Texas personal injury law provides a legal cause of action for injuries that occur because of the nature, condition or use of property. This is known as a “Premises Liability” case. Premises liability cases prosecute property owners who fail to provide safe environments and aim to protect people who are visiting or conducting business on another’s property. During a premises liability case, the prosecuting attorney will demonstrate that an incident on the property resulted in injury, and that the injury was caused by negligence. Property owners may also be held accountable if lack of security leads to a physical assault or attack on the property. For a plaintiff to prevail in a premises liability case, the plaintiff must prove that the owner or property manager failed to provide a safe and secure environment for guests.
Premises Liability Jury awards $20 million to rape victim who sued apartments
An example of such an incident was reported in the Houston Chronicle today. According to the Houston Chronicle “A Harris County jury awarded $20 million in damages Wednesday to a rape victim who sued her apartment complex for failing to notify residents about previous sexual attacks on the property...
The woman lived at The Promenade Cullen Park when a masked man who resided in the west Houston complex raped and sodomized her for more than 10 hours in February 2009...
According to the lawsuit, apartment officials knew about a break-in next door to the woman's unit a few weeks before her ordeal in which a man tried to rape that resident and failed to notify other tenants about a sexual predator...
The woman who filed suit lived alone and renewed her lease shortly after the earlier incident without being told about its severity, said Troy Chandler, a lawyer on the Williams Kherkher team who represented the woman...
"The apartment complex issued a notice that an apartment had been broken into - the same warning that they would send out if a bicycle was stolen off a balcony or a TV was stolen out of an apartment," Chandler said. "The notice failed to mention that a burglary occurred, that the assailant waited inside, that a tenant was attacked and that there had been an attempted rape."
The lawsuit, filed in June 2010, sought damages for negligence and deceptive trade practices. The woman continues to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, Chandler said.
After a weeklong trial, the jury awarded $7 million for physical pain and mental anguish, $5 million for future mental anguish and $8 million for conduct forbidden by the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act...
Police, on notice about a possible serial rapist, arrested Darryl Anthony Martin shortly after the woman's attacker fled and she called 911. Martin, now 24, pleaded guilty to sexual assault in 2010 and was sentenced to 20 years in state prison.”
If you or a loved one have been injured in an accident, contact Marc Whitehead, a board certified personal injury attorney in Houston, Texas or download our free ebook, Car & Truck Crashes, 10 Secrets Victims Should Know To Protect Their Rights.
