HOUSTON - The 14th Court of Appeals today reversed a ruling denying the University of Houston-Downtown governmental immunity from a slip and fall lawsuit.
The lawsuit was brought by Jose Briones.
According to the 14th Court’s opinion, in September 2017 Briones was a UHD student. On a Saturday, he was walking across the fourth floor with his laptop in front of him when he slipped on water on the floor. Briones then got up and walked to another area of the building to report his fall and the water on the floor. Briones neither saw the water before his fall, nor does the record reflect there are any witnesses that could testify about the water.
An incident report prepared by the UHD Police Department, which documented Briones’s fall and complaint, stated that “[c]leaning services was cleaning spill area before paramedics left.”
In 2019, Briones sued UHD, asserting a premises-defect claim under the Texas Tort Claims Act. UHD answered and filed a plea to the jurisdiction, which the trial court denied, the opinion states.
UHD appealed, arguing that the trial court erred on the basis that Briones did not establish that UHD had actual or constructive knowledge of an alleged premises defect, and therefore did not establish the subject-matter jurisdiction of the trial court.
The 14th Court concluded that Briones had not met his burden to establish the subject-matter jurisdiction of the trial court, sustaining UHD’s sole issue on appeal.
“Having sustained UHD’s issue, we hold the trial court fundamentally erred in denying UHD’s plea to the jurisdiction on Briones’s claims against it,” the opinion states. “We reverse the order of the trial court and render the judgment the trial court should have rendered, a dismissal of Briones’s claims for want of subject-matter jurisdiction.”
Case No. 14-21-00156-CV