Slip and Fall Accidents

I know what it means to be hurt because a property owner did not do their job. I was attacked on commercial property — a place where the owner had a duty to provide reasonable security and failed. That experience shaped how I practice law. When a property owner's negligence causes injury, I take it personally. Because I have lived it.

Slip and fall cases are often dismissed as minor. Insurance adjusters treat them like nuisances. Defense lawyers call them frivolous. But a fall on a hard surface can shatter a hip, rupture a disc, cause a traumatic brain injury, or tear a rotator cuff. These injuries require surgery, months of rehabilitation, and can permanently change your quality of life. There is nothing minor about that.

I am Michelle Acosta, and I handle every premises liability case myself. I investigate the scene, preserve the evidence, and build the case for what it is actually worth — not what the insurance company wants to pay.

Premises Liability in Texas

Texas premises liability law imposes different duties on property owners depending on the legal status of the person who was injured. For the vast majority of slip and fall cases — where the injured person was a customer, tenant, patient, or invited guest — the property owner owes the highest duty of care.

Under Texas law, a property owner must:

• Keep the property in a reasonably safe condition
• Inspect the property regularly for dangerous conditions
• Repair known hazards within a reasonable time
• Warn visitors of hazards that are not obvious

To win a slip and fall case in Texas, you need to prove three things:

1. A dangerous condition existed. This could be a wet floor, a broken staircase, a torn carpet, inadequate lighting, an uneven sidewalk, a missing handrail, ice that was not treated, or debris in a walkway.

2. The property owner knew or should have known about the condition. This is where most cases are fought. The property owner will always claim they did not know about the hazard. But Texas law does not require that they had actual knowledge. If the condition existed long enough that a reasonable inspection would have discovered it, that is enough. This is called "constructive knowledge," and it is provable through maintenance logs, inspection records, employee testimony, and surveillance footage.

3. The property owner failed to fix the hazard or warn you about it. If they knew — or should have known — about the danger and did nothing, they are liable for the injuries that resulted.

Evidence Disappears Fast

The biggest challenge in slip and fall cases is evidence preservation. Unlike a car accident where there is a police report, a damaged vehicle, and skid marks on the road, a slip and fall leaves very little physical evidence. The wet floor gets mopped. The broken tile gets replaced. The ice melts.

And then there is the surveillance footage. Most commercial properties have security cameras. That footage is your best evidence — it shows the hazard, it shows how long it existed, and it shows exactly how the fall happened. But most surveillance systems operate on short recording loops. Footage gets overwritten in as little as 48 to 72 hours. Some systems cycle every 30 days. If you do not act quickly to demand preservation, the most important evidence in your case will be gone.

When I take a slip and fall case, I send preservation demands immediately — to the property owner, the property management company, and any security company that operates the cameras. I put them on legal notice that they must preserve all footage, incident reports, maintenance logs, and inspection records. If they destroy evidence after receiving that notice, there are serious legal consequences.

Where Slip and Fall Accidents Happen in Houston

I have handled premises liability cases involving falls at all types of commercial properties across Houston:

• Grocery stores and retail — Spills in the produce aisle, leaking freezer cases, wet entrance mats, cluttered aisles. Stores like H-E-B, Walmart, Kroger, and Target have high foot traffic and a constant responsibility to inspect and clean.
• Restaurants and bars — Grease on kitchen floors that gets tracked into dining areas, spilled drinks, uneven patios, poorly lit parking lots.
• Hotels and apartment complexes — Broken stairwells, unlit hallways, defective elevators, wet pool decks, unmaintained parking lots.
• Office buildings — Wet lobby floors from tracked-in rain, defective escalators, uneven flooring transitions, inadequate lighting in parking garages.
• Medical facilities — Freshly mopped floors without warning signs, overcrowded waiting rooms with cluttered walkways, defective wheelchair ramps.
• Parking lots and garages — Potholes, uneven surfaces, oil slicks, faded lane markings, inadequate lighting. Houston's heat causes asphalt to deteriorate rapidly, and property owners who do not maintain their lots create serious fall hazards.

Houston's Climate Makes Falls More Dangerous

Houston's weather creates unique slip and fall hazards that property owners are expected to address. Heavy rain — and Houston gets a lot of it — means water tracked into buildings on shoes and umbrellas. Property owners must have mats, drainage, and cleaning protocols to address this. When Houston's rare ice storms hit, property owners must treat walkways and warn visitors. And the humidity means condensation forms on tile and concrete surfaces, especially in air-conditioned buildings where the temperature difference between inside and outside is extreme.

Common Injuries from Slip and Fall Accidents

Falls cause serious injuries, particularly for older adults but also for healthy people who land the wrong way:

• Hip fractures — often requiring surgical replacement and months of rehabilitation
• Wrist and arm fractures from bracing the fall
• Herniated discs and spinal compression fractures
• Traumatic brain injuries from hitting the head on the floor or a hard surface
• Torn rotator cuffs and shoulder injuries
• Knee ligament tears (ACL, MCL)
• Broken ankles

Many of these injuries require surgery and lengthy rehabilitation. Some result in permanent limitations. The medical bills alone can be devastating, and when you add lost wages and the impact on your daily life, the true cost of a fall is far greater than most people realize.

What Your Slip and Fall Case Is Worth

There is no cap on personal injury damages in Texas. That means you can recover the full value of your losses, including:

• All medical expenses — past and future
• Lost wages and lost earning capacity
• Pain and suffering
• Mental anguish
• Disfigurement (scarring from surgery)
• Physical impairment
• Loss of enjoyment of life

Insurance companies will try to minimize your case. They will argue the hazard was open and obvious, that you were not paying attention, that your injuries were pre-existing. These are standard defenses, and I know how to dismantle every one of them.

The "Open and Obvious" Defense

The most common defense in a Texas slip and fall case is that the hazard was "open and obvious" — meaning you should have seen it and avoided it. Property owners and their insurance companies rely heavily on this argument. But it is not an automatic win for them.

Texas courts have held that even when a hazard might be visible, the property owner can still be liable if they should have anticipated that the visitor would not notice it. A wet floor in a busy grocery store aisle where customers are looking at shelves, not at the ground, is a foreseeable hazard even if the water is technically visible. A pothole in a parking lot at night, where the lighting is inadequate, is not "open and obvious" if the property owner failed to provide sufficient illumination.

I know how to counter this defense with evidence, expert testimony, and case law. It is the most litigated issue in premises liability, and I have handled it enough times to know exactly how to defeat it.

Statute of Limitations

Texas has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims, including slip and fall cases. The clock starts on the date of the injury. If you do not file your lawsuit within two years, you lose the right to sue — permanently, with very few exceptions. Do not wait. Evidence disappears, memories fade, and the property owner has no incentive to preserve anything once they think the deadline has passed.

Why Michelle Acosta Law

Premises liability is personal for me. I know what it feels like to be hurt because someone who had a duty to keep you safe failed to do it. That experience fuels how I fight for my clients.

I prepare every case for trial. I have won a $56 million verdict in Harris County, and that record changes how insurance companies negotiate with me. I am a Gerry Spence Method trained trial lawyer, a Super Lawyers Rising Star, and a Top 100 Trial Lawyer in Texas. I handle every case personally — no hand-offs, no case managers, no assembly line.

If you were injured in a slip and fall on someone else's property, call me at (713) 933-3300 or request a free consultation. You pay nothing unless we win.