Slip and Fall on Snow and Ice

Most of what people believe about New York snow and ice liability is wrong — including the rule they have heard the most.

You fell on ice. Someone told you the property owner had four hours to clear it, so you must have a case. That is the single most repeated piece of misinformation about New York snow and ice law, and it appears on a great many attorney websites.

It is not the law. Understanding why matters, because the rule that does govern your case is different, and it turns on facts you may still be able to preserve.

The statute that actually governs: § 7-210

Administrative Code § 7-210 places on the owner of property abutting a sidewalk a duty to maintain that sidewalk in a reasonably safe condition — and it says expressly that this includes “the negligent failure to remove snow, ice, dirt or other material from the sidewalk.”

Three features of § 7-210 decide most cases.

The duty is nondelegable

Xiang Fu He is emphatic on this point. An owner can hire out the work of clearing the sidewalk. The owner cannot hand off the duty. A lease that makes the tenant responsible for snow removal does not move the liability. Neither does being an out-of-possession landlord. The Court held the duty “applies with full force notwithstanding an owner’s transfer of possession to a lessee or maintenance agreement with a nonowner.”

This is why the correct defendant is frequently the entity that never touched a shovel.

It is negligence, not strict liability

The same decision makes clear that § 7-210 “adopts a duty and standard of care that accords with traditional tort principles of negligence and causation.” You do not win simply because there was ice. You must show the owner failed to act reasonably — which ordinarily requires notice of the condition and a reasonable opportunity to address it.

How long the ice had been there is therefore central. Not because a statute sets a deadline, but because time is what establishes notice.

The exceptions matter

• Owner-occupied one-, two-, and three-family homes used exclusively as residences are exempt from § 7-210. Fall in front of a small owner-occupied house and the analysis changes completely.
• Tenants are not “owners.” A commercial tenant sued under § 7-210 is generally the wrong defendant. That was the holding in Cruz v. Heights Broadway, LLC , 216 A.D.3d 465 (1st Dep’t 2023) — which also restated that § 16-123 “does not impose tort liability for noncompliance.”
• The City is generally immunized for sidewalks abutting non-exempt property. But it remains potentially liable for sidewalks abutting owner-occupied one-to-three family homes — and claims against the City carry their own strict notice requirements.

The storm in progress defense

This is the defense you will meet first, and it is a real one.

In Solazzo v. New York City Transit Authority , 6 N.Y.3d 734 (2005), the Court of Appeals stated the rule: a property owner “will not be held liable in negligence for a plaintiff’s injuries sustained as the result of an icy condition occurring during an ongoing storm or for a reasonable time thereafter.”

The logic is straightforward — the law does not ask anyone to shovel into a blizzard.

The defense has real limits, and they are where these cases are won.

The storm has to have actually been in progress

The defendant has to establish this, and it is typically done with certified climatological records. Those records can be contested. A storm that ended the previous evening is not a storm in progress the next afternoon.

Old ice is not new snow

If the ice you fell on predated the storm, the defense does not reach it. This comes up constantly — a patch that formed from a leaking downspout, refrozen runoff, a ridge left from a storm the week before, ice under a fresh dusting. The question becomes whether the owner had notice of that condition, and the storm becomes irrelevant to it.

Doing the job badly forfeits the defense

An owner who chooses to clear snow must do it with reasonable care. If the removal effort created or worsened the hazard — piling snow where it predictably melts and refreezes across a walkway, scraping a path down to a polished sheet of ice, clearing a route that funnels water onto a step — the owner does not get to hide behind the storm.

Suing the snow removal contractor

Owners routinely point at the plowing company. Whether the contractor can actually be held liable is governed by Espinal v. Melville Snow Contractors , 98 N.Y.2d 136 (2002) — and it is important to be straight with you about what that case held.

Espinal is a case the injured plaintiff lost. The general rule is that a contract, standing alone, does not create a duty in tort to someone who is not a party to it. A contractor can be liable to an injured stranger only in three situations:

• The contractor, failing to exercise reasonable care, “launche[d] a force or instrument of harm” — which the Court explained means the contractor created or exacerbated a dangerous condition;
• The injured person detrimentally relied on the contractor’s continued performance; or
• The contract was so comprehensive and exclusive that it entirely displaced the owner’s duty to maintain the premises safely.

The Court then held: “By merely plowing the snow, Melville cannot be said to have created or exacerbated a dangerous condition.” Testimony that plowing can leave residual snow, and that failing to sand could allow melting and refreezing, was not enough.

So a claim against a snow contractor is a real claim, but a demanding one. Imperfect plowing is not enough. Failing to salt is generally not enough. The contractor must have affirmatively left the property more dangerous than it found it. Where that happened — and it does happen — the claim is worth pursuing. Where it did not, the owner remains the defendant, and under § 7-210 the owner cannot escape by pointing at the contract.

Falls at skating rinks

Skating rink cases run into primary assumption of risk. A person who takes part in a sport accepts the risks that are inherent in it. Falling on the ice is inherent in skating. Colliding with another skater is inherent in skating — New York courts have said so repeatedly, and a collision with a fast or clumsy skater is generally not actionable.

But the doctrine is not a blanket immunity, and the operator does not get to hide behind it. The rink still owes a duty to make conditions “as safe as they appear to be”( Turcotte v. Fell , 68 N.Y.2d 432 (1986)), and a skater does not assume risks that are concealed or unreasonably increased, or risks arising from reckless or intentional conduct ( Morgan v. State of New York , 90 N.Y.2d 471 (1997)).

Three routes around the doctrine are grounded in actual New York decisions.

Negligently maintained ice

This is the strongest. In Wyzykowski v. State of New York , 162 A.D.3d 1705 (4th Dep’t 2018), the Appellate Division reinstated a skater’s claim and held plainly that “skating on a negligently maintained ice surface is not a risk that is inherent in the sport.” Ruts, holes, and debris in the ice are the rink’s problem, not the skater’s assumed risk. The court also held that the skater’s awareness of the poor ice, and her decision to keep skating, went only to comparative fault — it did not bar the claim.

Failure to supervise reckless conduct — with notice

In Ballan v. Arena Management Group , 41 A.D.3d 1015 (3d Dep’t 2007), a group of boys spent roughly two hours deliberately throwing themselves onto the ice to trip other skaters, with no staff supervising. The court let the claim proceed: a skater assumes the risk of an accidental collision, but does not assume the risk of other skaters’ reckless or intentional conduct.

Note carefully what made that case work — the conduct was reckless , not merely careless, and it went on long enough that the rink should have intervened. Without both, there is no claim. An ordinary collision, however hard, is an assumed risk.

You were not actually skating

This is the newest point and the most overlooked. In Katleski v. Cazenovia Golf Club , 44 N.Y.3d 212 (2025), the Court of Appeals confirmed that primary assumption of risk reaches participation in the activity — not everything that happens at the venue. Its companion case held that a woman injured driving a cart in the parking lot of a golf course was not covered by the doctrine at all.

Applied to a rink: if you slipped on water in the lobby, on the rubber matting, on the stairs, in the changing area, or in the parking lot — you were not skating. That is an ordinary premises liability case, and assumption of risk should not be in it. Where you fell can matter as much as how.

If you have fallen

• Photograph the condition immediately, before anyone clears it. Include something for scale. Photograph the surrounding area too — a cleared path next to an uncleared patch tells a story.
• Note the address and identify the building. Under § 7-210 the case is against the owner. Which building the sidewalk abuts is the entire question.
• Write down when the storm ended, as best you can. Certified weather data will be pulled later, but your own account of what the ice looked like — fresh snow versus old, dirty, refrozen ice — may be the only evidence of how long it was there.
• Get an incident report if you fell at a rink, a store, or any commercial premises. Ask for a copy.
• Identify witnesses. A witness who can say the ice was there yesterday is worth more than any photograph.
• Move quickly on video. Surveillance footage is routinely overwritten in days. A prompt written preservation demand is the practical first step. Where necessary, CPLR 3102(c) permits a court, before any lawsuit is filed, to order disclosure to preserve information — though a petition generally must show a meritorious claim and that what is sought is genuinely needed. It is not a fishing license.
• Get medical attention and be accurate about it. Gaps in treatment become the defense’s argument.

Frequently asked questions