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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.
Sometimes. It depends on what the owner or operator knew about that lot before you were attacked. A parking lot or garage is dark, it is unattended, and it is the one place a customer has to walk alone. Texas law holds the owner or operator responsible where the risk of that crime was foreseeable and unreasonable. A lot with a history of assaults, robberies or break-ins that its owner knew about and did nothing about is the case. Schiffer Law Firm in Houston represents survivors in these cases across Texas.
The step that cannot wait is the camera. Garages and lots record on a short cycle. Gate logs, payment records, license plate readers and the operator’s incident reports are on the same clock. Call 713-521-0059 so written notice to keep the footage can go out before it is overwritten.
Texas starts from the rule that a person has no legal duty to protect another from the criminal acts of a third person. The exception is foreseeability. Timberwalk Apartments Partners, Inc. v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749 (Tex. 1998), lists the factors: whether crime previously occurred on or near the property, how recently, how often, how similar, and how publicized. Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith, 307 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. 2010), holds those factors are not the only way a crime can be foreseeable.
UDR Texas Properties, L.P. v. Petrie, 517 S.W.3d 98 (Tex. 2017), adds the second requirement. Foreseeability “is the beginning, not the end, of the analysis” of the duty, the court wrote. The risk must also be unreasonable, which the court measures by weighing “the risk of a foreseeable crime” against “the burden placed on property owners” to prevent it. Petrie itself was a parking lot case. The plaintiff was robbed and shot in an apartment complex’s visitor lot, and the court rendered judgment for the owner because he offered no evidence of what it would have cost the owner to reduce the risk. That is the case a defendant will cite. It is why your case has to prove both halves: what the owner knew, and what it could reasonably have done.
The practical questions are these. What police calls and incident reports existed for that lot and the block around it? Were the lights working, and had anyone reported them out? Was there an attendant, a gate, a monitored camera, and were they there the night you were attacked? Had the operator cut security or left a gate broken? Our page on negligent security claims goes through the test in full.
Usually more than one, and often not the name on the sign. A lot or garage can be owned by one company, leased to a second, operated by a third under a management contract, and guarded by a fourth. A retail lot belongs to the landlord in one shopping center and to the anchor tenant in the next. The contracts decide who controlled the lighting, the gates, the cameras and the guards, and control is what your claim is built on. Where the assailant was an employee, the employer’s own hiring, supervision and retention are a separate claim.
A city or county garage is a different case. Section 101.0215 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code lists “parking facilities” among a municipality’s governmental functions, which places them under the Texas Tort Claims Act. Section 101.021 waives immunity only for injury caused by an employee’s use of a motor-driven vehicle or by a condition or use of property. Section 101.022 limits the duty for a premises defect unless the claimant paid for the use of the premises. Section 101.057(2) excludes claims arising out of assault. In Delaney v. University of Houston, 835 S.W.2d 56 (Tex. 1992), the Texas Supreme Court held that exclusion reaches intentional torts by government employees, and did not bar a negligence claim about a broken lock an intruder came through. A claim against a public garage owner has to be built the same way, on a condition of the property it failed to fix. Notice must be given within six months under Section 101.101, and Houston’s charter requires it within 90 days.
Your claim against the owner or operator does not depend on identifying the assailant. It is about the lot, not the man. For the claim against the assailant himself, Section 16.0045(d) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code tolls the limitations period when a petition names the unknown defendant as John or Jane Doe, provided you proceed with diligence to identify him. The footage, the plate readers and the payment records are also how he gets identified. That is one more reason they cannot be allowed to cycle.
Section 16.0045(b) gives five years for the offenses it lists, which include sexual assault of an adult. Section 16.0045(a) gives thirty years for the child sexual abuse offenses it lists. Both run from accrual. The negligence claim against the owner or operator may run on a different clock, and a claim against a governmental unit requires written notice within six months, or 90 days in Houston. The video is gone long before any of them. Our page on how long you have to sue goes through the periods.
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.
The operator holds the records and the landlord holds the contracts. The preservation letter goes to both in the first week.
We start with control, because a parking lot case against the wrong company goes nowhere. Then we gather the incident history, because that is what proves the owner knew. The preservation letters go out before the footage cycles, and the police calls and incident reports are obtained before anyone can say the lot was quiet.
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.
Call 713-521-0059.
Sometimes. The owner or operator is responsible where the risk was foreseeable and unreasonable under Timberwalk and UDR v. Petrie, which usually means prior crime it knew about and precautions it did not take. The incident history for that lot decides it.
It depends on who controlled the lot. A retail lot may belong to the landlord, the anchor tenant or a parking operator. The leases and management contracts decide who was responsible for lighting, gates, cameras and guards.
The claim is narrower. It has to rest on a condition of the property the city controlled and failed to fix, as in Delaney v. University of Houston, and written notice is due within six months under Section 101.101, or 90 days under Houston's charter.
Yes. The claim against the owner does not depend on identifying the assailant. Section 16.0045(d) tolls the limitations period on the assault claim when a petition names the unknown assailant as John or Jane Doe, provided you proceed with diligence to identify him.
Usually days, sometimes weeks, and rarely months. A preservation letter has to arrive before the cycle does, which is why the first call matters more than anything else in a parking lot case.