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When someone is attacked at an apartment complex, a hotel, a parking garage or a business, the first question is who hurt them. The second question is whether the property owner made it possible.
Texas law recognizes the second claim. It is demanding, it has been narrowed twice by the Texas Supreme Court, and understanding what it actually requires is the difference between a case that survives and one that does not.
A property owner in Texas generally has no duty to protect people on the property from the criminal acts of third parties. The 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.”
Five factors: proximity, recency, frequency, similarity, publicity.
In Timberwalk itself the court found the assault unforeseeable as a matter of law on that record, because the only crimes on the property itself were property crimes, and 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. That outcome is the point of the case. The factors are not a formality.
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.”
Where the owner has actual, direct knowledge of an imminent and escalating risk unfolding in front of it, a duty can arise with no prior-crime history at all. In Del Lago the risk was ninety minutes of open, escalating hostility between intoxicated patrons that the owner watched and did nothing about.
That matters for cases where a complex knew about a specific threat, had been told about a specific person, or watched a situation build.
This is the part most descriptions of Texas negligent security law leave out, and it is the part that decides cases.
UDR Texas Properties, L.P. v. Petrie, 517 S.W.3d 98 (Tex. 2017), holds that a plaintiff 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.
The practical consequence is concrete. Satisfying all five Timberwalk factors is no longer sufficient. A negligent security case has to be built with evidence about what a specific, achievable security measure would have cost and what it would have prevented. Cases are lost on that gap.
Apartment complexes and residential communities. Hotels and motels. Parking lots and garages. Bars, restaurants and retail. Office buildings. Student housing.
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, pulled from law enforcement records rather than from the owner.
The property’s own records: incident reports, prior complaints, tenant correspondence, security company contracts, work orders for gates and lighting and cameras.
What the security measures actually 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.
Evidence of the burden. Industry standards, the cost of the measure that was missing, and testimony about what it would have prevented. After UDR, a case without this is exposed.
Evidence deteriorates quickly. Surveillance video is routinely overwritten in thirty days or less, and gates get repaired after an incident. A preservation letter sent early is often the difference between having the proof and arguing about its absence.
Schiffer Law Firm handles negligent security claims in Houston and across Texas, including cases where the underlying crime was a sexual assault.
There is no charge to talk, and no attorney’s fee unless there is a recovery.
Call 713-521-0059.
This page is general information about Texas law, not legal advice about your situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Proximity, recency, frequency, similarity and publicity of prior crime. They measure whether the crime was foreseeable.
No. UDR v. Petrie holds that foreseeability and unreasonableness are separate questions, and a plaintiff must put on evidence about the burden of the security measures proposed.
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.
Two years under Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code.
