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Get the exam first. It is free, it does not require a police report, and for an adult it is available within 120 hours. The Houston hospitals that perform it are listed on our Houston SANE exam locations page, and our what to do now page walks through the first days in order.
If you are able to, report to the police now. You are not required to, but the same early evidence that builds a prosecution builds a civil claim.
Then call 713-521-0059, or message us, and say it happened this week. 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. There is no guaranteed response time, but we typically respond within 12 to 24 hours of a call or message.
Yes, in many cases, an apartment complex can be held responsible when a tenant or a guest is sexually assaulted on the property. The claim is called negligent security. It is separate from anything that happens to the person who committed the assault, and it does not require a criminal charge, an arrest or a conviction.
What a civil claim does need is evidence, and most of it is not yours. It sits in the complex’s own records, including gate and camera logs, incident reports and calls for service, and those records are on an automatic deletion timer measured in days. You do not have to decide today whether to bring a case. You do have to decide quickly whether the evidence is preserved. Call 713-521-0059.
An apartment complex sells safety. It offers gates, lighting, cameras, a courtesy patrol, controlled access, and a leasing agent who tells you the property is secure. When you are assaulted inside a complex that was not what it was sold as, the complex can be answerable for it.
That matters for a practical reason, because the person who committed the assault usually has nothing to collect. The complex, its management company and its security contractor usually carry insurance.
Texas does not make a property owner an insurer of everyone on the property. The general rule is that a landowner owes no duty to protect against the criminal acts of a third party. Your claim exists as an exception to that rule, and the exception turns on what the complex knew. Texas usually requires two separate showings, and a claim that proves the first but not the second usually fails.
The first showing is that the risk was foreseeable. Timberwalk Apartments, Partners, Inc. v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749 (Tex. 1998), directs a court to look at prior crime. The court considers whether criminal conduct previously occurred on or near the property, how recently it occurred, and how often it occurred. It also considers how similar it was to the conduct in question, and what publicity it received, such that the landowner knew or should have known.
Those five factors are usually shortened to proximity, recency, frequency, similarity and publicity. In Timberwalk itself, the Supreme Court found the assault unforeseeable as a matter of law. The only crimes on the property itself were property crimes. The violent crimes at nearby complexes were few, were not shown to be similar, and were not shown to have been known to the owner.
There is a second route. Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith, 307 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. 2010), holds that the Timberwalk factors are not the only reasons a criminal act might be deemed foreseeable. Where the owner has actual and direct knowledge that an unreasonable risk is imminent and unfolding in front of it, a duty can arise with no prior-crime history at all. In Del Lago, that was ninety minutes of open, escalating hostility that the owner watched and did nothing about.
At an apartment complex, this second route can matter when management had already been told about a specific person. Examples include a prior complaint about the same maintenance worker, a restraining order the office was given, or a tenant who reported being followed and was ignored.
Usually not. The second showing is that the risk was unreasonable, and that is a separate question. UDR Texas Properties, L.P. v. Petrie, 517 S.W.3d 98 (Tex. 2017), holds that foreseeability and unreasonableness are two separate inquiries. The court explained that the Timberwalk factors were designed to measure foreseeability, and their application cannot, without more, determine the reasonableness of a risk of harm.
In practice, you need evidence about the burden the proposed security measures would have placed on the owner, weighed against the magnitude and probability of the harm. In UDR, the plaintiff produced no such evidence, and the Supreme Court rendered judgment for the landowner.
So your case is not usually won by proving the neighborhood is dangerous. It is built on what this complex knew, what a reasonable complex would have done about it, and what that would have cost.
The defendants are usually:
You usually have two separate civil claims, and they carry different deadlines. The first is against the assailant, for the assault itself. The second is against the complex, its owner, its management company and sometimes its security contractor. That second claim is for failing to protect you against a foreseeable and unreasonable risk, and it is an ordinary negligence claim.
The second claim is usually where any recovery is, because complexes and management companies carry insurance and individual assailants generally do not. The same analysis can apply to hotels and motels, and to any business open to the public.
Usually less time than people expect. Against the assailant, Section 16.0045 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code gives five years where the conduct violates Penal Code Section 22.011(a)(1) or Section 22.021(a)(1)(A). It gives thirty years where the survivor was a child and the conduct violates one of the child provisions listed in Section 16.0045(a).
A negligent security claim against a property owner is a personal injury claim. Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code gives two years. The longer periods in Section 16.0045 apply to claims arising from conduct that violates those specific Penal Code provisions. They are not a general extension of every claim connected to an assault.
If someone tells you that you have thirty years to sue an apartment complex, they are most likely describing the claim against the assailant. The claim against the complex usually runs on the two-year clock.
It depends on your situation, because Texas gives some survivors a statutory right to proceed under a pseudonym and gives others no such right. Section 30.013 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code covers plaintiffs who are currently under 18. Chapters 98 and 98B contain their own confidential identity provisions.
An adult suing an apartment complex over an adult assault usually falls outside all of them. In that case, you would have to ask the court, which decides case by case. Know that before anything is filed, not after. See suing without your name.
Commonly covered expenses and damages include:
A civil claim is not about punishment. That is what the criminal system is for, and it is a separate process with a separate burden of proof. A civil claim is about the cost of what happened and who should carry it.
Those costs are real and usually ongoing, since therapy does not end when the case does. If you move out mid-lease, you may pay for the move, the deposit on the next place, and often the remaining rent. Section 92.0161 of the Texas Property Code can change that. Our page on breaking a lease after a sexual assault explains how.
Texas also runs a Crime Victims’ Compensation program through the Attorney General that pays for counseling, relocation and lost wages, and it does not require an arrest or a conviction. It is not a substitute for a civil claim, and the two interact at settlement, because the State is subrogated to a recovery for pecuniary loss. An unallocated settlement can be treated as entirely economic, an outcome that can be avoided at the drafting stage, not afterward. See Texas crime victims’ compensation.
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.
A pattern changes the case: if management had been told and did nothing, the question moves from neighborhood crime to what this complex knew. Those records are usually in the defendant’s hands. Surveillance video at an apartment complex is commonly overwritten within seven to thirty days, and key fob logs are often purged on a similar cycle. A preservation letter costs you nothing and commits you to nothing. See what evidence matters, and what disappears.
We start with the evidence, because it is what usually cannot wait. A preservation letter for the video, gate and key fob logs, incident reports and patrol records can go out right away, while you decide. The first conversation is confidential and commits you to nothing. If there is a case, we will say so and explain what it would involve, and if there is not, we will tell you why. On a case that needs more resources, we may associate co-counsel. That decision is made in writing, with your consent, and it does not increase your total fee.
Schiffer Law Firm is a Houston personal injury firm with 50 plus years of combined experience representing injured people and survivors across Texas.
If you are an advocate or a counselor asking on someone’s behalf, you are welcome to call with a general question. We will not ask you for their name.
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.
No. A civil claim against a property owner does not require a police report, an arrest, a charge or a conviction, and an acquittal does not end it. The two systems ask different questions and apply different burdens of proof. What a civil claim does need is evidence, and most of it is in the complex's own records, which are on an automatic timer.
Usually two years, under Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. The thirty-year period in Section 16.0045 applies to claims arising from specific Penal Code offenses. It is not a general extension of every claim connected to an assault. In most cases, you do not have thirty years to sue the complex.
Not always. Under Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith, a duty can arise where the owner has actual and direct knowledge that an unreasonable risk is imminent and unfolding in front of it. A prior complaint about the same person can matter as much as crime statistics.
Surveillance video, which is commonly overwritten within seven to thirty days, and access-control or key fob logs, which are often purged on a similar cycle. A preservation letter stops the overwrite. It costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
Section 92.0161 of the Texas Property Code lets a tenant terminate the lease and avoid future rent if the assault happened within the preceding six months. The assault does not have to have occurred at the apartment. Documentation from a licensed health care provider, a licensed mental health provider or a sexual assault advocate under Chapter 420 of the Government Code is enough. The tenant also gives 30 days of written notice to the landlord. No police report is required.
It depends. Section 30.013 covers plaintiffs who are currently under 18, and Chapters 98 and 98B have their own confidential identity provisions. An adult suing over an adult assault usually has to ask the court, which decides case by case.