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Not from the fall alone, because Texas does not make a store an insurer of its customers. To recover, you usually have to prove the owner knew about the hazard, or that it had been there long enough that a reasonably careful owner would have found it.
You can fall on a dangerous floor, be seriously injured, and still lose, because nobody can show how long the water had been there. The proof usually exists on the day of the fall and disappears within weeks. Surveillance video, sweep logs, inspection sheets, work orders and the store’s own incident report are all on deletion cycles. Video can be overwritten within days. Call 713-521-0059.
A slip and fall is a premises liability claim, and what the owner owed you depends on why you were there. A customer in a store is an invitee and is owed the highest duty, while a social guest is a licensee and is owed less. That framework is set out in full on our premises liability page.
Corbin v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 648 S.W.2d 292 (Tex. 1983) sets out what a customer must establish:
Corbin also matters for a second reason. The court held a store can be liable for a dangerous method of operation, not only for a specific object left on a floor. A display that predictably drops produce onto the walkway is itself the hazard, and you need not identify one particular grape.
Actual knowledge means the store created the condition, or someone told the store about it. An employee mopped and walked away without a cone, or a customer reported the spill ten minutes earlier. A leak had generated three prior work orders, or a manager had emailed about the same mat.
Where nobody told the store, you usually must prove the condition existed long enough that a reasonably careful owner would have discovered it. That is constructive knowledge, and it is where the time-notice rule becomes decisive.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Reece, 81 S.W.3d 812 (Tex. 2002) is the case that decides many of these claims. An employee’s proximity to the hazard, with no evidence of how long it had been there, shows only that discovery was possible, not that it reasonably should have occurred. In Reece, the court required temporal evidence to prove constructive knowledge. Without it, the court said, premises owners would face strict liability, which Texas rejects.
The question is not only whether there was water on the floor, but for how long, and what evidence proves it.
Surveillance video is often the best evidence, because it timestamps the moment the hazard appeared. It is also routinely overwritten within seven to thirty days.
Sweep and inspection logs come next, because many chains require documented walks at set intervals. A gap in the log, or a log signed in advance, is powerful.
The physical condition of the substance itself matters. Dirty water, tracked footprints, dried edges and cart tracks through a spill are circumstantial evidence of time on the floor. Photograph the floor, the substance and your shoes before you leave if you can.
The store’s own incident report is usually written the same day, and it is usually more candid than anything produced later. Report the fall to the store and ask for a copy of the incident report. Get the names of anyone who saw it.
A preservation letter sent in the first days is frequently one of the most consequential steps in a slip and fall case. It costs you nothing, and it stops the clock on deletion.
Austin v. Kroger Texas, L.P., 465 S.W.3d 193 (Tex. 2015) holds a landowner generally owes no duty as to a condition that is open and obvious or already known to the person injured. The duty runs to concealed hazards. Two exceptions survive. One is criminal activity. The other is necessary use, where you had to use the dangerous area and could not protect against the danger even knowing about it.
Scott & White Memorial Hospital v. Fair, 310 S.W.3d 411 (Tex. 2010) holds that naturally accumulating ice, formed without the assistance or involvement of unnatural contact, is not an unreasonably dangerous condition sufficient to support a premises liability claim. It applied the rule the court had set for naturally accumulating mud in M.O. Dental Lab v. Rape, 139 S.W.3d 671 (Tex. 2004). The court reasoned that requiring owners to guard against wintery conditions would impose a heavy burden. It recognized an exception where the ice or snow conceals a defect or hazard a visitor would not anticipate.
Commonly recovered expenses and damages include:
Under Section 41.0105, recovery of medical expenses is measured by the amount actually paid or incurred, not the amount billed. The billed charge alone is not the number your claim is valued on. Cost and necessity can be proven by affidavit under Section 18.001 without live testimony from every provider, unless a controverting affidavit is properly served. The affidavit does not prove causation.
Exemplary damages require fraud, malice or gross negligence by clear and convincing evidence under Section 41.003, and are capped by Section 41.008. An ordinary unmopped spill usually will not support them. A store that knew a walkway flooded every rain and did nothing for a year may be a different case. Section 41.008(c) removes the cap only for listed felonies committed knowingly or intentionally. Intoxication assault and intoxication manslaughter need not be knowing or intentional. The exception reaches only the defendant whose conduct it was, so it rarely arises in a fall.
Under Section 33.001, a claimant found more than 50 percent responsible recovers nothing. Otherwise, Section 33.012 reduces the award by the claimant’s percentage of responsibility, and a claimant at exactly 50 percent is still reduced. Expect the defense to argue you were looking at your phone, wearing the wrong shoes, or ignoring a cone.
In most cases, under Section 16.003(a), suit must be filed within two years after the day the claim accrues, which is usually the date of the injury. If you fell on government property, a separate and much shorter notice deadline can also apply. Section 101.101 gives any governmental unit notice within six months. A city charter period permitted by law governs where it applies, and the City of Houston requires written notice within 90 days. Under Section 101.101(c), the notice requirement does not apply where the governmental unit had actual notice.
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.
What cannot wait is the video. Most retail surveillance systems overwrite recordings within seven to thirty days. A preservation letter sent this week is often the difference between proving how long the hazard sat there and arguing about why nobody can tell.
If there is a case, we will say so and explain what it would involve. If there is not, we will say that as well, and explain why. Before anything else is decided, the first step is written notice to keep the video, the sweep and inspection logs, the work orders and the incident report. Then we work out how long the hazard was there and who knew.
Schiffer Law Firm is a Houston personal injury firm with 50 plus years of combined experience representing injured people across Texas.
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.
In most cases, suit must be filed within two years after the day the claim accrues, under Section 16.003(a). That is usually the date of the injury. If the fall happened on government property, a much shorter notice deadline can also apply. In the City of Houston it is written notice within 90 days, unless the government already had actual notice.
No. Texas usually requires proof that the store had actual knowledge of the hazard, or that the hazard existed long enough that a reasonably careful owner should have discovered it. A fall alone is not enough.
That is usually not enough on its own. In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Reece, the Texas Supreme Court held that proximity without evidence of how long the hazard had been there shows only that discovery was possible, not that it should have happened.
The Texas Supreme Court has held that naturally accumulating ice is not an unreasonably dangerous condition sufficient to support a premises liability claim. It held the same earlier for mud. Both rules assume no unnatural involvement. For ice or snow, the court recognized an exception where it conceals a defect or hazard a visitor would not anticipate. Whether rainwater tracked inside a store is treated the same way depends on the facts and the court, and the ordinary knowledge rules apply to it.
Surveillance video, which is often overwritten within seven to thirty days. Sweep and inspection logs and work orders follow. A preservation letter sent early is one of the most useful steps you can take.
Under Austin v. Kroger Texas, L.P., a landowner generally owes no duty as to a condition that is open and obvious or already known to you. Two exceptions survive: criminal activity, and necessary use, where you had to use the area and could not protect against the danger.