Articles Posted in Premises Liability

In the recent case of University of Texas at Arlington v. Sandra Williams, the Texas Supreme Court considered whether the recreational use statute applies to those watching sports matches. The statute (Texas Civil Practice & Remedies Code section 75.001) protects landowners from run-of-the-mill negligence claims when they allow their property to be used for public recreation. However the protection only covers specific, defined recreational uses. Under the recreational use statute, plaintiffs suing landowners to whom the statute applies must prove gross negligence, malicious intent, or bad faith.

The court of appeals had determined that those watching sports matches were not doing an activity similar enough to the listed recreational uses, and it held that watching sports was not “recreation” under the statute. The defendant university asked the Texas Supreme Court to review.

The case arose when a woman and her husband sued the university for injuries the woman suffered when she fell at a university stadium. The couple was there to watch their teenage daughter’s soccer game. When the game was over, the woman went down the stairs to wait for her daughter. She stopped at an elevation, near a guardrail that separated the stands from the field. The gate’s latch had previously broken, but it was held shut with a padlock and chain. She leaned against the gate and it opened. She fell five feet to the field and hurt her rib and arm.

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In Young v. Wal-Mart Stores Texas, LLC, a plaintiff appealed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in a slip and fall case. The case arose when the plaintiff went through the self-checkout lane to buy ice cream. While leaving, she slipped in clear liquid and hurt her knee, ankle and hip. A cashier came over and asked if she was all right and left to get paper towels. The plaintiff wasn’t sure how much water she had slipped on, but later testified it took the cashier two trips to get enough paper towels to mop it up. After falling, the plaintiff talked to employees that came up to her.

She said that none of the employees said they knew there was a water puddle on the floor before she fell. The ambulance took her to the hospital. Later, the cashier testified that she was working in the self-checkout area for half an hour before the plaintiff fell. She said that she glimpsed the accident from the corner of her eye and then saw the plaintiff on the floor. The cashier went over to help the plaintiff and saw a puddle of water six inches in diameter. She had a paper towel in her hand and wiped up the puddle with the towel. The cashier said she hadn’t seen a substance there before the fall and didn’t know how long it was there, though she didn’t think it was there long because she had been walking around in that location and would have cleaned it if she had seen it.

The plaintiff sued the store for premises liability. The store filed a motion for traditional and no-evidence summary judgment, arguing that there wasn’t any evidence it knew or should have known about the dangerous condition. The store attached the plaintiff’s deposition as evidence and the plaintiff responded with both her deposition transcript and the cashier’s. The trial court granted the motion and rendered a take-nothing judgment.

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In East El Paso Physicians Medical Center, LLC v. Olivia Vargas, an 81-year-old plaintiff who used a walker claimed she was injured when she went to a hospital facility. As she left the building, the automatic doors closed on her walker, and she fell and suffered a shoulder injury. She sued the hospital, arguing that the hospital had failed to correct a dangerous condition, failed to warn her about the dangerous condition, and failed to set and enforce appropriate safety standards.

The hospital moved to dismiss. It argued that the claim was a health care liability claim under the Texas Medical Liability Act (“the Act”). Under the Act, the plaintiff had to submit an expert report showing causation within 120 days of filing a health care liability claim. The hospital argued the plaintiff’s failure to file an expert report required that her case be dismissed. The trial court denied the motion to dismiss. The hospital appealed.

The hospital argued that the trial court had erred in denying its motion because the plaintiff’s allegations related to state regulations controlling hospital construction. It further argued that the plaintiff had not filed an ordinary premises liability claim, but a claim based on the standards that a hospital had to meet to offer health care services in Texas. The appellate court found that this argument didn’t sufficiently distinguish between the current case and other premises liability cases to bring the plaintiff’s claim within the requirements of the Act. Continue reading →

In the recent ruling in City of Diboll, Texas v. Louie Lawson, a Texas appellate court considered a case in which a Texas city claimed the recreational use statute applied to the plaintiff’s claim and that it was not grossly negligent under the statute. The case arose when a woman went to a city park to watch her granddaughter’s softball game. When leaving the park, she tripped on a four-inch hollow pipe poking up from the center of the walkway on park grounds. It would usually act as a receptacle for a pole and create a barrier that prevented cars from entering the park. However, since the pole wasn’t in place, she tripped, fell, and suffered serious injuries.

The plaintiff sued the city for a premises defect. She died for unrelated reasons, but the personal representative of her estate substituted as the plaintiff. The city filed a plea to the jurisdiction and moved for summary judgment, which was denied. Accordingly, it appealed.

On appeal, the City argued that the plaintiff had been engaged in recreation under the recreational use statute, and so the plaintiff had to plead and prove the City acted with gross negligence. It further argued that the plaintiff had not pled it was grossly negligent, and the evidence showed it was not grossly negligent. Continue reading →

In a 2011 premises liability case, two sisters appealed a summary judgment in favor of Little Caesar’s Pizza. The case arose when the sisters were in a restaurant when an armed robbery occurred. Two masked robbers came into the pizzeria, brandished their guns, and threatened the people in the restaurant. The robbers were wearing restaurant uniforms. A robber shot one of the women (Viera) when she and her sister left through the back door, and her sister (Estrada) saw the shooting.

The report showed that the robbers shot at the store managers. They ordered people to the back of the pizzeria and told the customers to run. Several customers, including the sisters, ran out of the open back door. Estrada left before Viera and when she looked back, she saw a gunman shoot three times at her sister. When the police investigated, they found the shooting was an inside job conducted with the help of a restaurant worker who left the back door open.

The sisters sued for negligent security. They claimed that the pizzeria failed to offer adequate security and that it was foreseeable an assault would happen on the property. They sought personal injury damages based on physical injuries, as well as mental anguish and PTSD. The pizzeria moved for summary judgment, arguing that the shooting happened outside the restaurant, there was no duty owed to the sisters, no evidence of causation, no evidence of foreseeability, and alternatively that the claims were barred by the statute of limitations.

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