Fall or dog bite

Hurt on somebody else’s property.

A wet floor with no sign, a stair that gave way, a parking lot with no light, a dog that came off the porch. Whether the owner owes you anything depends on the state, on why you were there, and on what the owner knew.

The short answer

Report it before you leave, to the manager, the owner or the host, and get the report in writing or at least the name of the person you told. An unreported fall is easy to deny later.
Photograph the hazard right then. Spills are mopped, bulbs are replaced and rugs are straightened within the hour.
In Texas and Washington you usually have to show the owner knew or should have known about the hazard. California asks only whether the owner acted reasonably.
Dog bites: California and Washington hold the owner liable whether or not the dog had bitten before. Texas asks what the owner knew about the dog.
A fall on public property starts the short government claim clock: six months in California and Texas, a claim form and sixty day wait in Washington.

What the owner owed you

The law in all three states starts from the same idea: a person who controls property must take reasonable care that it does not hurt the people who come onto it. The states differ on how they ask the question.

California asks it directly. Anyone who owns, leases or controls property must use reasonable care to keep it reasonably safe, and the court does not sort visitors into customers, guests and trespassers. The question is what a reasonable owner would have done given how likely it was that someone would be hurt.

Texas and Washington still ask why you were there. A customer in a store is owed the most: the business must use reasonable care about dangers it knows of or should discover, and in Texas it must make safe or warn of hidden dangers it knew or should have known about. In Texas the injured person generally carries the burden of showing that knowledge. Washington relaxes that where the hazard was reasonably foreseeable from how the business operates, such as produce on the floor of a self serve grocery aisle.

In practice the fight is almost always about notice: how long the spill had been there, whether anyone had complained about the stair, whether the light had been out for a week. Store video, cleaning logs and incident reports answer those questions, and they belong to the owner. A lawyer asks for them in writing, early, before they are overwritten.

Dog bites

California and Washington both hold a dog’s owner liable for a bite to a person in a public place or lawfully on private property, whether or not the dog had ever shown aggression before. Washington adds that provocation by the injured person is a complete defense. In Texas the rule comes from decisions of the Supreme Court of Texas. An owner who knew or had reason to know the dog was dangerous is strictly liable, except to a trespasser. Otherwise the injured person must show the owner handled the dog carelessly.

A homeowner’s or renter’s policy often covers a dog bite, so a claim against a neighbor or a friend is often a claim against their insurer rather than against them. Get the dog’s vaccination record, photograph the wound every day, and report the bite to the local animal control agency. That report is also how the next person is protected.

Why these cases are harder than they look

A fall sounds simple, and insurers treat these claims with more suspicion than almost any other. The injured person has to prove what the owner knew, with evidence the owner controls, against the argument that anyone should have seen the hazard. That is why a fall claim benefits from a lawyer earlier than a car crash does: the preservation letter for the video and the logs has to go out while they still exist.

The deadline to sue a private owner is two years in California and Texas and three in Washington.

Your next step

Talk to a lawyer about the fall or the bite

Tell the firm what happened, in your own words. It tells you what it can do and what comes next. The call commits you to nothing, and the line is answered at any hour.

Ask for a call back Or call 800-300-0001Or call 800-300-0001

The rules, with their sources

These are the rules of law this page relies on. Each one is a general statement with exceptions that are not shown, and each links to the statute, regulation or court decision it comes from.

Topic	California	Texas	Washington
Injuries on someone else’s property	Anyone who owns, leases or controls property must use reasonable care to keep it reasonably safe. California does not sort visitors into categories; the question is whether the owner acted reasonably given the likelihood of someone getting hurt. [1]	What the owner owed you depends on why you were there. A business must make safe, or warn customers about, hidden dangers it knew of or should have known of. The injured person generally has to show the owner knew or should have known about the condition. [2]	What the owner owed you depends on why you were there. A business must use reasonable care about dangers it knows of or should discover. You do not always have to prove the owner knew about the specific hazard if it was reasonably foreseeable given how the business operates. [3]
Dog bites	The owner is liable for a bite to someone in a public place or lawfully in a private place, whether or not the dog had ever bitten before. [4]	In Texas the rule comes from decisions of the Supreme Court of Texas. An owner who knew or had reason to know the dog was dangerous can be held strictly liable, except to a trespasser on the owner’s land. Otherwise the owner can be liable for handling the dog carelessly. [5]	The owner is liable for a bite to someone in a public place or lawfully on private property, even if the dog had never shown aggression before. Proof that the injured person provoked the attack is a complete defense. [6]
If you were partly at fault	California reduces your damages by your percentage of responsibility. There is no cutoff: you can recover something even if you were mostly at fault. [7]	Texas reduces your damages by your percentage of responsibility. If you are found more than 50 percent responsible, you recover nothing. [8]	Your share of fault reduces your damages by that percentage but does not bar your claim. One exception: an injured person who was under the influence can be barred entirely if that was a cause of the injury and they were more than 50 percent at fault. [9]
Deadline to sue for an injury	Generally two years for an injury caused by someone else’s wrongful act or carelessness. [10]	Two years from the day the claim arises. For most crashes and falls that is the day of the injury. [11]	Three years for most injury claims. [12]
Claims against a government agency	A written claim must be presented to the city, county, state agency or other public entity within six months. If the entity sends a proper written rejection, a lawsuit generally has to be filed within six months of that notice. A request to file late must be made within a reasonable time, not to exceed one year after the claim arose. The statute leaves a few narrow kinds of time out of that year. [13]	A city, county, school district or state agency must receive notice of the claim within six months of the incident. The notice describes the injury or damage, the time and place, and what happened. A city’s charter can set its own notice period, which may be shorter, so do not assume you have the full six months. [14]	Before suing a city, county or other local government, you must present a tort claim form to its designated agent and then wait 60 calendar days. Claims against the State go to the Office of Risk Management with the same 60 day wait. The form has to be presented within the normal limitation period, and that period is paused during the 60 days. [15]

Sources

The rules on this page were last checked against these sources on October 3, 2026. Laws change, so follow the link before you rely on a rule.

Attorney review in progress. Responsible attorney: Emery Brett Ledger. Page last updated October 26, 2026.