Slip and Fall Accident Lawyer San Antonio

After a fall at a store, restaurant, or apartment complex: report it to the manager and ask for a copy of the incident report, get medical care, photograph what caused the fall and your shoes, and get witness names. Ask the business to save its video. Avoid posting about the fall on social media.

Where Falls Happen

Slip, trip, and fall injuries happen at grocery and retail stores, restaurants, gas stations, hotels and short-term rentals, apartment complexes, office buildings, stadiums and venues, and parking lots. Falls at nursing homes and care facilities can involve different legal rules.

Common Causes

• Spills and other substances on the floor
• Wet floors without adequate warning
• Cluttered or uneven walkways
• Broken stairs, missing handrails, and sudden level changes
• Potholes and damaged parking lots
• Poor lighting
• Broken or missing ramps, handrails, and other accessibility problems

What You Need to Prove

A slip and fall is a type of premises liability claim. For a customer or other invited visitor, Texas law generally requires showing that the owner or operator knew, or reasonably should have known, about the condition; that it posed an unreasonable risk of harm; that the owner did not use reasonable care to reduce or eliminate the risk; and that this caused your injuries (Keetch v. Kroger Co., 845 S.W.2d 262 (Tex. 1992)).

Two points often decide these cases:

• How long the hazard was there. For a spill, the owner generally must have had a reasonable opportunity to discover and clean it up, so video and witness accounts matter (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Reece, 81 S.W.3d 812 (Tex. 2002)).
• Whether the danger was obvious or you were warned. In most cases, an owner has no duty to warn of a hazard that is open and obvious or already known to you, though the Texas Supreme Court has recognized exceptions (Austin v. Kroger Texas, L.P., 465 S.W.3d 193 (Tex. 2015)).

Falls Involving Ramps, Handrails, and Accessibility

If your fall involved a ramp, handrail, curb cut, or other accessibility feature, the Texas Architectural Barriers Act (Tex. Gov’t Code ch. 469) and the Texas Accessibility Standards may set requirements for how that feature had to be designed and built. These standards apply to many public buildings and to privately funded businesses open to the public that were built or renovated after certain dates. They are meant to make buildings accessible to people with mobility, sight, hearing, and coordination disabilities, and to people who are aging. Read our article on the Texas Architectural Barriers Act, the Texas Accessibility Standards, and what counts as a disability.