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You can sue the person who assaulted you. But where it happened on someone’s property or in someone’s business, the owner, the management company, a security contractor, a franchisor or an employer may also be responsible. In most cases, they are the ones with insurance.
The step that cannot wait is the property’s own records. Surveillance footage is commonly overwritten within seven to thirty days, and keycard logs age out. A preservation letter sent early can decide whether you prove what the property knew. Call 713-521-0059 before that evidence is gone.
A civil claim against the person who committed the assault is real. In many cases, though, it is a judgment against someone with no assets and no insurance that responds. Liability policies usually exclude intentional acts. Individuals rarely carry coverage that would pay for this.
That is not a reason to skip the claim against them. It is a reason not to stop there. Your case is usually built against the businesses that had a duty to keep you safe.
Where the assault happened on someone’s property or in the course of someone’s business, there is usually a second set of defendants. They are usually insured.
The property owner is the entity that owns the apartment complex, the hotel, the parking garage or the shopping center.
The management company is frequently a different company from the owner, with its own policy. It is often responsible day to day for security decisions, maintenance and staffing.
As for the security contractor, where a property hired a guard service or a courtesy officer, that company had its own duties and its own coverage.
The franchisor. With hotels especially, the brand on the sign, the company that owns the building and the company that operates it are frequently three separate entities. Each of them may try to point at the others.
The employer. Where the assailant was an employee, claims for negligent hiring, supervision and retention run against the employer directly. They are not claims that the employer committed the assault. They are claims about what the employer knew and what it did.
These businesses often carry commercial general liability coverage, sometimes with excess layers above it. A claim that a business was careless in how it protected people is the kind of claim that coverage is usually written for.
Texas does not make a property owner an insurer of everyone’s safety. You usually have to show two things, and they are separate.
The first is foreseeability. Timberwalk Apartments, Partners, Inc. v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749 (Tex. 1998), directs courts to weigh several factors. They are whether criminal conduct previously occurred on or near the property, how recently, how often, how similar it was, and what publicity it received, such that the owner knew or should have known.
There is a second route to foreseeability. Del Lago Partners, Inc. v. Smith, 307 S.W.3d 762 (Tex. 2010), holds that those factors “are not the only reasons that a criminal act might be deemed foreseeable.” Where the business had actual knowledge of a specific risk that was building, that alone can establish it. A complex with prior complaints about the same man may be in that territory, whatever the crime statistics say.
The second is unreasonableness. UDR Texas Properties, L.P. v. Petrie, 517 S.W.3d 98 (Tex. 2017), holds that foreseeability is not enough: “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.” You have to put on evidence weighing the risk against the burden of preventing it. The plaintiff in UDR lost on exactly that point.
It means your case usually has to identify a specific, achievable measure that was missing. Then it has to show what that measure would have cost and what it would have stopped, such as a working gate, a camera that recorded, a light, a lock that had been reported, or a guard during the hours the incidents happen.
Our page on negligent security goes further into how these claims are built.
If the facts involve trafficking, Chapter 98 of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code can reach further than ordinary negligence law.
Section 98.002(a) makes liable not only the person who traffics but also a defendant who “intentionally or knowingly benefits from participating in a venture that traffics” another person. That liability covers damages arising from the trafficking by the defendant or the venture. It is written as an independent basis of primary liability, not a secondary theory. It is how a hotel that knowingly profited from an operation running out of its rooms can come within the statute.
Section 98.003 makes actual damages including mental anguish, court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees mandatory for a prevailing claimant, and exemplary damages are also available. Section 98.005 makes such a defendant jointly liable for the entire amount. Section 98.002(b) provides that acquittal, non-prosecution or conviction of a different offense is not a defense.
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.
In most cases, your claim turns on records the defendant already has. That includes prior incident reports for the property, police call history for the address, and tenant or guest complaints and what was done with them. It includes emails between the property manager and the management company, security vendor contracts and guard logs, and work orders for gates, locks, lighting and cameras. It also includes personnel files where an employee is involved and franchise inspection reports. These documents are usually not produced voluntarily, and the ones with short retention windows can disappear on their own.
We start with written notice to whoever holds the footage, logs and records that are on a timer, so they are kept. Then we identify every business that had a part in your safety: the owner, the management company, any security contractor, the franchisor and any employer. Schiffer Law Firm represents survivors in civil claims against apartment complexes, hotels, businesses and other property owners in Houston and across Texas.
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.
Yes, in many cases. A negligent security claim is against the property owner, the management company and sometimes the security contractor. It usually does not depend on the assailant being identified, arrested or convicted. What your claim does need is evidence. Most of it is in the property's own records, such as camera coverage, access logs and calls for service to the address, and all of it is on an automatic timer.
Usually not. The civil claim is separate and applies a different burden of proof, and an acquittal does not end it. What your claim needs is evidence, and most of it is in the property's own records, on an automatic timer.
The property owner and the management company, in most cases. The individual who committed the assault is often uncollectible, which is why your case is usually built against the business.
Depending on the facts, the management company, a security contractor, a hotel franchisor, or the employer of an assailant who was an employee. Each may have its own duties and its own coverage.
Section 98.002(a) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code can make liable a defendant who "intentionally or knowingly benefits from participating in a venture that traffics" another person. Section 98.002(b) provides that acquittal, non-prosecution or conviction of a different offense is not a defense.
In most cases, two years for the negligence claim against the business, under Section 16.003 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code. Do not assume the longer sexual abuse periods apply to a claim against a property owner. Ask about your dates.