§ 95.003.Liability for Acts of Independent Contractors

The operative provision, and both elements are required.

A property owner is not liable for personal injury, death, or property damage to a contractor, subcontractor, or their employee who constructs, repairs, renovates, or modifies an improvement — including injury arising from the failure to provide a safe workplace — unless:

(1) the owner exercises or retains some control over the manner in which the work is performed, other than the right to order the work to start or stop or to inspect progress or receive reports; and (2) the owner had actual knowledge of the danger or condition resulting in the injury and failed to adequately warn.

The word "and" is the whole provision. Control without actual knowledge does not create liability, and actual knowledge without control does not either. Most claims fail on one or the other.

The control exclusions matter. Ordering work to start or stop, inspecting progress, and receiving reports are what any owner does on any project, and none of them counts. What is required is control over the manner of performance — telling the contractor how to do the work.

"Actual knowledge" excludes constructive knowledge. An owner who should have discovered a hazard but did not has no liability under this section.

The express reference to a safe workplace forecloses a workaround. A claimant cannot plead the owner's general duty to provide a safe workplace to escape these elements — that theory is named and brought within the section.

The reasoning is that a contractor is engaged for expertise the owner lacks, and controls its own work and its own employees' safety.