No.
That is the honest short answer, and it is worth saying first because a great many survivors have concluded the opposite and stopped there.
The longer answer is that a report is not required, but it is not irrelevant either, and the places where it actually matters are specific and worth knowing before a decision gets made either way.
Why a report is not required
A civil claim is a suit for money against whoever is legally responsible. What it requires is set out in the statutes and cases that create the claim, and a police report is not one of the things any of them lists.
Take the two Texas statutes that spell out their elements most plainly.
Section 98B.002 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code makes a defendant liable to a person depicted in intimate visual material where the defendant disclosed the material without the effective consent of the depicted person and with the intent to harm that person; knew or had reason to believe at the time of disclosure that the material was obtained by the defendant or created under circumstances in which the depicted person had a reasonable expectation that it would remain private; the disclosure caused harm to the depicted person; and the disclosure revealed the identity of the depicted person in any manner. Four elements. None of them is a report.
Section 98.002(a) makes liable a defendant who engages in the trafficking of persons, or "who intentionally or knowingly benefits from participating in a venture that traffics another person." That section goes further and addresses the criminal system directly. Section 98.002(b) provides that it is not a defense to liability under the 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."
The premises cases work the same way. A claim against an apartment complex or a hotel turns on what that business knew, what was foreseeable to it, and whether its response was reasonable. Timberwalk Apartments, Partners, Inc. v. Cain, Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith and UDR Texas Properties, L.P. v. Petrie set out that framework. Nothing in it asks whether the survivor called the police.
Where a report does matter
Crime victims compensation
This is the clearest place, and it is the reason this article exists rather than just the word no.
Texas crime victims compensation is administered by the Attorney General's office and it pays for things a civil case cannot reach quickly, including counseling, medical care and lost wages. It is a separate program from a lawsuit and it has its own rules.
Article 56B.053 of the Code of Criminal Procedure conditions eligibility on the victim reporting the criminally injurious conduct to the appropriate state or local public safety or law enforcement agency, in the statute's words, "within a reasonable period, but not so late as to interfere with or hamper the investigation and prosecution of the offense." The Attorney General may extend that period where extraordinary circumstances justify it.
Two things about that provision are worth knowing precisely. It does not set a number of hours or days; it sets a standard. And it does not apply to a child victim.
Article 56B.052 sets the application deadline: not later than the third anniversary of the criminally injurious conduct, with an extension available for good cause, a longer window for child victims that reaches three years after the offense becomes known but not past the child's twenty first birthday, a provision addressing a period of incapacity caused by the injury, and a homicide provision keyed to identification of the victim.
One thing to know before applying, because it matters later. A compensation award carries obligations in a civil case: the State has a right of recovery against a civil recovery to the extent of what it paid, written notice must go to the Attorney General before a civil action is filed, and the Attorney General's written authorization is required before the claim is settled. Those are manageable requirements, and they are not manageable if nobody knows about them.
More detail is on the crime victims compensation page.
Building a record
A report is one way to create a dated, contemporaneous record of what happened. It is not the only way. Medical records, a sexual assault nurse examiner's findings, text messages, a complaint made to a manager or a resident services office, a school report, an employer's incident file, a rideshare or hotel app record: all of these are dated records made by someone other than the survivor, and in a case against a business they are frequently more valuable than a police report, because they go to what that business knew.
What to preserve, and how, is set out on the evidence page.
Somebody else may have a reporting duty even if you do not
This surprises people and it is better learned here than in the middle of a conversation.
Section 261.101(a) of the Texas Family Code requires any person with reasonable cause to believe that a child's physical or mental health or welfare has been adversely affected by abuse or neglect to make a report immediately.
Section 261.101(b) sets a specific deadline for professionals. A professional who has reasonable cause to believe a child has been or may be abused or neglected must report not later than the forty eighth hour after the hour the professional first has that belief, and the duty may not be delegated to someone else. The statute defines a professional as an individual who is licensed or certified by the state, or is an employee of a facility licensed, certified or operated by the state, and who has direct contact with children in the normal course of official duties or of duties for which the license or certification is required. Its own examples include teachers, nurses, doctors, day care employees, employees of a clinic or health care facility that provides reproductive services, juvenile probation officers, and juvenile detention or correctional officers.
Section 261.101(c) is the part that matters most for a survivor deciding whom to talk to. That requirement, in the statute's words, "applies without exception to an individual whose personal communications may otherwise be privileged, including an attorney, a member of the clergy, a medical practitioner, a social worker, a mental health professional," and others.
So where a disclosure gives someone reasonable cause to believe a child has been or may be abused or neglected, the duty to report reaches people a survivor may have assumed could keep it entirely private, including a lawyer.
This article is not going to tell you where the edge of that duty sits in your situation, because the statute is written in terms of what the listener has reasonable cause to believe, and that turns on what is said. What it will tell you is that the question has an answer, that it is a fair question to ask at the very start of a conversation, and that you are entitled to a direct answer before you say anything else. Ask it first. Any lawyer taking this kind of call should be ready for it.
If you do want to report and have not yet
There is no rule that a report has to come first, or last, or at all. Some survivors report and then call a lawyer. Some call a lawyer first and decide about reporting afterward with better information. Some never report and pursue a civil claim without one. What a case looks like without a criminal prosecution is set out on the page for a civil claim without a criminal case.
What is not a good idea is letting the question of whether to report freeze everything else, because the civil deadlines are running the whole time. Those are set out on the statute of limitations page, and what affects them is set out in what stops the clock.
Talking to us
You do not need a police report, a criminal case, a rape kit or a name to have this conversation. There is no charge for it, and no attorney's fee unless there is a recovery.
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. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 98 (trafficking)
Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code ch. 98B (intimate visual material)
Tex. Code Crim. Proc. ch. 56B (crime victims compensation)
Tex. Fam. Code ch. 261 (child abuse reporting)
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)
This article is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.