Dallas Premises Liability Attorney

One of the first things that will be established in your case is the type of visitor you were at the time of the incident. Invitees, licensees, and trespassers may all have grounds to pursue compensation, depending on the specific circumstances of the case. See if you fit into the following categories:

Invitee

When you have the consent or permission of the owner of the property to enter the premises, you are considered an invitee. An invitee is typically used as a category for individuals who enter a premises for the purpose of business – such as an individual who comes to a grocery store to spend money.

Both parties benefit from the presence of the individual, and the property owner owes the invitee the highest level of care. This means that the property owner regularly inspects for hazards, warns invitees of potential hazards, and takes care of potential hazards as soon as possible.

Licensee

When you have the consent or permission of the owner of the property to enter the premises (without business involved), you are considered a licensee.

A guest to a property owner’s home is an example of a licensee. While the property owner is expected by law to warn his or her guests about potential hazards on the premises, he or she is not necessarily obligated to inspect or fix these known hazards.

Trespasser

When you enter a property without the permission of the owner, you are considered a trespasser. Although property owners are not responsible to warn undiscovered trespassers of potential dangers on the premises, they are responsible for any “booby traps” that they may have set up.

They are also responsible to warn about extremely hazardous risks on the property through signage or some other way of communication. The type of visitor you were at the time of the incident could affect what compensation you receive. Our firm can listen to your side of the story and fight to make sure your rights as a visitor, regardless of what type, are fought for.

There are a variety of situations in which you may have been injured and in which the property owner may be legally held responsible for those injuries.

The following are common hazards occurring in premises liability cases:

Ice, Liquids, Slippery Substances

As a visitor, you ought to be reasonably warned about or prevented from coming into contact with a hazardous condition such as ice, spilled liquids, or anything that could cause a slip and fall accident.

Insufficient Safety Barriers

These can cause falls from stairs, walkways, elevators, or other areas. In many cases, these incidents are due to a lack of foresight or inspection on the part of the property owner.

Negligent or Insufficient Security

Property owners are obligated to keep things reasonably safe. This can include making sure that there are sufficient security measures in place, such as good lighting and an adequate number of security guards in a given area.

Inadequate Safety Measures

When an individual is hurt or even fatally injured by toxic chemicals, electric shocks falling objects, swimming pool drownings or other such incidents on a property, the owner may be held liable for not ensuring proper safety measures were followed.

Insufficient Screening Measures

In some cases, hiring standards are lax and a visitor can be injured by an employee or other individual on a property. The owner may be able to be held responsible in part for inadequately looking into an employee’s background etc…

Animal Attacks

Most commonly, visitors might be attacked by a dog or other domestic animal. The owner may be held liable for not properly securing their animal or for not warning of the animal or taking measures to prevent such an incident from occurring on their property.

For information specific to your case, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our legal team. In a free consultation, we can help walk you through your options and shed light on the circumstances you face.

In order to pursue compensation after an incident such as the above, you must prove that the property owner is liable for any injuries you may have experienced. Our team can comb through the evidence and help you build a strong case against the property owner.

In Texas, four elements must be proven in order to successfully win a premises liability case:

1. That there was a reasonably hazardous or risky condition that posed potential harm to people who were legally on the property.
2. That the owner of the property, or representative thereof, should have reasonably known about that condition and the potential harm it posed.
3. That the owner of the property, or representative thereof, failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the condition’s existence or to protect visitors from the condition.
4. That the condition directly caused the victim’s injury.

Accidents that are the result of dangerous or defective conditions on a property, whether interior or exterior, are known as “premises liability” accidents. Homes—along with commercial buildings and public property—can be dangerous for faulty design, inferior building materials or construction, lack of maintenance, or hazardous clutter.

The following are two elements to establish who is at fault for a premises liability accident:

• The property owner has a legal duty to anyone who enters or lives in the property not to subject these individuals to an unreasonable risk of injury due to the design, construction, or condition of the property.
• The injured party must use the property normally. Property owners are not responsible for injuries of individuals who acted in a dangerously careless, unexpected, or unauthorized manner.

For example, if a tenant or guest is injured in an accident on rental property, the party responsible for maintaining the area or condition that caused the accident is liable to pay for any losses suffered by the victim. The landlord is responsible for everything outside the apartment (entrances, hallways, stairs) and for the immovable objects inside (ceilings, walls, floors, fixtures, and appliances that came with the apartment), while the tenant is responsible for the movable items inside an apartment.

Some of the most common premises liability matters we handle include:

• Falls: When you enter a home, office building, or other property, you can reasonably expect to receive a fair warning about dangerous conditions, such as slippery walkways, ice on the ground, holes in the floor, etc. A property owner’s failure to provide adequate warning and maintenance can lead to serious falls and devastating injuries to the head, neck, spine, joints, etc.
• Dog bites: Many dog owners fail to properly restrain their pets or provide sufficient warning about aggressive or dangerous animals, which can lead to dangerous, violent attacks and painful injuries.
• Swimming pool accidents: Swimming pools are notoriously dangerous, especially for children, and pool owners bear the responsibility for taking reasonable precautions to ensure that their property is guarded and maintained and that persons who use the pool are adequately supervised.
• Fires: There are a number of ways property owners can accidentally cause fires, including negligently failing to secure electrical wiring, contain gas leaks, or fix electrical outlets that are not working correctly. In such cases, property owners may be responsible for damage resulting from related fires.
• Insufficient security: Sometimes people may be harmed on a property as a result of the owner’s failure to install an alarm system, maintain door locks, hire security staff, or otherwise provide effective reasonable security.

Premises liability cases emerge when the owner or tenant of a property fails to exercise an appropriate standard of care. When we enter another person’s property, we expect to be safe from danger. While not every threat can be eliminated, there are reasonable precautions that can protect us from accidents or intentional violence. You may have a case if you were injured at a location where the owner failed to do one or more of the following:

• Clean up or indicate ice, liquids, or slippery substances
• Erect safety barriers near stairs, walkways, or other dangerous areas
• Take reasonable security measures
• Restrain a dog or other domestic animal

In Texas (as in many other U.S. states), the attractive nuisance doctrine is a legal principle that holds property owners responsible for injuries to children who are attracted to and harmed by dangerous conditions or objects on their property—even if the children were technically trespassing.

An "attractive nuisance" is something on a property that is:

1. Artificial (man-made) – like a swimming pool, trampoline, old car, abandoned appliance, etc.
2. Potentially dangerous – it poses a risk of injury or death.
3. Likely to attract children – because of its appearance or the potential for play.
4. Not easily understood by children – meaning kids may not recognize the danger.
5. Easily accessible – the property owner hasn’t taken reasonable steps to keep children out.

In plain terms, if a property owner knows (or should know) that something on their property could draw children in and harm them, they are legally required to take reasonable precautions—like fencing off a pool or locking up equipment.

For example, if a homeowner in Texas has an unfenced swimming pool and a child wanders in and drowns, the homeowner might be liable under the attractive nuisance doctrine, even though the child was trespassing.

This doctrine mostly applies to young children—courts assume older teens are more capable of understanding risk. Natural things like ponds, trees, or cliffs usually don’t count as attractive nuisances. Texas courts evaluate these cases individually, based on reasonableness and foreseeability.