On April 10, 2026, the Texas Supreme Court issued its opinion in H-E-B, LP v. Peterson, reinstating the summary judgment granted by the trial court in a slip-and-fall case because the plaintiff did not meet her evidentiary burden to prove constructive notice.
The plaintiff slipped and fell on a clear liquid puddle while shopping in the toy aisle of an HEB grocery store. After falling, the plaintiff noticed a puddle about six or seven inches wide. She also observed water dripping from a ceiling rafter above the puddle. The plaintiff could not remember whether there were tracks through the puddle and testified she had “no idea” how long the puddle had been present before her fall. HEB moved for summary judgment, arguing that it had no knowledge of the puddle on the toy aisle and no evidence showed when the puddle was formed. The plaintiff contended there was a fact issue over whether HEB should have known of the puddle, including whether a leak above the aisle had created the puddle. The trial court granted summary judgment for HEB.
The plaintiff appealed to the Thirteenth Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial court’s summary judgment order. HEB then filed a petition for review with the Supreme Court of Texas.
The sole issue before the Texas Supreme Court was whether HEB, as the occupier of the premises, possessed constructive knowledge of the puddle. The court reiterated the longstanding principle that “[w]hether a premises owner can be charged with constructive knowledge turns on the longevity of the dangerous condition, the owner’s—or its agent’s—proximity to the condition, and the condition’s conspicuity.” The court held that, “[a]bsent temporal evidence of the duration the danger existed, the law does not charge a premises owner with constructive notice.” Called the “time-notice rule,” this exists because a fact-finder cannot assess whether an owner had an ample opportunity to discover a dangerous condition without some temporal evidence indicating the condition existed long enough for a reasonable owner to have discovered.
The court acknowledged that “[p]roving constructive knowledge of transient dangerous conditions like water puddles is difficult,” but the Texas Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected calls “for a relaxed burden of proof in slip-and-fall cases when the evidence is scant.” The court stated that, “[b]ecause the evidence in this case demonstrates ‘only the possibility’ that the puddle existed long enough to charge HEB with notice of it, we hold that the court of appeals erred in reversing the trial court’s summary judgment for HEB,” and reinstated the trial court’s summary judgment order.
The Texas Supreme Court’s opinion in H-E-B emphasizes the evidentiary burden a plaintiff must establish to impose constructive notice on a property owner or occupier. Absent such evidence, a property owner or occupier should consider pursuing dispositive relief in transient slip-and-fall cases where plaintiffs lack the required temporal evidence and Texas trial courts are bound to follow this precedent from the Texas Supreme Court.
Read the court’s opinion in H-E-B, LP v. Peterson.