§ 41.005.Harm Resulting from Criminal Act

The rule for the case where the immediate wrongdoer is a criminal and the defendant is someone else — typically a property owner or an employer.

The rule: in an action arising from harm resulting from an assault, theft, or other criminal act, a court may not award exemplary damages against a defendant because of the criminal act of another.

Four exceptions. The exemption does not apply where the criminal act was committed by an employee of the defendant; where the defendant is criminally responsible as a party under Chapter 7 of the Penal Code; where the act occurred at a location where the defendant was maintaining a common nuisance under Chapter 125 of this code and had not made reasonable attempts to abate it; or where the act resulted from the defendant's intentional or knowing violation of a statutory duty under Subchapter D, Chapter 92 of the Property Code, and occurred after the deadline for compliance.

The fourth exception is the residential security-device provision — the landlord obligations for locks and related devices. A landlord who knowingly ignores those duties past the deadline loses the protection of this section when a tenant is harmed by crime.

Subsection (c) sets out the employer rule separately, and it is the classic four-part test. For a criminal act committed by an employee, the employer may be liable for punitive damages only if: the principal authorized the doing and the manner of the act; the agent was unfit and the principal acted with malice in employing or retaining them; the agent was employed in a managerial capacity and acting in the scope of employment; or the employer or a manager ratified or approved the act.

The four routes share a common idea: the employer is punished for its own conduct — authorising, recklessly hiring, acting through management, or ratifying — never for the employee's alone.