Most people think premises liability means slipping on a wet floor. That is one small corner of it.
A Katy premises liability lawyer handles injuries caused by the condition of a property or by how it was managed. An apartment complex with broken gate access where a resident was assaulted. An unfenced pool where a child drowned.
A parking garage with no working lights. A stack of merchandise that came down off a warehouse rack. A dog loose in a common area. A stairwell was reported months ago and never repaired.
The common thread is not the fall. It is that someone controlled the property, knew or should have known about a danger, and let it stay dangerous.
Terry Bryant Accident & Injury Law handles these claims across Katy and the greater Houston area. Call (713) 973-8888 for a free, confidential consultation.
If you fell on a wet floor or an uneven surface at a business, our Katy slip and fall lawyer page covers that specific claim in more detail.
On This Page
- What Counts as a Premises Liability Case in Texas?
- Which Katy Properties Produce the Most Claims?
- Which County Will Your Katy Case Be Filed In?
- What Do You Have to Prove in a Texas Premises Case?
- What Can You Recover in a Katy Premises Claim?
- What Should You Do After an Injury on Someone Else's Property?
- Premises Cases Are Won in the Paperwork
- Katy Premises Liability Questions
What Counts as a Premises Liability Case in Texas?
Any injury caused by an unreasonably dangerous condition on property that someone else controlled. Texas does not have a premises liability statute. The rules come from decades of Texas Supreme Court decisions, and they turn on one question first: why were you there?
That question sets the duty owed to you.
| Your status | Who it describes | What the property owner owes you |
|---|---|---|
| Invitee | A customer, tenant, delivery driver, or anyone there for the owner's benefit | Reasonable care to make safe or warn of concealed dangers the owner knew or should have known about |
| Licensee | A social guest, someone there for their own purposes with permission | Not to injure you willfully or through gross negligence, plus warning of known dangers |
| Trespasser | Someone with no permission to be there | Only not to injure you willfully, wantonly, or through gross negligence |
Most Katy claims involve invitees, because most of them happen at stores, restaurants, apartment complexes, medical offices, and gyms. Invitee status carries the strongest protection Texas offers.
Children are treated differently. Under the attractive nuisance doctrine, which the Texas Supreme Court applies through a 5-part test, a property owner can owe a duty to a child who technically trespassed, where the owner knew children were likely to get in and the hazard was one a child would not appreciate. Pools, construction sites, retention ponds, and unsecured equipment are the usual settings.
Which Katy Properties Produce the Most Claims?
Retail, apartments, and construction, roughly in that order, and the reasons are structural rather than coincidental.
Katy grew faster than almost anywhere in the Houston region, and it grew outward. What that produced is a landscape of large-format retail, distribution and warehouse space along I-10 and the Grand Parkway, master-planned neighborhoods with pools and amenity centers run by HOAs and management companies, and apartment communities that turn over management frequently.
Big-box and shopping center properties. Katy Mills, LaCenterra, and the retail spread along the Katy Freeway feeder roads generate falling merchandise claims, loading dock injuries, cart corral and parking lot incidents, and inadequate lighting cases.
Apartment complexes and gated communities. Broken gates, non-functioning cameras, unlit breezeways, and failure to control known criminal activity support negligent security claims. These are among the most serious premises cases and among the least understood by the people who have them.
Community pools and amenity centers. Missing self-latching gates, absent depth markings, no rescue equipment, and unsupervised access are recurring failures. Drowning and near-drowning cases involving children are the hardest cases in this practice area and the most time-sensitive.
Warehouses and distribution centers. The corridor along I-10 west and around the Grand Parkway is dense with logistics facilities. Injuries there frequently involve non-employees: drivers, vendors, and contractors who are owed an invitee's duty by the facility owner.
Construction and renovation in occupied buildings. A store that stays open while contractors work creates exactly the kind of hazard the invitee rule was written for.
Katy's drainage history belongs on this list too. Areas near Barker Reservoir and the bayou system flood in ways that leave standing water, silt, and damaged surfaces behind long after the rain stops. Properties that reopen without addressing what the water did to parking lots, stairs, and walkways create conditions that are foreseeable to anyone who has been here through a storm season.
Call (713) 973-8888 to talk through what happened on the property.
Which County Will Your Katy Case Be Filed In?
It often depends on where the injury occurred, although there can be other suitable venues. Katy also sits across 3 counties, which can complicate the question.
Katy spans Harris, Fort Bend, and Waller counties. A case arising at a property on the north side of I-10 may belong in Harris County, filed in Houston. A case from a Cinco Ranch address may belong in Fort Bend County, filed in Richmond. A property on the far west side may land in Waller County, filed in Hempstead.
Why it matters: the counties have different court schedules, different local rules, and jury pools with genuinely different characteristics. Fort Bend County juries are drawn from one of the most diverse and highly educated populations in the country. Harris County handles enormous civil volume. Waller County is smaller and moves differently.
We practice in all 3 counties, and many more, and can determine if, when, and where to file suit.
What Do You Have to Prove in a Texas Premises Case?
4 things, and the second one is where most cases are won or lost.
The defendant owned, occupied, or controlled the property. Often more complicated than it sounds. A shopping center may have an owner, a property management company, and a tenant with its own maintenance obligations, all pointing at each other.
The defendant knew or should have known about the dangerous condition. This is the fight. A spill that happened 30 seconds before you walked through it is different from a broken handrail that was reported 3 months ago. Proving notice usually means finding maintenance logs, prior complaints, work orders, inspection records, or prior incidents at the same location.
The condition posed an unreasonable risk of harm.
The failure to fix or warn caused your injury.
Texas also applies proportionate responsibility. Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §33.001, you can recover as long as your share of responsibility is not greater than 50%, with damages reduced by your percentage. Expect the defense to argue you were distracted, in an area you should not have been, or wearing the wrong shoes. Sometimes that argument is fair. More often it is a way of moving a number.
What Can You Recover in a Katy Premises Claim?
Compensation covers what the injury cost you and what it will keep costing. In Texas, that breaks into economic and non-economic damages, and both matter.
Economic damages include emergency care, surgery, physical therapy, future medical treatment, lost wages, and reduced earning capacity. These are documented with bills, records, and, in serious cases, testimony from a physician and an economist about what the next 20 years look like.
Non-economic damages cover physical pain and mental anguish, physical impairment, and disfigurement. There is no cap on these in an ordinary premises case, unlike in medical malpractice.
Where an owner's conduct was grossly negligent, exemplary damages become available. That is a high standard, but it does come up in premises cases involving hazards that were repeatedly reported and repeatedly ignored.
One category people forget: injuries that seem moderate at first. A hip fracture in an older adult, a torn rotator cuff in someone whose job is physical, or a head injury with no visible damage can change a person's life more than the initial diagnosis suggests.
The CDC reports that falls send roughly 3 million older adults to emergency departments each year, and hip fractures in particular carry long recovery timelines. Settling before the trajectory is clear is a common and expensive mistake.
What Should You Do After an Injury on Someone Else's Property?
Report it to management before you leave, and photograph the condition while it is still there. Those 2 steps decide more cases than anything a lawyer does later.
Ask for a written incident report and ask for a copy. If they refuse to give you one, note who you spoke with and what time.
Photograph the hazard itself, the surrounding area, any warning signs that were or were not present, and the lighting conditions. Get names and phone numbers of anyone who saw it. Then get medical attention the same day, because a gap between the incident and the first treatment is the single most useful fact a defense adjuster can find.
Surveillance video is the other race. Retail and apartment systems commonly overwrite footage within 2 to 4 weeks. A written preservation demand needs to go out fast, and once it has, destroying the footage carries consequences the property owner would rather avoid.
Texas generally gives you 2 years from the date of injury to file suit under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code §16.003. If the property was owned by a city, county, or other governmental entity, the notice deadlines are far shorter and are measured in months. (*Always speak directly to an attorney for the exact deadlines that apply to your potential claims.)
Premises Cases Are Won in the Paperwork
Serving Houston Since 1985. Terry Bryant Accident & Injury Law handles premises liability claims across the greater Houston area, including Katy. Mr. Bryant is a former judge and is board-certified in personal injury trial law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.
Premises cases are document cases. The work is in maintenance records, inspection schedules, incident histories at the same property, vendor contracts, and the management agreement that determines who was actually responsible for the condition that hurt you. Property owners have that paperwork and no reason to volunteer it.
Our office is at 8584 Katy Fwy Suite 100, Houston, TX 77024, which is on the same freeway that runs through Katy. The first conversation is free and confidential, and you pay nothing unless you win your case.
Katy Premises Liability Questions
Can I sue my apartment complex if I was assaulted on the property?
Possibly. Negligent security claims turn on whether the crime was foreseeable and whether the complex took reasonable steps to prevent it. Prior crime at the property or in the immediate area, broken gates or locks, non-functioning cameras, and inadequate lighting are the facts these cases are built on. Police call histories for the address are often the starting point.
What if a store employee told me the hazard had already been reported?
That statement may be usable, and it points toward the records that matter more. A verbal admission is helpful, but the case gets stronger when the underlying work order, maintenance log, or prior complaint is produced in discovery. Write down who said it, their role, and when, as soon as you can.
Does my child's injury at a neighborhood pool or playground have a claim?
It can, and the standard is more favorable than most parents expect. Property owners and HOAs are held to a higher expectation where children are foreseeably present, and Texas recognizes attractive nuisance for hazards a child would not appreciate. Pool gate latches, fence height, missing depth markers, and supervision policies all get examined.
What if I was hurt at a business inside a leased space?
You may have claims against more than one party. Commercial leases divide maintenance responsibility between landlord and tenant, and the split is often surprising. Common areas, parking lots, sidewalks, and structural elements frequently remain the landlord's responsibility even when the injury happened at a tenant's storefront. The lease itself is usually the document that answers it.
How is a premises case different from a regular accident claim?
The extra element is notice. In a car crash, proving the other driver ran a red light is the case. In a premises case, proving the hazard existed is not enough. You also have to show the property owner knew or reasonably should have known about it in time to do something. That single requirement is why so much of the work happens in records rather than at the scene.
Find Out Who Was Actually Responsible
Owner, property manager, tenant, maintenance vendor, HOA. On most Katy properties, at least 3 of those exist, and each one will point at the others. Sorting that out is not something an injured person can do from a hospital bed.
It is, however, something that can be answered fairly quickly by someone who knows which documents to ask for.