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On April 10, 2026, the Texas Supreme Court issued a significant premises liability decision for property owners and insurers in H-E-B, L.P. v. Marissa Peterson. The Court reaffirmed that, to survive a no-evidence summary judgment in a slip-and-fall case, a plaintiff must present evidence showing how long the dangerous condition existed.
Background
While shopping in the toy aisle at an HEB grocery store, Plaintiff Marissa Peterson slipped on a clear liquid puddle and fell. After the fall, she observed a puddle approximately six inches wide and saw water dripping from a ceiling rafter above it. Peterson testified that she had “no idea” how long the puddle had been present before she fell. Her companion, John Wayne, likewise testified that he did not know where the water came from. The on-site manager listed the source of the liquid as “rain” in the official incident report because it had rained earlier that day and no other source was apparent.
Peterson presented evidence that, in the year before her fall, the HEB store had experienced numerous leaks related to a remodeling project. Roof-work records showed leak repairs during the two-year period surrounding the incident. However, those records did not identify any leaks above the toy aisle, nor any related roof repairs before Peterson’s fall. Video footage showed that rain had stopped two hours before the incident.
Peterson sued HEB for premises liability, alleging that HEB knew or should have known the puddle presented an unreasonable risk of harm and failed to either warn of the condition or make the premises reasonably safe.
HEB Moves for Summary Judgment
HEB moved for traditional and no-evidence summary judgment, arguing that no evidence demonstrated its actual or constructive knowledge of a dangerous condition causing Peterson’s injuries and that there was no evidence showing when the puddle formed. The trial court granted summary judgment for HEB, and the court of appeals reversed.
The Ruling
The Texas Supreme Court held that a premises owner is not charged with constructive notice of a dangerous condition unless there is temporal evidence showing how long the dangerous condition existed. Constructive knowledge requires proof that the condition existed long enough, before the injury and at the location where it occurred, for the premises owner to have discovered it. Since the record contained no evidence showing how long the puddle existed before Peterson slipped, the court of appeals erred in reversing summary judgment for HEB.
The decision not only reinforces the standard but also reminds insurers and defense counsel the importance of gathering information regarding how long a dangerous condition existed before a claimant’s injury. Their inability to state a timeframe may be grounds for summary judgment.
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