Slip and fall lawyer in Houston for rain-slick entries, wet floors and broken stairs

A fall on a wet store floor or a loose stair can break a wrist, a hip or a tooth in a second, and the property’s insurer starts building its version soon after. As a slip and fall lawyer in Houston, LAWBOSS helps people hurt in falls gather the proof before it disappears. Our Houston team includes a former insurance adjuster, so we know how these claims are read on the other side.

This page comes from the Houston office of LAWBOSS – Harris, Nelsen & Uvalle, PLLC, on Memorial Drive next to Memorial Park. Besides crashes, our Houston attorneys take calls from people who were hurt in falls at stores, restaurants, apartment complexes, parking garages, office buildings and job sites around Harris County.

The kinds of falls we hear about in Houston

Most falls that lead to a claim start with something ordinary. Houston’s sudden downpours are part of it: rain gets tracked through a front door, a mat is missing or soaked through, and the tile just inside turns slick. Other falls have nothing to do with weather. Here are the situations that come up most in our calls:

• Wet floors and spills in grocery stores, big-box stores and restaurants: a dropped drink, leaking freezer case, freshly mopped aisle or produce on the floor.
• Rain-slick entries, covered walkways and lobbies where water collects after a storm.
• Broken stairs and rails: a cracked step, a loose or missing handrail, uneven risers or a dark stairwell.
• Parking garages and lots: potholes, broken curbs, oil stains, poor lighting and wheel stops placed where people walk.
• Apartments and rental homes: balconies, exterior stairs, walkways and pool decks.
• Offices, hotels and public buildings: torn carpet, loose floor mats, cords across a walkway.
• Work sites: ladders, scaffolds, wet or cluttered floors and open edges.

What to do in the first minutes after you slip

The first minutes after a fall are usually the only time the scene looks exactly as it did when you went down. If you are able to, or if someone with you can help, these steps protect both your health and your claim.

• Get medical care. If you hit your head, cannot put weight on a leg or feel pain in your neck or back, let staff call for help. A visit to a doctor the same day or the next creates a record that ties the injury to the fall.
• Report it before you leave. Tell a manager, the front desk or the property office, ask that an incident report be written, and ask for a copy or at least the name of the person who took it.
• Photograph the spot. Take pictures of whatever made you fall (the puddle, the spill, the broken step, the missing rail) from close up and from a distance, plus any warning sign or the lack of one.
• Photograph your shoes and clothes. The other side will ask what you were wearing, and a picture answers that better than memory. Keep the shoes as they are.
• Write down witnesses. Get names and phone numbers of anyone who saw the fall or the hazard, including employees.
• Ask that video be kept. Many stores, apartment complexes and garages have cameras. Ask in writing that the footage of your fall be saved, and tell us right away so we can send a preservation letter.
• Say little about fault. It is natural to apologize or say you are fine. Stick to the facts of what happened.

If someone from the business or its insurer calls you afterward and asks to record your account, you do not have to agree on the spot. Our post about recorded statements was written about crashes, but the same advice holds for a fall.

Why evidence from falls fades fast

A crash leaves dented cars and a police report. A fall often leaves nothing behind once the floor is mopped. The spill gets cleaned up, the mat gets replaced, the stair gets repaired, and the employees who were on shift move on. Security systems in stores and buildings commonly record over older footage as a matter of routine, so a video that shows the hazard and how long it was there can be gone if nobody asks for it in time.

That is why we move quickly in a fall case. We send written requests asking the owner or manager to keep video, incident reports, cleaning and inspection logs, and maintenance records. We also look for photos posted online, prior complaints a tenant may have made, and any repair work done after the fall. The sooner we hear from you, the more of that material is still there.

How insurers handle falls in stores and buildings

Ian Nelsen, a Partner Attorney in our Houston office, worked as an insurance adjuster and then as an insurance defense attorney before he joined LAWBOSS in 2016. That background is useful in fall cases, because the defense playbook for them is predictable. Most of our firm’s attorneys came from the insurance side, and we use that knowledge to anticipate what the property’s insurer will argue.

• You weren’t watching where you were going. Store insurers raise this often. They point to a phone in your hand, a cart you were pushing, the shoes you wore or the fact that the hazard was in plain view.
• The hazard was not there long. The insurer may say the spill happened seconds before you arrived and nobody could have seen it. Video and cleaning logs are often the only way to test that.
• There was a sign. A cone in the aisle, a sign by the door, a note on the stairs. Where it stood and whether you could see it matters.
• Your injury came from something else. The adjuster will pull your medical history to look for an earlier back problem or a gap between the fall and your first doctor visit.
• A quick offer. Some insurers make a small early offer for medical bills before the full injury is known, with a release that ends the claim.

We cover more of these habits on our insurance tactics page.

Shared fault after falls in Houston

Because the “you weren’t watching” argument is so common, the Texas fault rule matters a great deal in these cases. Under Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 33.001, a person hurt in a fall may not recover if their share of responsibility is greater than 50 percent. Under section 33.012, any recovery is reduced by the injured person’s own percentage. So the insurer does not have to prove you were entirely to blame; moving a slice of the fault onto you lowers what it pays, and pushing you over 50 percent ends the claim. The photos, the witness names and the video you help us save are what answer that argument.

When to call a slip and fall lawyer in Houston after rain or a spill

Not every fall needs a lawyer. If you were shaken but unhurt, there may be nothing to claim. We suggest calling when a fall leads to a trip to the emergency room, a broken bone, a head injury, surgery, time off work, or treatment that keeps going after a few weeks. It also makes sense to call when the business or its insurer is already asking for a statement, or when the fall happened on government property or at work, where special rules apply.

Falls on city, county or state property

A fall at a city building, a county facility, a public library, a state office or other government property follows a different set of rules. Whether a claim can be brought at all against a government unit is decided under the Texas Tort Claims Act, and two parts of it matter from the first day.

• Six-month notice. Under Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 101.101, the government unit must generally receive written notice within six months of the incident, describing the injury, the time and place, and what happened. A city charter may set a shorter period, and actual notice can sometimes excuse the written one. Read our post on the government notice deadline, which explains the same notice rule for vehicle cases.
• Limits on what can be paid. Section 101.023 caps the liability of the state government at $250,000 for each person and $500,000 for each occurrence for bodily injury or death, with the same limits for a municipality, and $100,000 and $300,000 for other local government units. These are limits set by statute, not a measure of any claim.

If you are not sure who owns the property where you fell, tell us where it happened and we will help sort it out before the six months run.

Falls at work and non-subscriber employers

Falls happen on construction sites, in warehouses and in restaurant kitchens, and the employer’s insurance decides a lot about what comes next. An employer that does not carry workers’ compensation insurance is often called a non-subscriber, and Labor Code section 406.033(a) takes away three of its usual defenses: it cannot defend by saying the worker was negligent, that the worker assumed the risk, or that a co-worker was negligent. That changes how a work fall case is argued.

If your employer does carry workers’ compensation, or if someone other than your employer (a general contractor, a property owner or an equipment company) may share responsibility, the path is different. Our work accident lawyer Houston page covers injuries on the job in more detail, and our case types page lists the other claims we handle.

What working with LAWBOSS looks like

You start with a free consultation. A lawyer listens to how the fall happened, looks at the photos and reports you have, and tells you plainly whether we think there is a claim worth pursuing. If we take the case, we send the preservation letters, collect your medical records and bills, find out who owns and manages the property and which insurer covers it, and deal with the adjuster so you do not have to. You can meet our Houston attorneys on the Houston team page.

Fees work the same way on every case we take: No Fees or Costs Unless We Win. LAWBOSS covers the expense of investigating your fall and building the claim, and you owe nothing for our fee or those expenses unless money is recovered for you.

Jonathan Harris, Board Certified, Personal Injury Trial Law – Texas Board of Legal Specialization, is the attorney responsible for the content of this website. Our Houston office answers calls 24/7.