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Sometimes, yes. If you were attacked at an apartment complex, hotel, parking garage or business, the owner may be liable for failing to protect you. Texas law allows that claim where the crime was foreseeable and the risk was unreasonable. It is a demanding claim, and the Texas Supreme Court has narrowed it twice.
The first question in your case is who hurt you. The second is whether the property owner made it possible. The step that cannot wait is the video and the property records. Call 713-521-0059 before footage is overwritten or a broken gate is repaired.
Usually not. A property owner in Texas generally has no duty to protect people on the property from the criminal acts of third parties. Your claim exists as an exception to that rule, and the exception turns on foreseeability.
The controlling case is Timberwalk Apartments, Partners, Inc. v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749 (Tex. 1998). The Supreme Court held:
“In determining whether the occurrence of certain criminal conduct on a landowner’s property should have been foreseen, courts should consider whether any criminal conduct previously occurred on or near the property, how recently it occurred, how often it occurred, how similar the conduct was to the conduct on the property, and what publicity was given the occurrences to indicate that the landowner knew or should have known about them.”
That gives you five factors to measure against the facts of your case: proximity, recency, frequency, similarity and publicity.
In Timberwalk itself, the court found the assault unforeseeable as a matter of law on that record. 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. The factors carry real weight, and your case has to meet them with evidence rather than general concern about the area.
The factors are not the only route. Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith, 307 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. 2010), makes clear that “The Timberwalk factors are not the only reasons that a criminal act might be deemed foreseeable.”
A duty can arise with no prior crime history at all, where the owner has actual, direct knowledge of an imminent and escalating risk unfolding in front of it. In Del Lago, the risk was ninety minutes of open, escalating hostility between intoxicated patrons that the owner watched and did nothing about.
This matters for your case. It applies where the property knew about a specific threat, had been told about a specific person, or watched a situation build.
Usually not by itself. UDR Texas Properties, L.P. v. Petrie, 517 S.W.3d 98 (Tex. 2017), holds that you must prove the risk was both foreseeable and unreasonable, and that those are two separate inquiries. The court was direct about it:
“We designed the Timberwalk factors to measure foreseeability; their application cannot, without more, determine the reasonableness of a risk of harm.”
“None of the Timberwalk factors compels any consideration of what burdens a property owner would necessarily incur to prevent or reduce the risk of a crime.”
“A risk is unreasonable when the risk of a foreseeable crime outweighs the burden placed on property owners—and society at large—to prevent the risk.”
“Foreseeability is the beginning, not the end, of the analysis in determining the extent of the duty to protect against criminal acts of third parties.”
The last of those sentences is language from Timberwalk that UDR quotes. The court reversed and rendered judgment for the property owner because the plaintiff had offered no evidence of the burden the owner would have borne to prevent the crime.
For you, the result is practical. Meeting all five Timberwalk factors is usually not enough by itself. Your case has to be built with evidence about a specific, achievable security measure, what it would have cost, and what it would have prevented.
They come up wherever people live, stay, park or shop. The common settings are apartment complexes and residential communities, hotels and motels, parking lots and garages, bars, restaurants and retail, office buildings, and student housing.
Schiffer Law Firm handles negligent security claims in Houston and across Texas, including cases where the underlying crime was a sexual assault. Our page on who is responsible for a sexual assault covers that side.
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.
Prior crime data for the property and the immediate area should come from law enforcement records rather than from the owner. The property’s own records matter too: incident reports, prior complaints, tenant correspondence, security company contracts, and work orders for gates, lighting and cameras. You also need to know what the security measures were on the night in question, as opposed to what the marketing said. Broken gates, unlit walkways, cameras that were not recording, and courtesy officers who were not there are common findings.
Then comes evidence of the burden, meaning industry standards, the cost of the measure that was missing, and testimony about what it would have prevented. Evidence deteriorates quickly. Surveillance video is often overwritten in thirty days or less, and gates get repaired after an incident.
We start by preserving the evidence, with a preservation letter sent early, before video is lost or repairs erase what was broken. Then we pull the police calls for service and the property’s own records. From there, we build the proof of what a missing measure would have cost and what it would have prevented.
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.
Proximity, recency, frequency, similarity and publicity of prior crime. They measure whether the crime was foreseeable.
Usually not by itself. UDR v. Petrie holds that foreseeability and unreasonableness are separate questions, and that you must put on evidence about the burden of the security measures you propose.
Del Lago allows foreseeability without prior crime history where the owner had actual and direct knowledge of an imminent risk unfolding in front of it.
Police calls for service, prior incident reports, work orders, security contracts and management emails. You also need proof of what a missing measure would have cost and prevented.
Yes, where the facts support it. The same rules on foreseeability and unreasonable risk apply to the property owner whatever the crime was.
In most cases, Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code gives you two years. A claim based on a sexual assault can run on a longer period, explained on our page on how long you have to sue.