonably should have known of the danger and that failure caused the harm. Those are the claims that reach a hotel, apartment complex, rideshare or delivery company, care facility, school or whichever company actually hired and supervised the worker. Against a franchisor or parent company, control over hiring is the gate.
The proof lives in the employer’s own files: the application, the background check, the complaints and what was done about them. Call 713-521-0059 and we will tell you what your case needs and get it started, beginning with written notice to whoever holds the video and records so it is kept.
Texas holds an employer vicariously liable for an employee’s conduct generally only when the conduct is within the scope of his general authority, in furtherance of the employer’s business and for the purpose he was hired to accomplish. The Texas Supreme Court has said that when an employee deviates from his duties for his own purposes, the employer is not responsible for what happens during the deviation. Courts of appeals apply that rule to hold that a sexual assault, committed for the assailant’s own gratification, is a departure from the job even when the job provided the access, as a Houston court held for a delivery driver who assaulted a customer in her home.
There are exceptions, and the Supreme Court has not addressed an employee sexual assault under this test directly, so “usually” is the right word. But in most cases the route to the company is the company’s own negligence, not the attacker’s.
It is a claim that the employer itself was careless. An employer that hires someone generally must use reasonable care to see that he is competent and fit for the job, and the same duty follows the decision to keep him on and to supervise him. The claim does not depend on whether the assault was within the scope of employment; it asks what the employer knew or should have known, and what it did about it.
Texas courts decide these claims regularly. The Texas Supreme Court has said more than once that it has not ruled definitively on the existence, elements and scope of these torts, while deciding several of them on their merits, and in 2025 it decided a franchisor’s duty in an employee sexual assault case. The claim is applied every day; its outer limits are not fully defined.
Enough to make this kind of harm foreseeable. The Supreme Court has required that the employer’s carelessness be a cause of the injury in fact and that the risk the employer should have seen be the risk that caused the harm. In the leading case, assuming a duty existed, a youth club’s failure to check a volunteer’s record was not the cause of his assaults on boys, because the check would have shown only drunk driving, which did not point toward sexual abuse. A Houston court of appeals reached the same result for a delivery driver with a clean record.
The strongest cases look different: prior complaints about the same employee, prior incidents of sexual misconduct the employer knew about, warnings from coworkers or customers, a record that a reasonable check would have shown and that pointed toward this harm. Retention claims often rest on exactly that, a complaint made and nothing done.
A clean background check makes foreseeability hard to prove, but it does not end the inquiry. What the employer learned after hiring counts too. On-the-job conduct, customer complaints, a coworker’s report, a prior incident at another location where the same company controlled both, all go to what the employer knew when it kept him on and let him work alone with guests, tenants, passengers or patients. The question is not whether a check was run; it is whether what the employer knew, or would have known with reasonable care, predicted the harm that happened.
Yes. Liability for a careless hiring decision generally runs to the entity that controlled the decision. In 2025 the Texas Supreme Court held that a massage franchisor with no contractual or actual control over the franchisee’s hiring owed no duty to a customer assaulted by the franchisee’s therapist. Rideshare, security-contractor, staffing-agency and franchise cases often turn on who had the right to hire, fire, train and supervise, and on whether the controlling entity undertook background screening and did it carelessly. Naming the right defendant is a fact question answered early, from the contracts.
Usually not for a guest, tenant, passenger, patient or student. That decision held that an employee’s own negligent supervision claim against her employer was preempted by the Texas workplace harassment statute, Chapter 21 of the Labor Code, when it was entwined with the harassment the statute covers. The Court said in the same opinion that the statute does not foreclose an assault-based negligence claim arising from independent facts. If you were not the defendant’s employee, that statute should not reach your claim. Defense lawyers still raise the decision, mostly in coworker cases.
The personnel file, the application and any background check, the complaints and how they were handled, training records, schedules showing who was working alone and where, incident reports, video and key or access logs. Most of these are kept on a retention schedule and some are overwritten in weeks. Written notice to the employer to keep them is the first step.
Every statute and case linked above was read at its primary source. Texas statutes change every legislative session and case law is constantly changing.
This page is general information about Texas law. It is not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
If you remember nothing else from this page, remember these.
When you call, we listen first. Then we do what your case needs. That usually begins with written notice to the employer and to anyone else holding the personnel file, the complaints, the video and the access logs, so the evidence of what the company knew is kept.
Where the case calls for it, we bring in the right experts and, where it serves you, co-counsel with the resources a case like this demands. That decision is made in writing, with your consent, and it does not increase your total fee.
We tell you plainly whether a claim against the employer may exist, who the right defendant appears to be and what it would take. Schiffer Law Firm is a Houston firm and has handled injury cases in Harris County for 50 plus years. There is no charge to talk, and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Written by Jacob Schiffer, Attorney, Schiffer Law Firm. State Bar of Texas No. 24105175.
Call 713-521-0059.
Texas courts routinely decide negligent hiring, retention and supervision claims, and the Supreme Court has decided several on their merits. The Court has also said it has not ruled definitively on the existence, elements and scope of these torts, so their outer limits are not fully defined.
Not necessarily. A clean record makes foreseeability hard to prove, but complaints, warnings or on-the-job conduct the employer knew about afterward can still show notice, and a retention or supervision claim rests on exactly that.
Usually not unless you were the defendant's own employee. The decision concerned an employee's claim against her employer under the Texas workplace harassment statute, and the Court said that statute does not foreclose assault-based negligence claims on independent facts.
The claims are separate. A claim against the business depends on its own negligence and on whether it controlled the worker's hiring and supervision. Who the right defendant is depends on who had that control, which the contracts and the actual working relationship answer.