How to Prove You Slipped on Ice in Ontario When the Ice Has Melted

You fell on ice. By the time you could walk again, the ice was gone. You have no photo, or one blurry picture taken from the ground. Now someone, maybe an insurance adjuster or a property manager, has told you it was not icy that day, or that the walkway was salted.

Your claim is not over. In Ontario, people prove they slipped on ice long after the ice has melted. They do it with records: the public weather record for that day, the property owner's own maintenance logs, the City's records, and their own account written down while it is fresh. This guide shows you how to find each one, how to read it, and what it can and cannot show.

The centre of this guide is a real example. We pulled the public hourly weather record for a real freeze in Toronto, on December 28 and 29, 2025, from three weather stations, and read it hour by hour. You can do the same for the day you fell, for free, in about 15 minutes.

If you were hurt, our slip and fall lawyers can gather these records for you. This article is general information about Ontario law in 2026. It is not legal advice about your own situation.

Can I still prove I slipped on ice if it melted and I have no photos?

Yes. A photo helps, but it is not required. An ice claim can be built from weather records, the owner's maintenance records, witnesses and your own account. What matters most is what the owner did about the ice, and you never had that evidence in your phone anyway.

Most people who fall on ice do not take a picture. They are on the ground, in pain, and often embarrassed. Many get up and go home. That is normal, and courts and insurers know it.

Think about what a photo of ice would actually show: that there was ice in one spot at one moment. That is only the first half of a claim. Under Ontario's Occupiers' Liability Act, the person in control of a property must take reasonable care to keep people on it reasonably safe. So the real question is the second half: was the care reasonable? Did anyone check the walkway? Was it salted, and when? Was there a plan for a freeze that had been forecast for two days?

The answers to those questions are in records that other people keep:

• The weather record is kept by the federal government and is free.
• The salting and inspection logs are kept by the owner and the snow contractor.
• Sidewalk records are kept by the City.

None of them melt. What can disappear is the evidence around the edges: security video, your memory of the details, a witness's phone number. That is why the next section comes before anything else.

One warning before you read on. Ontario has short notice deadlines for falls on snow and ice: 60 days for private property and 10 days for a city sidewalk. They are explained in full in our guide to the 60 day notice rule for a slip on ice. If you fell recently, read that first.

What should I save this week, before it disappears?

Save the things that vanish first: security video, your shoes, witness contacts and your own memory. Weather records can wait, because they stay public for years. Video can be recorded over in days, so a written request to keep it should go out this week.

Here is the order to work in. The fastest to disappear is at the top.

A few notes on this list.

Security video. Many stores, plazas, condos and offices have cameras on their entrances and parking lots. Systems record over old footage on a cycle, and nobody outside the building knows how long that cycle is.

Expect the owner to refuse to show you the video or give you a copy. Most do. They have no duty to hand it to you because you asked, and once they think a claim is coming they will send you to their insurer.

So do not ask for a copy. Ask them to keep it. Send a short dated letter or email that names the date, the time and the place of your fall and asks that all video from every camera be kept. Keep a copy of what you sent and note who received it. That request does two things. It makes it much harder for the owner to say later that the footage was erased in the ordinary way. And it means the video still exists when a lawyer asks for it properly, which happens once a claim is under way and both sides have to produce their records.

Video that other people hold is easier to get. A neighbour's doorbell camera, a dashcam in a parked car or a nearby shop's camera may have caught the same spot, and those owners have no reason to say no. Ask them soon, because their systems record over old footage too.

Your account. Write down everything, in your own words. Where exactly you were. Which direction you were walking. What the surface looked like and felt like. Was the ice clear or cloudy, smooth or bumpy, thin or thick? Was there snow on top of it? Was there salt or sand anywhere? Were there footprints frozen into it? These details matter more than you would expect, and the section on putting your account together explains why.

Photos you already have. Even a bad photo carries a time stamp and sometimes a location. A photo taken the next day still shows the layout: the slope, the downspout, the broken eavestrough, the spot the sun never reaches. Do not edit or crop the original file.

Other people's photos. If someone drove you home or came to help, ask whether they took any pictures or video. Ask neighbours and co-workers who use the same entrance whether they noticed the ice that week.

Our guide to a slip and fall in a store or mall explains how a store's inspection system and its video are used in a claim. This article does not repeat that. It stays on weather.

What can a weather record prove, and what can it not prove?

A weather record proves the conditions: the temperature each hour, when rain or snow fell, and when the temperature dropped below zero. It does not prove there was ice on the exact spot where you fell. It shows that ice was possible, likely or unlikely, and when.

This is the most important idea in this guide, so here it is in plain terms.

What the record can show:

• Whether it was above or below freezing in the hours before you fell.
• Whether rain fell or snow melted, and then the temperature dropped. That is how most dangerous ice forms.
• How long the freezing conditions had lasted before you fell. An hour is very different from two days.
• Whether the weather had been forecast or was a surprise.
• Whether the owner's story fits. If a log says the lot was salted at 6 a.m. because of freezing rain, the record shows whether there was freezing rain at 6 a.m.

What the record cannot show:

• That there was ice on your walkway. The station is not on your walkway.
• What the surface temperature was. Stations measure the air, not the pavement. Pavement in shade can stay frozen while the air is above zero, and pavement in sun can be wet while the air is below zero.
• Who is responsible. Weather is nobody's fault. The claim is about what the owner did in response.

So the weather record is one half of a comparison. The other half is what the owner did, hour by hour. Put them side by side and you can see whether the response was reasonable.

A weather record also cuts both ways. If it shows a sudden freeze 20 minutes before you fell, the owner will say there was no time to respond. If it shows freezing rain that had been falling for six hours, or a thaw and refreeze that was forecast the day before, that argument is much weaker. You should look at the record with open eyes, because the other side will.

Where do I get the official weather record for the day I fell?

From Environment and Climate Change Canada's Historical Climate Data website. It is free and public. You search for a weather station near where you fell, choose hourly data and the date, and view or download the record. No account is needed.

The site is at climate.weather.gc.ca. Here is how to use it.

1. Open the search page. You can search three ways: by station name, by province, or by proximity. Proximity is the useful one. It lets you search within 25, 50, 100 or 200 kilometres of a city, or of a latitude and longitude that you type in.
2. Set the date. Use the "with data on" fields to enter the year, month and day you fell. This hides stations that were not reporting that day.
3. Pick a station that has hourly data. The results list shows which stations offer hourly, daily and monthly data. For a fall you want hourly. Daily data only gives the high and low for the day, and that is rarely enough.
4. Open the hourly record for your date. You will see one row for each hour, with the temperature, the humidity, the wind and, at some stations, the weather that was observed.
5. Download it. Each page has a download option for a CSV file, which opens in Excel or Google Sheets. Download the day of your fall and the two days before it.
6. Do it again for a second station. The next two sections explain why.

Save the files as you downloaded them and note the date you downloaded them. Do not type the numbers into a new sheet. A file that came straight from the government site is worth more than a copy someone retyped.

Three things to know about how recent the data is. The record for yesterday is usually online today. Some values are filled in later after quality checks. And a value marked "M" is missing and, according to the site's own questions and answers page, cannot be recovered.

Which weather station fits where I fell in the GTA?

Use the nearest station that reports hourly data, and then check a second one. In the Greater Toronto Area only a handful of stations report every hour. The closest is not always the best match, because the lake, the height of the land and the distance all change the weather.

We built this table from Environment Canada's own station list, as it stood on September 30, 2026. It shows every station in and around Toronto that was still reporting in 2026.

A starting point for choosing, by where you fell:

This table is our suggestion based on distance. It is not an official rule, and it is a place to start, not a conclusion.

Notice the gap. North York, Vaughan, Markham and Scarborough have no station of their own that reports hourly. The North York station reports once a day. So a fall at Finch and Keele has to be read from Pearson, about 15 kilometres to the southwest, and from central Toronto, about 13 kilometres to the southeast. That is exactly the kind of gap the other side will point to, and the reason to check two stations.

Three things change the weather across the GTA:

• The lake. Lake Ontario keeps the shoreline a little warmer in early winter. Rain at the waterfront can be freezing rain a few kilometres north.
• Height. Pearson sits about 60 metres higher than the downtown station, and King City about 250 metres higher. Higher ground is usually colder.
• Timing. A cold front crosses the region from west to east. It reaches Mississauga before it reaches Scarborough.

How do I read an hourly weather record?

Read it one row at a time. Each row is one hour. The columns that matter for ice are the temperature, the precipitation amount and the observed weather. Watch for the hour when the temperature crosses zero, and for rain or melting in the hours before it.

Here is what the columns mean, using the definitions in Environment Canada's climate glossary.

Four things trip people up.

The clock. LST means Local Standard Time. The record stays on standard time all year, even when your phone is on daylight time. From November to early March that makes no difference in Toronto. From March to November, the record is one hour behind your clock. A fall at 7:30 a.m. on March 20 is in the 6:00 row, not the 7:00 row.

"NA" in the Weather column. At airport stations it means no special weather was reported that hour. It does not mean the data is missing. At other stations it can mean that the station does not report that element at all. The downtown Toronto station, for example, reports temperature and precipitation amounts but not observed weather.

Freezing rain. The glossary defines it as rain whose drops freeze on impact with the ground or with objects near the ground. It falls as liquid. It is the most dangerous entry you can find in the Weather column, because it coats everything in clear ice within minutes.

Trace. A precipitation amount under 0.2 mm is called a trace. A trace of freezing drizzle is enough to make a sidewalk slick.

Then look at the daily record too, for the days before. The column "Snow on Grnd" tells you how much snow was lying on the ground each morning. Old snow matters. When it melts in a thaw, the water runs across walkways and parking lots, and it freezes when the temperature drops again.

What does a real freeze look like, hour by hour, in a Toronto weather record?

It looks like rain or a thaw, followed by a steady fall through zero. On December 29, 2025 the temperature in central Toronto fell from 6.3 degrees at 5 a.m. to minus 6.9 degrees by 10 p.m., one day after about 37 millimetres of rain.

How we put this together. We downloaded the public hourly records for December 28 to 30, 2025 from three Environment Canada stations: Toronto City, Toronto Intl A at Pearson, and Toronto City Centre on the island. We also downloaded the daily records for the same days, including Toronto North York. We read every row. The table below shows 13 of the 49 hours, chosen to show the turning points. Nothing is estimated. We picked this event because it is a clear, recent example, not because of any case. Anyone can repeat this with the station IDs in the table above.

First, the days before. On December 27, the high in central Toronto was minus 2.6 degrees and there were 9 centimetres of snow on the ground. So the ground was frozen and snow covered when the rain arrived.

Temperatures are in degrees Celsius.

Now read it as a story.

The rain. Rain began around 1 p.m. on December 28 and fell for about 12 hours. The central Toronto station measured 36.7 mm that day, hour by hour. The official daily totals were 37.3 mm in central Toronto, 41.2 mm at Pearson and 34.0 mm in North York. That is a lot of water landing on frozen, snow covered ground.

The first danger. At Pearson, the first two hours of that rain were recorded as freezing rain, with the air just below zero. In central Toronto, 20 kilometres to the east and closer to the lake, the same two hours were at 0.0 and 0.5 degrees. So the west end may have had a coat of ice at 1 p.m. that the core did not have.

The thaw. Overnight the temperature climbed. By 5 a.m. on December 29 it was 6.3 degrees downtown. The snow on the ground shrank: from 9 centimetres on December 27 to 4 centimetres on December 29 in central Toronto, and from 10 centimetres to 2 at Pearson. That snow turned into water, on top of the rain.

The drop. After 5 a.m. the temperature fell every hour. It crossed zero between 9 and 10 a.m. at Pearson and between 10 and 11 a.m. downtown. Light snow fell as it crossed. By 6 p.m. it was minus 5.7 degrees downtown, and by 10 p.m. minus 6.9. The wind at Pearson reached 58 km/h at noon. It then stayed below minus 3 through all of December 30.

What that means on the ground. Any water still standing or running at 10 a.m. on December 29 had every reason to be ice by early afternoon: puddles, the meltwater track across a parking lot, the wet patch under a downspout, the slush at a curb. Then a dusting of snow fell on top, which hides ice.

What it means for a claim. Suppose someone fell at 4 p.m. on December 29 in a plaza parking lot in North York. The record cannot show there was ice in that lot. It does show five things that matter:

1. Heavy rain and a thaw had left water everywhere that morning.
2. The air went below freezing between 9 and 11 a.m., depending on where you were.
3. By 4 p.m. it had been below freezing for about six hours, and it was getting colder.
4. Snow fell during the freeze, which can cover ice.
5. The drop was not sudden. It took all day, in a straight line.

Now the owner's records matter. Was the lot checked after 10 a.m.? Was salt put down as the temperature fell, or was it put down at 6 a.m., when it was 6 degrees and the lot was still wet from the rain? Six hours is long enough for a question to be asked about what was done. It is not, by itself, proof that the care fell short. That depends on the property, the plan and what the logs say.

And if the fall had been at 10:30 a.m. instead? Then the same record helps the owner. The freeze had only just begun.

Why do two weather stations disagree about the same storm?

Because they are in different places. In the December 2025 example, Pearson recorded freezing rain for two hours while central Toronto, 20 kilometres away, stayed at or just above zero. The freeze reached Pearson about an hour before it reached downtown. Small differences decide whether rain becomes ice.

This is why you check two stations. Three lessons come out of the example.

One degree is everything near zero. At 1 p.m. on December 28, the two stations were 0.7 of a degree apart. That was the difference between rain and freezing rain. When the temperature is near zero, never rely on one station.

Timing shifts across the city. The air went below freezing between 9 and 10 a.m. at Pearson and between 10 and 11 a.m. downtown. If your fall was in the west end at 10:15 a.m., the Pearson record says it was already freezing. The downtown record says it was not yet. Both are correct for where they are.

Daily summaries can mislead. The daily record for central Toronto puts the warmest reading, 7.4 degrees, on December 29. The daily record for Toronto North York puts its warmest reading, 6.5 degrees, on December 28. They are describing the same warm spell. Environment Canada's glossary explains that daily values follow a "climatological day", which does not start and end at midnight, and that the procedure differs at stations that report only once or twice a day. So a daily summary can place an event on a different date than the hourly record does. When the hour matters, and in a fall it always does, use hourly data.

Ontario's Court of Appeal has dealt with this very point. In Cannon v. Cemcor Apartments Inc., 2017 ONCA 378, a tenant slipped on ice in his building's parking lot near Sudbury and relied on Environment Canada snowfall records from the Sudbury airport, "some 20 to 25 kilometres away". The trial judge preferred the evidence of people who were in the lot that day, and the Court of Appeal said the judge was entitled to. He lost. A distant station does not beat a witness who was there.

If the two nearest stations agree, your reading is solid. If they disagree, say so plainly and explain which one is closer to where you fell and why. An honest account of the gap is stronger than a confident claim that ignores it.

What if the record shows it was above zero when I fell?

It does not end the claim. Thick ice, ice in shade and ice on cold ground can last for hours or days above zero. But you will need other evidence that the ice was there, because the weather record alone will not carry it.

Air temperature and ground temperature are different things. A station measures the air, about 1.5 metres up. The pavement can be colder than the air after a cold night, especially in shade. That is why you see ice on the north side of a building when the rest of the lot is wet.

Look at the days before, not just the hour. If the record shows two weeks below freezing and then one mild afternoon, packed ice on a walkway is still very likely there. If it shows five days well above zero with rain, natural ice is very unlikely, and you should ask where the water came from.

That question matters, because some ice is not really about the weather:

• A downspout that empties across a walkway.
• A leaking eavestrough or a dripping awning.
• Meltwater that runs from a snow pile across the path people walk on.
• A dip in the pavement where water always collects.

Each of these puts water on a walking surface when the weather alone would not. Each one freezes on the first cold night. And each one is a condition the owner could have seen in advance, in daylight, on any day of the year. The weather record still helps here. It shows when that water would have frozen.

This is where your own account and other people matter most. A witness who says "that corner is always icy" is describing a known trouble spot. A photo taken the next day that shows the downspout is evidence, even though it shows no ice.

What if I was wearing running shoes instead of winter boots?

You can still claim. Your footwear may reduce what you receive, but it does not cancel the owner's duty. In Ontario, when the injured person is partly at fault, the court reduces the award by that share. It does not throw the claim out.

This is the worry people rarely say out loud. They were in a hurry. They wore sneakers, or dress shoes, or heels. They were carrying groceries or looking at a phone. They took the shortcut across the corner of the lot. They decide it was their own fault and never ask anyone.

Ontario law does not work that way. Fault can be shared. If a court found the owner 75% responsible and you 25% responsible, you would recover 75% of your damages. The rule is in the Negligence Act. Our guide to what a slip and fall claim is worth explains how a share of fault changes the numbers.

Some things to keep in mind:

• People are allowed to walk to their car in ordinary shoes. An owner who invites the public onto a property has to expect ordinary people in ordinary footwear.
• What matters is whether your choices were reasonable for the conditions you could see. Clear ice under a dusting of snow is not something you could see.
• Keep the shoes. If the soles have good tread, that answers the argument. If they do not, hiding them would be far worse than showing them.
• Be honest about all of it. Your account will be compared with the video, the witnesses and your medical records. One detail that turns out to be untrue does more harm than any pair of shoes.

The weather record helps here as well. If it shows freezing rain in the hour before you fell, almost any footwear would have slipped. If it shows a week of packed ice that everyone in the neighbourhood knew about, the other side will ask why you did not walk around it. That is a fair question, and it is better to think about your answer now.

What records does the property owner have, and how do they compare with the weather?

Owners and their snow contractors usually keep a contract, logs of each visit, salting records and inspection notes. Set beside the hourly weather record, those logs show whether anyone responded to the freeze, and how long the ice was left.

For a plaza, a condo, an apartment building or an office, the records that usually exist are:

• The snow removal contract. It says what the contractor must do and when: at what snow depth they come, whether they salt on their own judgment or only when called, and whether they must check the site after a thaw.
• The contractor's logs. Many contractors record each visit with a date, a time, what was done and how much salt was used. Some use GPS in their trucks.
• The owner's own logs. A superintendent's or a store's inspection sheets, with times and initials.
• Complaints. Emails and calls from tenants or customers about ice, before your fall.
• Incident reports. The report written about your fall, and reports of other falls in the same spot.
• Weather alerts and forecasts the contractor received.

You do not usually get these by asking politely. They are produced once a claim is under way, and a lawyer's letter early on tells the owner to keep them. What you can do yourself is know that they exist, and put your notice in on time so the duty to keep them begins.

Here is how they are read against the weather, using the December 2025 example again:

These are questions, not answers. A log that fits the weather helps the owner. A log that does not fit it, or a log that does not exist, helps you.

One more fact about salt. The City of Toronto's guidance on reducing the use of road salt says that salt begins to lose effectiveness at about minus 10 degrees and is ineffective below minus 20. So "we salted" is not a full answer on a very cold day. The record tells you how cold it was. In very cold weather the question becomes whether sand or another product was used.

What records does the City have if I fell on a sidewalk?

The City keeps patrol records, salting and plowing records, 311 service requests and weather monitoring records. You can ask for them under freedom of information law. But a city sidewalk claim has a 10 day notice deadline and a higher bar, so the notice comes before the records.

The rules for a fall on a city sidewalk are different from the rules for private property, and they are harder. Under section 42 of the City of Toronto Act, 2006:

• Written notice must reach the city clerk within 10 days of the injury.
• The City is not liable for an injury caused by snow or ice on a sidewalk "except in case of gross negligence". That is a higher bar than ordinary carelessness.
• The City has a defence if it met the minimum standards set by regulation.

Those minimum standards are where the weather comes in. For Toronto they are in Ontario Regulation 612/06. Other Ontario municipalities have the same sidewalk standards in Ontario Regulation 239/02. In 2026 they say, in short:

Read that table against the December 2025 example. The freeze on December 29 followed a day of rain, and a drop like that is normally in the forecast well ahead. A city that was watching the forecast three times a day would have seen it coming. Whether it then treated sidewalks "if practicable", and when it first became aware that a given sidewalk was icy, is what the City's own records show. And the standard gives the City 48 hours. That is a long time, and it is one reason sidewalk claims are hard.

The property next to the sidewalk has duties too. The City of Toronto's winter pages say that owners and occupants must clear snow from the sidewalk beside their property within 12 hours after a snowfall ends, where less than 2 centimetres has fallen, and that City crews clear sidewalks when 2 centimetres or more has fallen. Who was responsible for a given stretch can turn on how much snow the record shows.

How to get the City's records:

• 311. Service requests about ice on that block, before and after your fall, are records. If you or a neighbour reported the ice, note the date and the reference number.
• Freedom of information. The City of Toronto's freedom of information page says a request costs a $5 application fee and that you should expect a response within 45 business days. Ask for patrol records, salting and plowing records, and service requests for the block and the dates.

A freedom of information request does not stop the 10 day clock, and it takes far longer than 10 days. Send the notice first.

Do I need a certified weather record or a meteorologist?

Usually not at the start. The free online record is enough to understand your case and to open a claim. Certified records and a meteorologist's report matter later, if the weather itself is disputed and the claim is heading toward trial.

Environment Canada answers both questions on its own questions and answers page. It says that data taken from the website "may be admissible in court without certification", depending on the proceeding. It also says that certified documentation can be requested from the Climate Services office for your region, and that there is a service charge. The page does not state the amount, so ask for a quote.

So there are three levels:

1. The free download. Use it to understand what happened, to decide whether to pursue the claim, and to talk to a lawyer. Most claims settle without ever needing more.
2. A certified record. The same data with the government's certification attached. It removes any argument about whether the numbers are real.
3. A forensic meteorologist. A scientist who reconstructs the conditions at your location, not just at the station. They can account for the distance to the station, the lake, shade and pavement temperature, and can say when ice most likely formed and how long it had been there.

A meteorologist is worth the cost when the two sides read the record differently and the amount at stake is large. For example: the owner says the freeze began 15 minutes before the fall, and the nearest station is 15 kilometres away. That is a real dispute about timing, and a table from a website will not settle it.

Whether to order either one is a decision to make with your lawyer. They are a cost in the claim, and the choice depends on what the other side disputes.

How do I put the weather record and my own account together?

Build one timeline. Put the weather in one column and what happened on the ground in the other, hour by hour, from two days before the fall to the day after. The gaps between the two columns are where the claim is decided.

It can be a simple table. Here is one for the imaginary 4 p.m. fall in the December 2025 example.

Fill in the right-hand column from everything you have: your written account, photos and their time stamps, witnesses, receipts that show when you arrived, the ambulance or hospital record that shows when you were seen, and later the owner's logs.

Then look at what the timeline says. In this one, a snow pile sat above the walking route through a day of rain and thaw. Nothing was logged for two days. The salt truck came the morning after. That is a story someone has to answer.

Describe the ice itself. What the ice looked like helps date it:

• Clear and smooth ice suggests water that froze recently.
• Cloudy, thick or bumpy ice suggests ice that has built up over time.
• Footprints or tire tracks frozen into it mean it was slush that people walked through before it froze.
• Dirt or sand frozen inside it means it has been there a while.
• Snow on top of it means it formed before the last snowfall, and the record tells you when that was.

Write these details down now, while you remember them. A year from now, "it was just ice" is all most people can say.

What should I do in the best case, and what in the worst case?

Plan for both. In the best case the video is kept, a witness comes forward and the weather record is on your side. In the worst case the video is gone, nobody saw you fall and the record is unclear. Each has a next step, and neither ends the matter.

Every fall is different and so is every owner. You cannot know in advance which way each piece will go, so here is what to do either way.

Two things about the right-hand column.

A bad result on one line does not decide the claim. Claims are won with the video gone and lost with the video kept. What matters is the whole picture, and you will not see the whole picture until the owner's records arrive.

Sometimes the honest answer is that there is no claim. If the record shows a freeze that began minutes before you fell, and the owner's logs show someone was already salting, the owner may have done all that could reasonably be done. It is better to learn that early, from someone on your side, than after a year of waiting. A first conversation with a lawyer costs you nothing and tells you which case you are in.

What mistakes weaken a weather-based claim?

The common ones are using a single station, reading daily summaries when you need hourly data, getting the clock wrong, and treating the weather record as proof of ice. Each one gives the other side an easy answer.

• Using one station. Near zero, one degree changes everything. Check two.
• Using daily data. A high of 5 and a low of minus 7 tells you nothing about 4 p.m.
• Forgetting standard time. From March to November the record is an hour behind your clock.
• Reading "NA" as missing. At an airport station it means nothing special was observed.
• Looking only at the day of the fall. The two days before often explain the ice.
• Saying the record proves there was ice. It proves the conditions. Say that, and let the rest of your evidence do its work.
• Ignoring what hurts. If the freeze began 20 minutes before you fell, know it before the adjuster tells you.
• Retyping the numbers. Keep the file you downloaded.
• Waiting. The weather record will be there next year. The video and the notice deadline will not.

Key terms explained

Occupier. The person or company in control of a property: an owner, a tenant, a property manager or a condo corporation.

Reasonable care. The standard an occupier must meet in Ontario. Not perfection. What a careful occupier would do in the circumstances.

Hourly record. Environment Canada's row by row record of the weather at a station, one row for each hour.

Local Standard Time (LST). The time used in the weather record. It does not change for daylight saving time.

Freezing rain. Rain that falls as liquid and freezes when it hits the ground or objects near it.

Trace. A precipitation amount of less than 0.2 millimetres.

Thaw and refreeze. Snow or ice melts in mild weather, the water spreads, and it freezes again when the temperature drops.

Climatological day. The 24 hour period that a daily weather summary covers. It does not always run from midnight to midnight.

Certified record. A weather record that Environment Canada has certified, for use in a legal proceeding.

Forensic meteorologist. A scientist who reconstructs past weather at a specific place and gives evidence about it.

Minimum maintenance standards. Ontario regulations that set how quickly a municipality must deal with snow and ice on roads and sidewalks.

Gross negligence. The higher bar that applies to a claim against a municipality for snow or ice on a sidewalk.

How VC Lawyers can help

A fall on ice is hard to prove alone, mostly because the records that decide it belong to someone else. We send the notice on time, write to the owner and the contractor to have video and logs kept, pull the weather records from more than one station, and set them beside the logs to see what was done and when. Where the weather is truly in dispute, we bring in a meteorologist.

We handle slip and fall claims across Ontario under the Occupiers' Liability Act. The first consultation for an injury claim is free, and we act on a contingency fee, so you pay legal fees only if we recover compensation for you. If you fell on ice and are not sure whether you have a claim, contact us and we will look at the weather for your date with you.