Premises Liability

Premises liability cases are a special form of negligence cases. A subcatagory is the where the conduct of the owner manager did not  provide adequate security against criminal conduct . Timberwalk Apartments, Partners, Inc. v. Cain, 972 S.W.2d 749, 753 (Tex.1998). “Premises liability is a special form of negligence where the duty owed to the plaintiff depends upon the status of the plaintiff at the time the incident occurred.” W. Inv., Inc. v. Urena, 162 S.W.3d 547, 550 (Tex.2005). Different classes of persons are invitee, tenants and their guests, and licensees, everyone else except employees.
In order to recover from the owner or manager of an apartment complex it must be shown that the condition of the premises:
1. The condition created or tolerated posed an unreasonable risk of harm, and
2. They knew or reasonably should have known of the danger, and
3. They failed to exercise ordinary care to protect the tenant from the danger, by both failing to adequately warn of the condition and failing to make that condition reasonably safe.
4. The condition must be the direct cause of the injury.
5. The injury must have been foreseeable to the owner or manager to the complex.
If the injury is caused by criminal conduct, the question of forseeability is a much more difficult problem. It is enough to say that it is possible to hold the manager or owner liable under certain circumstances.