When winter arrives in New England, we should all be on the lookout for ice and snow on the roads, sidewalks, and properties. Especially if you own a business, keeping an eye out is simply not enough. You need a plan of action to remove all accumulation within a reasonable timeframe. Otherwise, the next patron who passes through may slip on a patch of ice out front – and you will likely be held responsible.
Slip-and-fall injuries from ice and snow are often serious ordeals. Because individuals hit the ground hard and fast, the injuries go beyond scrapes and bruises and could be life-threatening. Injuries may require extensive treatment and therapy, reducing the injured party’s future employment opportunities.
What if the city owns that icy patch of pavement, or the injured person was looking at a smartphone while walking? In cases like this, responsibility is not always clear. Think about the following factors.
Property Owner’s Duty of Care
Property managers owe patrons and visitors some duty of care on business grounds, including the sidewalk and the parking lot. In general, this relationship requires the property owner to inspect and maintain the safety of all public areas.
With snow and ice in the picture, you’ll need to identify and remove any accumulation within a reasonable timeframe or put up clear signage indicating a hazard, should you not be able to address it in time. Failing to do either may be considered negligence on your part – even if the plow company you’ve contracted shows up late or does an incomplete job.
Duty of care is not applied uniformly. For instance, a business that works with customers should anticipate when daily activity will start and have the grounds in safe condition by then. Nearly identical duty applies to licensees or those visiting for social reasons. On the other hand, trespassers do not receive this degree of consideration, as they are unexpected visitors – often with nefarious or illicit intent.
If you slip and fall after a property owner has delayed or ignored cleaning ice and snow, you’ll need to prove:
- The property owner was or should have been aware of the conditions.
- The property owner failed to take appropriate steps to remove or treat the ice.
- The owner’s negligence is directly responsible for your injuries.
- Your injury is significant and can’t be traced back to your own personal negligence, inattention, or reckless behavior.
After a slip and fall, whether it involves ice, snow, a wet floor, or another hazardous condition, the steps you take immediately afterward can also affect your ability to pursue a claim. They can help preserve important evidence and establish what happened, where it happened, and how the incident affected you.
A City or Town’s Responsibility
In some cases, the maintenance of a road or sidewalk may not be the responsibility of a business owner. Rather, the area is part of the town or city’s property and the local municipality is responsible for any upkeep. However, the same rules for proving negligence apply: You’ll need to show the conditions were unreasonably unsafe, to the point they posed a hazard to anyone passing through.
As a note, municipalities see the upkeep of public areas and buildings – no commercial buildings or private residences. Sidewalks in residential areas fall within the homeowner or building owner’s responsibility. If it’s in front of a commercial establishment, the property owner needs to clear it.
State and local governments often have immunity from litigation related to such accidents, although individuals may still be able to file a claim. Unlike with traditional personal injury lawsuits, your local town or city has its own procedures for filing a claim. You may need to send a written description of your claim within 30 days of the incident, possibly with the dollar amount specified, to the correct department. Failing to follow all procedures may bar you from filing your claim at all.
Homeowners and Private Residences
Many New Englanders have a neighbor who won’t shovel the sidewalk in front, instead leaving a large pile of snow and ice to melt. You are familiar with the hazard and know to avoid it, but what happens when a delivery person attempts to access the property and slips on the pavement or front steps?
In terms of private residences, the owner owes the visitor a similar duty of care, unless the injured individual was trespassing. However, because the homeowner isn’t a business owner, he or she is given some degree of leeway to identify and take steps to improve dangerous, slippery conditions.
What Should Pedestrians Know about Fault in Icy Pavement Accidents?
Some states – including Connecticut – have comparative negligence laws, which base rewards on the plaintiff’s degree of responsibility for the accident – for instance, deliberately ignoring posted signs or rushing through a slippery area.
Whether you’re on business, personal, or city grounds, you’re expected to act reasonably when walking through slippery, snowy conditions. Appropriate behavior may include:
- Looking out for and avoiding patches of ice.
- Walking slowly and taking small steps.
- Seeking alternate routes around snowy, slippery areas.
- Wearing weather-appropriate footwear.
Reasonable expectations of snow removal vary across the country. In New England and other Northern states, a “natural accumulation” rule stands, which provides the property owner some degree of leniency regarding the expected and typical amount of ice and snow accumulation. This rule introduces a few more points to consider:
- What is “natural” for the area? Is the accumulation great enough to pose a danger?
- Did the property owner interfere with accumulation? For instance, he or she piled snow right in front of the business and didn’t move it.
- When was the business owner expecting customers? Did he or she make an effort to remove snow and ice before this point?
- Are there town rules in place regarding snow removal, including for businesses and residences? Did the property owner or homeowner follow them?
- Is the ice a result of recent accumulation or older snow that’s now melting and freezing over?
- Was the snow or ice storm in the forecast, or was it a surprise overnight event?
- Are there aspects of the property – for instance, missing railings, a sloped surface or potholes – that cause more ice and snow than expected to accumulate in one spot? Does the property owner clearly label these areas for the hazards they present?
If you find yourself the victim of a slip and fall accident, document the conditions at the scene before snow and ice melt or get cleared away. Write your own account of what happened and see if you can get any witness statements.
If you believe you have a claim, bring it to the Connecticut slip and fall lawyer at Trantolo & Trantolo. For more information, contact us today.
How Much of a Slip-and-fall Hazard Are Ice and Snow?
Pedestrians get told to watch where they’re walking, while business owners must be alert to changing weather and have a plan in place to keep the premises clear and clean. Yet, when ice and snow are considered, how much of a hazard are they?
First, there’s no maximum amount of ice and snow that’s illegal. Rather, property owners and maintenance crews must keep a watchful eye and then clean it up in a timely manner.
Snow, particularly, accumulates, and as many in Connecticut see year after year, not clearing it away turns a flat pavement or asphalt into a slippery, uneven surface.
Ice, even more so, presents additional dangers. It’s not so much that water freezes or ice melts and then refreezes, but rather that it nearly always has a thin layer of water on top.
Scientists haven’t yet arrived at a clear explanation for this. Rather, some theories, such as pressure melting, indicate that when a person, either through walking or skating on ice, exerts a certain amount of pressure per square inch, the ice’s melting temperature drops. What results is, essentially, a double hazard: an already-slippery surface with a slight coating of water on top.
Why Are Slip and Fall Injuries on Ice Particularly Dangerous?
When an individual slips on ice, they fall fast to the ground, which offers no support. Because of this, a slip and fall injury on ice can become particularly dangerous for the following reasons.
1. How You Fall
What happens when someone slips on ice? Due to the surface’s slickness, there is a chance that you’ll fall down at a faster speed. Then, you’ll hit a hard surface – usually asphalt covered in a layer of ice – that doesn’t bounce back. Typically, individuals hit the ground on their hips or bottom; when this occurs, the force from hitting the pavement rapidly passes through the areas of your body with the least amount of resistance.
2. How It Affects Your Body
For slips and falls on ice, two of the most common injuries are extremely concerning: broken bones and head trauma. Even when the fall doesn’t seem that serious, your body can experience significant trauma. Specifically, the force knocks your pelvis out of position, often to the point that it’s rotated and twisted at an angle. In response, your spine has to adjust. As a result of these factors, an injury might not be immediately apparent, but your body could be experiencing soft tissue and joint damage that, without medical attention, becomes worse over time.
At the same time, when such force passes through your pelvis and spine, there’s a chance you could blow out a spinal disc, leading to what’s known as a herniated, ruptured or bulging disc. The area around it could also become strained; as the fall affects muscles deep in your lower back, an acute back injury may emerge.
These injuries, whether they’re readily apparent or not, often require a combination of surgery, injections, medications and physical therapy to correct.
While your back, spine and head are the most vulnerable areas, falls, depending upon how you hit the ground, can also affect other parts of your body. Your arms, elbows, shoulders, and/or wrists may break or fracture if you fall directly on any of these body parts.
Although you can tell when a bone is broken right away, many injuries from falling on ice are not so easy to spot. In fact, damage can go unnoticed for years! Because a fall could create a soft tissue, muscle or joint injury that never fully heals, it’s recommended that you see a medical professional immediately after the fall, even if your body seems fine.
3. Serious Risks for Certain Individuals
The elderly and individuals predisposed to osteoporosis and broken bones often experience more serious injuries when falling on ice. While the chance of breaking a bone increases, this type of fall also has the potential to result in the following:
- Bleeding on the brain.
- Other internal bruising and bleeding risks, especially if you take a blood thinner like Warfarin, Clopidogrel, or even aspirin.
As a result of these risks, anyone living with these conditions or taking the above medications should get immediate medical attention after a fall.
4. Lack of Visibility
What’s worse than attempting to walk over a slippery surface? Being surprised by black ice. Black ice can form when precipitation, melted ice or snow freezes over. On sidewalks and roads, it looks fairly unassuming – just a wet patch. You might not be wearing proper footwear or taking the necessary safety precautions, so slipping and falling onto the pavement often comes out of nowhere.
What Are the Most Common Injuries that Occur on Icy Pavements?
Data examining slips and falls from ice and snow indicates that most injuries happen on outdoor surfaces. While many slips or falls result in a minor bruise or cut, the force at which someone hits the ground or the height at which someone falls significantly makes the injury more severe.
What could result are:
- Back, neck, and shoulder injuries
- Fractures
- Concussions
- Dislocation
- Muscle strains
- Cuts and bruises
- Spinal cord damage
- Torn muscles and ligaments
How Can Property Owners Avoid Slip-and-Fall Injuries Caused by Ice and Snow?
Considering that even a moderate coating of ice on the pavement could lead to an injury, what is a property owner to do?
Those managing and maintaining the premises of a building, facility, or home have a legal duty of care to keep the area, including the sidewalk and parking lot, safe and free of hazards. Ice and snow get enveloped in this, but how much and how soon it’s removed comes down to circumstance.
Within your business plan, it’s expected that you consider:
- Addressing ice and snowfall during the day.
- Cleaning the premises before the business opens.
- Knowing that ice and snow can melt and refreeze, exacerbating a hazard in the process.
If you end up slipping outside of a business or home, make sure to document the evidence, either through photos or video. As the scene may be cleared when you decide to come back later, capturing it then and there displays just how much had built up and the degree to which it turned into a hazard.
What People Can Do If They Slip and Fall on an Icy Pavement
When you’re facing mounting medical bills and time off from work, all because you slipped on ice and snow on the pavement and sustained an injury, don’t just take a financial hit. Visible ice or not, building owners have a duty to patrons and clients walking on their sidewalks to keep the area free and clear of slip hazards. Contact a lawyer at Trantolo & Trantolo today to learn if you have a claim!
