Event Decor Failure: A Vendor's Liability Exposure in Texas

Attorney Answer

Treat this as a live claim from each injured person, and act on it this week. The first moves are not legal arguments — they are notifying your liability insurer and preserving the item that fell, along with everything that held it up.

Two overlapping bodies of law apply. If your company was in control of the space where the décor was installed, the premises framework governs. Corbin v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 648 S.W.2d 292 (Tex. 1983), states the duty owed to an invitee: reasonable care to protect against unreasonable risks of harm that the occupier knows or should know about. Keetch v. Kroger Co., 845 S.W.2d 262 (Tex. 1992), sets out what a claimant must prove — actual or constructive knowledge of the condition, an unreasonable risk of harm, a failure to use reasonable care to reduce or eliminate the risk, and proximate cause.

Keetch also holds that a defendant who created the condition may be found to have known of it, though that alone does not establish knowledge as a matter of law. That holding matters a great deal to a company in your position, because you did not encounter the hazard — you built it. The case will be about how the item was rigged, what it was anchored to, what load it carried, who installed it, what your own install and inspection routine is, and whether anything about the venue's structure was outside your control.

You are probably not the only party in the frame. The venue, the event host, the manufacturer of a failed fastener or bracket, and anyone who moved or adjusted the item afterward can all be in it. Texas apportions this. Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.003, the trier of fact assigns whole-number percentages of responsibility among each claimant, each defendant, settling persons, and properly designated responsible third parties. Under § 33.013(a), a liable defendant generally pays only its own percentage — Texas is not a joint-and-several state by default — with the narrow exceptions in § 33.013(b) for a defendant more than 50 percent responsible or one acting in concert in certain intentional conduct. And under § 33.001, a claimant found more than 50 percent responsible recovers nothing, with § 33.012(a) reducing anything below that line by the claimant's own share.

What you can do

1. Notify your general liability insurer in writing today, even though nothing has been filed. Give the date, the venue, what fell, and the names and contact information of everyone injured. Late notice is a coverage problem you do not need.

2. Preserve the item and every piece of its hardware — brackets, anchors, ties, clamps, the fasteners, and whatever it was attached to if you can get it. Bag it, label it, store it, and do not repair, clean or discard any of it.

3. Photograph everything now: the failure point, the mounting surface, the surrounding setup, and any comparable installation you did that day.

4. Pull the paperwork together — your contract with the client, your agreement with the venue, any certificate of insurance, and any indemnity or hold-harmless language in either. Send it to your insurer and to your lawyer, not to the claimants.

5. Write down who installed the item, when, and what your inspection or load-check practice is, and collect any install notes, photographs or texts from the crew that day.

6. Do not discuss fault with the injured customers or anyone acting for them, and do not offer or make payments toward their medical bills. Route every call, letter and demand to your insurer.

7. Have a Texas attorney — the one your insurer appoints, or your own — review anything before you respond to a demand, and ask early about whether a responsible third party should be designated.

Most lawyers offer a brief initial call at no cost, and a few minutes on your specific facts with a Texas attorney is worth more than any general guidance, including this page.

⏱ Time limits apply. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a) gives an injured person two years from the day the cause of action accrues to bring a personal-injury suit, so your exposure window is not open-ended — but it is long enough that evidence disappears first. Do not compute the date yourself or assume anything has expired; have a Texas attorney confirm where each claim stands, and keep the preserved item and records until every one of them is closed.