Yes - if your child is found more than 50% responsible, recovery can be barred in Texas, and if you miss the right deadlines, the hotel's insurer gains leverage fast.

What should have happened: a hotel in Fort Worth had a duty to fix or warn about an unreasonably dangerous condition it knew about or should have known about - broken stairs, loose balcony rails, slick lobby floors, bad lighting, unsecured pool gates, or hazards in a room. If staff ignored complaints, skipped inspections, or failed to block off the area, that points to the hotel's fault.

What to do now: preserve proof before it disappears. Get the incident report, photos, video requests, witness names, and your child's records for the lumbar spine, back, head, or other injury. Ask for surveillance footage immediately; hotels often overwrite it quickly. If police or EMS responded in Fort Worth, get those records too. Do not let an insurer lock you into a recorded statement that makes it sound like your child was "running," "not watching," or "using the area wrong."

What comes next: Texas uses modified comparative fault under Chapter 33. If your child is 50% or less at fault, damages are reduced by that percentage. If the child is 51% or more at fault, there is no recovery from the hotel. For younger children, that blame argument is often weaker because age and judgment matter.

For deadlines, this is where parents get burned near year-end. In most Texas injury cases, the general lawsuit deadline is 2 years under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.003. A minor's own claim may be tolled, but the parent's claim for medical bills is usually not. If the incident happened near the holidays two years ago, that deadline may be right now.