## Facts

- American Industries Life Insurance Company owned and managed a two-story office building in Houston.
- Jose Ruvalcaba worked for a tenant located on the building’s second floor.
- Jose’s wife, Maribel, and their two-year-old son, Johnathan, visited Jose at work to take him to lunch; it was their first visit to the office.
- While descending a staircase, Johnathan fell through an open handrail opening and struck his head, briefly losing consciousness.
- Emergency evaluation showed minor external injury and no abnormality on CT; Johnathan was kept overnight and released the next day.
- At follow-up, Jose reported marked behavioral changes; medical experts attributed permanent traumatic brain injury and projected substantial future care costs.
- The handrail did not comply with the current City of Houston Building Code; plaintiffs pleaded premises liability and negligence per se based on the code violation.

## Issues

1. Whether Johnathan was a business invitee or a licensee when visiting his father at work to go to lunch.
2. If Johnathan was a licensee, whether there was legally sufficient evidence that the building owner had actual knowledge of the allegedly dangerous stair/handrail condition.
3. Whether proof of a building-code violation could establish liability under premises liability after the trial court directed a verdict against the negligence-per-se claim.

## Decision

- The court held there was no evidence supporting invitee status; Johnathan was a licensee.
- Because Johnathan was a licensee, the owner owed no duty to inspect or discover hazards and was liable only for willful, wanton, or grossly negligent conduct, or for failing to warn/make safe a dangerous condition of which it had actual knowledge.
- With gross negligence rejected and no evidence of actual knowledge of the dangerous condition, the evidence was legally insufficient to show breach of duty.
- The court reversed the trial judgment and rendered a take-nothing judgment for American Industries.

## Legal Principles

- Premises-liability duty turns on the entrant’s status: invitee (mutual benefit/business purpose) versus licensee (permission for the entrant’s own convenience or benefit).
- A licensee may recover only for willful, wanton, or grossly negligent injury, or for the owner’s failure to warn of or make safe a dangerous condition actually known to the owner and not known to the licensee.
- Constructive knowledge and a duty to inspect support invitee claims, but do not satisfy the actual-knowledge requirement for licensee claims.
- A building-code violation, without proof of the owner’s actual knowledge of an unreasonably dangerous condition to a licensee, does not establish breach under the licensee-duty framework.

## Conclusion

The court treated a child visiting a parent at work for a personal purpose as a licensee and held that, absent evidence the landowner actually knew the stair condition was dangerous (or acted with gross negligence), premises-liability recovery was barred, requiring reversal and rendition of a take-nothing judgment.


American Indus. Life Ins. Co. v. Ruvalcaba, 64 S.W.3d 126 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2002)