People call this office having already been through some version of the criminal system, or having decided not to go near it, and the first question is almost always the same. Is this the same case.
It is not. They are two separate proceedings. They can happen at the same time, in either order, or one without the other ever existing. Understanding the difference is the first practical thing a survivor can do, because the two systems answer different questions and only one of them belongs to the survivor.
Who the case belongs to
A criminal case is brought by the State of Texas. The style of the case says so. The prosecutor represents the State, not the survivor. The survivor is the complaining witness. That is not a slight, it is the structure. It means the decisions in a criminal case, whether to charge, what to charge, whether to offer a plea, whether to dismiss, are made by the prosecutor's office.
A civil case is brought by the survivor. The survivor is the plaintiff. The survivor hires the lawyer, and that lawyer's duty runs to the survivor and to no one else. Whether to file, who to sue, what to ask for, whether to settle, and whether to walk away are the survivor's decisions.
For many people this is the whole answer to a question they have been carrying for a long time, which is why the criminal case felt like something happening around them rather than something they were part of.
What each one is trying to accomplish
A criminal case decides whether the State can punish a person. Section 2.01 of the Texas Penal Code sets the requirement:
"All persons are presumed to be innocent and no person may be convicted of an offense unless each element of the offense is proved beyond a reasonable doubt."
By its own terms that provision governs convictions. A civil case is not seeking a conviction. It is a suit for money, and it asks a different question of a different decision maker: who is legally responsible for the harm, and what is that harm worth.
The difference that matters most: who can be a defendant
This is the part most people have never been told, and it is why a civil case is worth looking at even when the criminal case went nowhere.
A criminal prosecution decides the guilt of the person charged. In practice, a prosecution arising from a sexual assault is brought against the individual.
A civil case can reach the person who committed the assault, and it can also reach a business or institution whose own conduct helped make the assault possible. That is a separate claim against a separate defendant, and it is not about whether that business intended anything. It is about what it knew, what it should have foreseen, and what it did with that knowledge.
Texas courts have worked this out over decades in the premises cases. In Timberwalk Apartments, Partners, Inc. v. Cain the Supreme Court of Texas set out how foreseeability of criminal conduct on a property is measured, looking to proximity, recency, frequency, similarity and publicity of prior crimes. In Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith the court made clear those factors are not the only route to foreseeability. In UDR Texas Properties, L.P. v. Petrie the court held that foreseeability alone is not enough, and that a plaintiff must also show the defendant's response was unreasonable in light of the burden of preventing the harm.
Read together, those cases describe a real claim with real requirements. An apartment complex that knew about a pattern of assaults on its property, a hotel that let a keycard system stay broken, an employer that moved a known problem from one location to another rather than dealing with him: those are civil defendants, and a prosecutor's office is not the part of the system that brings them into a courtroom. What that claim requires is set out on the negligent security page.
There is a second reason this matters, which is collectability. A judgment is only as useful as the ability to collect it, and whether there is insurance behind a defendant is one of the first things worth finding out.
What happens if there was no criminal case, or if it ended badly
A criminal case that was never filed, was dismissed, or ended in an acquittal does not by itself end a civil claim. They are different proceedings deciding different things. That situation has its own page, a civil claim without a criminal case.
What a civil claim does need is evidence, and most of the evidence is not yours. It is in the records of the business, building or institution where it happened, and those records are on an automatic timer. See what evidence actually matters, and what disappears.
The Legislature has said this expressly in at least one place. In a civil trafficking claim under Chapter 98 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code, Section 98.002(b) provides that it is not a defense to liability under that chapter that a defendant "has been acquitted or has not been prosecuted or convicted under Chapter 20A, Penal Code, or has been convicted of a different offense or of a different type or class of offense, for the conduct that is alleged to give rise to liability under this chapter." That is the Legislature writing down the principle rather than leaving it to be inferred.
More often the situation is simpler than an acquittal. There was a report and nothing came of it. There was no report at all. Neither of those facts decides a civil claim, because a police report is not one of the things a civil claim requires. That is covered in full in do I have to report to the police.
The deadlines are not the same
Criminal limitations are the State's problem. The survivor's deadline is a different one, and it is set by the civil statutes.
Ordinary injury claims in Texas carry two years under Section 16.003 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Claims arising from sexual abuse are governed instead by Section 16.0045, which gives thirty years for conduct violating certain Penal Code provisions and five years for others, with the dividing line turning on the specific conduct. A claim brought under Chapter 98B, which covers intimate visual material and artificial intimate visual material, must be brought not later than ten years after the later of the date the depicted person reasonably discovers the material or the date that person turns eighteen. Section 98B.009.
Those are longer than most people expect, and a survivor who has assumed it is too late should have the dates checked before accepting that. The deadlines and what affects them are set out in more detail on the statute of limitations page.
One deadline runs much shorter. If the claim is against a governmental unit, a city, a school district, a transit authority, Section 101.101(a) entitles that unit to notice within six months of the incident, and subsection (b) ratifies a city charter or ordinance notice provision within a charter period permitted by law, so the practical deadline can be shorter. Subsection (c) provides that the notice requirement does not apply where the governmental unit already has actual notice of the death, injury or property damage. That clock is worth checking immediately rather than eventually.
Can both cases happen at once
Yes. They often do, and when they do the timing of the civil case is something to plan deliberately rather than by accident. What is filed, when it is filed, and what gets said under oath while a prosecution is pending are questions worth working through with a lawyer at the beginning rather than in the middle.
What a civil case can produce
A civil case produces a money judgment or a settlement, paid by whoever is found responsible or by their insurer. For certain claims the Legislature has gone further. Under Section 98.003, a claimant who prevails in a Chapter 98 trafficking suit shall be awarded actual damages, including damages for mental anguish even where there is no other injury, together with court costs and reasonable attorney's fees, and may recover exemplary damages. Section 98B.003 provides for actual damages including damages for mental anguish, court costs and reasonable attorney's fees, with exemplary damages available, for a claim involving intimate visual material. Both are written in mandatory terms, which is unusual and worth knowing about.
What a civil case does not produce is a criminal conviction, a jail sentence, or a criminal record. If that is what a survivor most wants, the civil case is not the tool, and that should be said at the first meeting.
What it costs to find out which one you have
Nothing. There is no charge for the first conversation and no attorney's fee unless there is a recovery. What a case costs once it is under way is set out in what it costs to hire a civil sexual assault lawyer, and what the first meeting is actually like is set out in the first meeting.
The first call is usually short, and its purpose is to work out whether there is a claim, who it would be against, and which deadlines are already running.
Call 713-521-0059.
Schiffer Law Firm represents survivors in civil claims arising from sexual assault and sexual abuse, in Houston and across Texas.
Authorities
Tex. Penal Code ch. 2 (burden of proof)
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 16 (limitations)
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 98 (trafficking)
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 98B (intimate visual material).
S.B. 441, 89th Leg., R.S. (2025), adding Section 98B.009 (ten year limitations period)
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 101 (Texas Tort Claims Act)
Timberwalk Apartments, Partners, Inc. v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749 (Tex. 1998)
Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith, 307 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. 2010)
UDR Texas Properties, L.P. v. Petrie, 517 S.W.3d 98 (Tex. 2017)
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 article is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.