Do Winter Slip and Fall Claims Win in Ontario? What the Court of Appeal's Decisions Show

You fell on ice. You are hurt, and you are trying to decide whether a claim is worth a year or more of your life. Friends tell you it is hopeless, because "you should have been more careful". Advertisements tell you it is a sure thing. Neither is true.

So we went and looked. We read the winter slip and fall court decisions of Ontario's highest court, the Court of Appeal, from January 2011 to October 2026. Every one we could find about a person who fell on snow or ice. There are 11. In this guide you can see where each person fell, who won and the reason, and you can hold your own fall up against them.

Some of these people won. Some lost, and paid the other side's costs. Several cases turned on something nobody expects: a deadline, a lease, or who was sued. This guide does not give you odds, because these decisions cannot give anyone odds, and a later section explains why. What they can show is what the winning cases had and what the losing ones lacked.

If you were hurt, a Toronto slip and fall lawyer can tell you where your own case sits. This article is general information about Ontario law in 2026. It is not legal advice about your own situation.

Do people actually win winter slip and fall claims in Ontario?

Yes, some do, and some do not. In the 11 Court of Appeal decisions we read, three injured people kept a win, three kept a loss, and five cases turned on something else. What separated them was rarely the ice. It was records, deadlines and who controlled the spot.

Here is the honest count.

• Three wins left standing. A man who fell on an unsalted condo roadway in Ottawa. A woman who fell on ice at the entrance to a Starbucks patio in Toronto. A woman who fell on an icy laneway beside a Toronto subway stop.
• Three losses left standing. A man who fell on a Mississauga sidewalk after a historic storm. A woman who fell on a boulevard in London after freezing rain. A tenant who fell in his apartment parking lot near Sudbury.
• Five decided on something else. Two went the injured person's way on a side question. One was split. One went against the injured family on who had to clear a step. One was a fight between a building owner and its snow contractor.

Two things stand out before the details.

First, the law did not ask whether there was ice. In Ontario there is almost always ice somewhere in winter. Under the Occupiers' Liability Act the question is whether the person in control of the property took reasonable care. Every one of these decisions is really about that, or about who the person in control was.

Second, the Court of Appeal almost never changed the result. Of the 12 appeals we read, 10 were dismissed and 2 were allowed in part. What the trial judge or jury decided is what stood. The place a winter fall claim is won or lost is the evidence put together in the first months, not the appeal.

What should I do this week, before any of this matters?

Protect the deadlines and the evidence first. A written notice is due within 60 days for a fall on snow or ice on private property, and within 10 days for a city sidewalk. Two of the cases in this guide ended on timing, before anyone looked at the ice.

This week, in this order:

1. Work out where you fell and whose it is. Private property, or a city sidewalk or road. If you are not sure, treat it as the shorter deadline.
2. Send the written notice. Our guide to the 60 day notice for a slip on ice explains what it must say, who gets it and how to deliver it. This article does not repeat that.
3. Find out who else is involved. A tenant, a landlord, a property manager, a snow contractor. One case below was lost against a tenant because he was added to the lawsuit three years after the fall.
4. Ask in writing for video and records to be kept. Do not ask for a copy. Ask that nothing be erased.
5. Write down what happened while you remember it, and get the names of anyone who saw the fall or the ice.
6. Keep your shoes as they are.
7. See a doctor and say how it happened. One case below turned partly on an ambulance record made that day.

The money comes later. What a claim is worth is covered in our guide to slip and fall settlements in Ontario. None of it matters if the notice is late.

Which winter slip and fall court decisions did we read, and how did each end?

We read 11 Court of Appeal decisions about falls on snow or ice, dated from March 2011 to June 2026. The table lists each one: where the person fell, who won in the end, and the reason in a few words.

How we put this together. We searched the Court of Appeal for Ontario's own decisions website on October 8, 2026, for decisions dated January 1, 2011 or later. We ran 30 different searches, with words such as "slip and fall", ice, snow, "black ice", "winter maintenance", "snow removal", "gross negligence" and sidewalk. They returned 33 different decisions. We set 21 aside after reading the opening paragraphs: car crashes on winter roads, disputes between insurers, and cases about something else. We read the other 12 in full. Eleven are about a person who fell on snow or ice. The twelfth is about the 10 day notice to a municipality, and its short reasons do not say how the person was hurt, so we discuss it but do not count it.

Each decision is linked where it is discussed below, to the court's own copy. Open them. They are short, and several are only a page or two.

What do these decisions not show?

They do not show your odds. These are appeals only. Most claims settle and are never reported, and most trial decisions are never appealed. A list of appeals is not a sample of all claims, so no win rate can be taken from it.

This matters, so here is exactly what is missing.

• Settlements. A claim that settles leaves no decision. Nobody outside the file knows how it ended. These are not in any list.
• Trials nobody appealed. Ontario's trial court, the Superior Court, decides far more winter fall cases than ever reach the Court of Appeal. We have not counted those here.
• Claims that were never started. Many people never claim at all.
• Decisions our searches missed. One decision we read does not use the word "ice" in its reasons at all, and a search for ice did not find it. There may be others.

There is one more thing. A case usually reaches the Court of Appeal because it was close, or because a point of law was unsettled. Strong claims tend to settle and weak ones tend to be dropped. So appeals over-represent the hard cases.

What the list can honestly show is narrower and more useful: what the court looked at, what the winners had in hand, and what the losers ran into. That is the rest of this guide.

What did the people who won have in common?

Evidence about what the owner did, hour by hour, and proof of who controlled the spot. In the three wins, the ice was almost beside the point. The winning facts were a timeline, a witness, or the owner's own habits.

A timeline with a gap in it. In Musa v. Carleton Condominium Corporation No. 255, 2023 ONCA 605, the times were known almost to the minute. Snow began around 4 a.m. The plow arrived at 7:30. The plow operator phoned his boss at 8:34 to say he was nearly done. The man fell at about 9:30. Salt went down at about 10:50. The court called that "7 hours after the snowstorm began" and 1.5 hours after the fall.

A witness to the conditions. In the same case the plow operator saw the fall and then warned another resident that it was "very slippery". That came from the defendant's own worker.

A flaw in the system, not one bad morning. The contractor's owner salted all 14 of his client properties himself, across the whole city, from one pickup truck, with no set order. The court upheld the finding that the delay came from "an inherent problem" in that system.

Proof of control. In MacKay v. Starbucks Corporation, 2017 ONCA 350, the fall was on a city sidewalk, which a store does not own. She won because of how the store used that spot. It had built its patio so customers crossed there, and a shift manager testified that staff were given a shovel and salt and told to clear a path at that exact place.

The owner's own knowledge. In Guy v. Toronto (City), 2011 ONCA 689, the laneway was officially a roadway. The trial judge found that the City knew many pedestrians used it regularly, and found gross negligence. The Court of Appeal saw no reason to interfere.

Notice what is not on this list: a perfect photograph of the ice. None of these reasons mentions one.

What did the people who lost run into?

A reasonable system that was followed, a storm nobody could keep up with, or a spot that nobody but the city controlled. In each loss the court accepted that the person fell on ice and was hurt. That was not enough.

"Reasonable" is not "perfect". In Cannon v. Cemcor Apartments Inc., 2017 ONCA 378, a tenant broke his leg in his building's parking lot. The trial judge found the landlord had "a reasonable policy to provide proper winter maintenance" and that the lot was adequately cleared, except for the "isolated slippery spot" where he fell. He lost at trial and on appeal.

An extraordinary storm. In Billings v. Mississauga (City), 2011 ONCA 247, the sidewalk had not been cleared within the 36 hours the City's own policy called for, and he said it stayed dangerous for over 100 hours. He still lost. The storm was "an extraordinary atmospheric event", and the City's response was found "completely reasonable".

The higher bar for a city. Both city losses turned partly on this. A municipality is not liable for an injury from snow or ice on a sidewalk unless there was gross negligence. In the Starbucks decision the Court explained why: the standard "takes account of the fact that it takes time for the municipality to clear every sidewalk in a city".

The wrong spot. In Bondy v. London (City), 2014 ONCA 291, she fell on a paved boulevard between the road and the sidewalk after freezing rain. The court treated the boulevard as part of the road, to be kept to the standard of a road for vehicles, not a path for people. The neighbour whose driveway joined it was not responsible either.

Losing costs money. Each of these three people was ordered to pay the other side's costs of the appeal: $5,000, $15,000, and $17,500 in total in the London case. That is on top of their own costs, and separate from any costs of the trial.

What if I fell in a parking lot?

A parking lot is private property, so the owner must take reasonable care, and usually a snow contractor is involved too. A lot does not have to be free of ice. The question is whether there was a reasonable system and whether it was followed that day.

Three of the 11 decisions are parking lot or roadway cases, and they went three different ways.

The Sudbury tenant lost. The landlord's winter program was found reasonable, and the lot was found adequately cleared but for one slippery spot.

The Ottawa condo resident won. The roadway had been plowed and left without salt for two hours, because of how the contractor ran its routes.

Put those two side by side and you can see what decides a parking lot case. It is not whether ice was present. In both, it was. It is whether the people responsible had a sensible plan and carried it out in time on that day.

The third case adds something most people do not know. In Diep v. Mac's Convenience Stores Inc., 2026 ONCA 424, a man slipped beside his own car in a store lot. That case has its own section below.

One practical point from the Sudbury case. The tenant relied on Environment Canada snowfall records from an airport "some 20 to 25 kilometres away". The court held that the trial judge was entitled to prefer the people who were actually in the lot that day. Weather records matter, but a record from far away does not beat an eyewitness.

What if I fell at the entrance to a store or building?

Then the first question is exactly where your foot was: on the property, or on the public sidewalk in front of it. A business is responsible for its own entrance. For the city sidewalk outside, it is responsible only if it has taken control of that spot.

The Starbucks decision is the one to read. The woman fell where the patio opening met the municipal sidewalk. Starbucks argued that it was a city sidewalk and so not its problem.

The Court of Appeal set out the rule in plain terms. A property owner or tenant does not become responsible for a public sidewalk just by shovelling or salting it, even where a by-law requires that. "More will be needed." In this case there was more:

• The patio and fence were built so that customers walked across that spot.
• In the mornings, the people using that part of the sidewalk were almost all Starbucks customers.
• Staff were told to clear, salt and sand a path there.

That combination made Starbucks an "occupier" of that piece of sidewalk, so it owed her a duty of care. A jury found it had breached it.

The court was careful to say there is no blanket rule. A convenience store whose sidewalk is used by everyone walking down the street is in a different position. So write down, while you remember, exactly where you were standing, and who uses that spot.

Two eyewitnesses in that case said she fell somewhere else, near the curb. The jury accepted her account. Where you fell can be the whole case, and your own clear memory of it matters.

The store and mall situation inside the doors is covered in our guide to slip and fall liability in a store or mall.

What if I fell at a house or apartment I rent, or was visiting one?

Then the lease matters more than most people expect. Three decisions turned on who was responsible for the exact place of the fall: the landlord or the tenant. The answer depended on the words of the lease and on whether the area was shared.

Shared areas are the landlord's. Under the Residential Tenancies Act and its maintenance regulation, a landlord must keep "exterior common areas" free of unsafe ice and snow. In Crete v. Ottawa Community Housing Corporation, 2024 ONCA 459, the Court confirmed that a landlord's duty to maintain a residential complex does include clearing snow and ice.

An area only one tenant uses can be the tenant's. In that same case a young man slipped on ice on the front step of his family's rented townhouse. The lease said the tenant was responsible for snow removal "from the front and back doors of the Rented Premises to the main walkways". The court held that the term was valid, because the step and walk were used only by that family. The family, not the landlord, was responsible for the place where he fell.

If the lease is silent, it may go to trial. In Miaskowski v. Persaud, 2015 ONCA 758, a man fell on the driveway of a rented house. The lease made the tenant clear the sidewalks. It said nothing about the driveway. The Court of Appeal sent the claim against the landlord back for a trial.

Landlords cannot hide from a claim. In Ur-Rahman v. Mahatoo, 2016 ONCA 555, a man said he fell on the icy driveway of the house where he rented. The owners never answered the lawsuit, and he obtained judgment by default. Years later they said he had never lived there and never fell there. Credit and licence records put him at the address, and there was a record of an emergency response and his trip to hospital that day. The judgment stood.

What to do with this: if you rent, or fell at a rented home, get a copy of the lease now, and find out who the tenant and the landlord are.

What if I fell at a condo or plaza that hires a snow contractor?

Then both the owner and the contractor may be responsible, and they will often blame each other. The contract between them does not limit what either owes you. The Ottawa condo decision is the clearest example of a contractor being held to its timing.

In the Ottawa case the contractor accepted that the condo had handed its winter duties over completely, so the contractor was treated as an occupier and the trial was about one thing: was the salt put down in time?

Three points from that decision apply well beyond it.

• If you do not salt before the storm, you must salt with the plowing. The contractor had chosen not to pre-salt. Plowing packed the remaining snow into a slick film. The court accepted that salt then had to go down "concurrently with or immediately after" plowing.
• Industry guidelines count. The injured man's witness relied on best practice guidelines for parking lots and roads. The contractor said these are not binding. The court agreed they are not rules, and held that the judge could still rely on them.
• The contract is not the limit. The contractor said it had done what its contract required. The court answered that the duty of care "exists independently of any contractual obligation".

The other contractor case shows what goes on behind the scenes. In Papapetrou v. 1054422 Ontario Limited, 2012 ONCA 506, a woman fell on black ice on a building's entrance stairs and sued the owner, the manager and the contractor. The appeal was not about her at all. It was about which of them had to pay for the owner's lawyers. The court noted that an owner and its contractor "each have an interest in blaming the other".

That helps an injured person more than it hurts. When two defendants point at each other, each one's records become evidence against the other. It is also why both should receive your notice.

What if I fell on a city sidewalk, laneway or boulevard?

Then the bar is higher and the deadline is shorter. A city is liable for snow or ice on a sidewalk only for gross negligence, and written notice is due within 10 days. Of the three city cases we read, the City won two.

The three decisions show where the line is.

A city that responded reasonably to a huge storm: not liable. In the Mississauga case the sidewalk was still not cleared when he fell, days after the storm. The court looked at the City's whole system, staff and policies, and at how unusual the storm was.

A city that knew about a pedestrian route and left it icy: liable. In the Toronto laneway case the City argued that a laneway is a road, not a sidewalk. The trial judge found the City knew pedestrians used it every day beside the subway stop, and found gross negligence.

A part of the road allowance that is not a sidewalk: road standards. In the London case the paved boulevard was held to the standard of a road for vehicles. People crossing mid-block did not change that.

For Toronto the rules are in section 42 of the City of Toronto Act, 2006. For other Ontario municipalities they are in section 44 of the Municipal Act, 2001, which is the Act these decisions apply.

A fall on city property has its own guide on this site, publishing on December 31, 2026. Until then, the short version is in the ice guide linked above: 10 days, in writing, to the city clerk.

What if I missed a deadline or sued the wrong person?

Then the claim can end without anyone looking at the ice. Two of the decisions we read ended that way, one on the 10 day notice to a municipality and one on the two year limit against a tenant who was added too late.

The 10 day notice. In Argue v. Tay (Township), 2013 ONCA 247, there was "no issue" that written notice had not been given to the township within 10 days. The law allows a late notice if the person shows a reasonable excuse and that the municipality was not harmed in its defence. The Court of Appeal's reasons are four paragraphs long. She had the burden of showing both, the judge below found she had not, and the appeal was dismissed with $7,028 in costs against her. The reasons do not say how she was hurt, which is why this decision is not in our count of 11.

The two year limit, and the right defendant. In the Brampton driveway case the injured man sued the landlord within a year. He did not add the tenant until about three years after the fall. That was too late. Under the Limitations Act, 2002, a person is presumed to know of the claim on the day of the injury unless they prove otherwise. He admitted he knew on the day he fell that the house was rented, and he offered no evidence of any effort to find out who the tenant was. The landlord's lawyer had even written to suggest adding the tenant, and five and a half months passed before it was done.

The 60 day notice has not reached the Court of Appeal. The 60 day notice for falls on snow and ice on private property came into force in 2021. We searched for a Court of Appeal decision applying it and found none. So nobody can yet point to the Court of Appeal for how strictly it will be read. That is a reason to be early, not a reason to test it.

What if the owner says they had a snow clearing system?

Then two questions follow: was the system reasonable, and was it actually followed on the day you fell? A system on paper is a defence only if both answers are yes. The decisions show each answer going both ways.

Look at the last row. The cafe's own practice of clearing the path helped prove it was responsible for that spot. A system can be evidence for you as well as against you.

Look at the third row too. The contractor did have a system. The problem was the system itself: it meant that some properties would always wait hours for salt.

So when an owner or adjuster tells you "we have a contractor" or "we salted", that is the start of the questions, not the end. When did the plow come? When did the salt come? Who decides the order? What does the log say for that morning? The answers are in records you can ask to have kept now and that a lawyer can obtain later.

What if I was wearing the wrong shoes or was not being careful?

It can reduce what you receive. It does not cancel the owner's duty. In Ontario a court can divide fault between the injured person and the owner. None of the 11 decisions we read was lost because of what the person was wearing.

This is the fear people do not say out loud. They were in a hurry, or in running shoes, or carrying something. They decide it was their own fault.

Here is what the decisions actually say on this.

• In the Ottawa condo case, the Court of Appeal listed what goes into "reasonable care": the weather, the time of year, the size and kind of property, the cost of prevention, the length of the path, and "the quality of the footwear worn by the plaintiff". So footwear is looked at. It is one factor among several. In that case the trial judge made a finding about the man's winter boots, and he won.
• In the Toronto rental case, the owners' draft defence said, as a fallback, that the man was partly at fault himself. The court pointed out that this did not sit well with their claim that he never fell there at all.
• In the Ottawa case the man got up, reached his car and drove to work before he realised how badly he was hurt. That did not count against him.

The rule on shared fault is in the Negligence Act. If a court finds you partly responsible, your compensation is reduced by your share and the rest stands.

So keep the shoes, and be honest about what you were doing. Your account will be compared with witnesses and records, as it was in the Starbucks case, where two people said she fell somewhere else and the jury still believed her.

What if I slipped right beside my car?

Then you may have two sources of help at once: accident benefits from your own car insurer, and a full claim against the property owner. In 2026 the Court of Appeal held that the benefits do not reduce what the owner and the snow contractor may owe.

This is the Markham parking lot case, decided in June 2026. A man bought lottery tickets, walked back to his car, unlocked it with his key fob, and slipped on snow or ice as he reached for the door handle. He was seriously hurt.

Two things happened.

First, his own car insurer refused him accident benefits, saying it was a slip and fall and not a car accident. A tribunal disagreed. It found that getting into a car is an ordinary use of a car, and that he was entitled to benefits.

Second, he sued the owner of the lot and its snow contractor. They argued that, since a tribunal had called it a car accident, any damages against them should be cut by the benefits he received, and that OHIP could not claim back from them what it had spent on his care.

The Court of Appeal said no to both. His lawsuit is about occupiers failing to clear ice and snow. The car's presence was "incidental or fortuitous". The rule that reduces damages by accident benefits "was never intended to allow occupiers of land ... to escape their full liability" because someone fell near the car they came in.

Two cautions. The decision did not decide whether the owner and contractor were at fault. That is still to come. And the benefits finding depended on the exact facts: he had unlocked the car and was reaching for the handle. The decision mentions another case where a person was only walking toward a car, and that was treated differently.

If you fell while getting into or out of your car, tell your own insurer as well, and tell your lawyer exactly what your hand was doing.

Can I appeal if I lose at trial?

You can, but these decisions show how rarely an appeal changes the result. Of the 12 appeals we read, 10 were dismissed. An appeal court does not rehear the evidence. It asks whether the judge made a clear and serious error.

In the Sudbury case the Court of Appeal went as far as to criticise the trial judge. It said his many interruptions of the tenant's lawyer were unnecessary, and that his tone was at times "blunt, if not rude". It still dismissed the appeal, because the interruptions did not make the trial unfair, and because the findings about the parking lot were his to make.

The same rule protected the winners. In the Ottawa and Starbucks cases, the defendants asked the Court of Appeal to see the evidence differently. It would not.

The lesson is about timing. Everything that decides a winter fall claim is gathered early: the notice, the video, the logs, the witnesses, the weather record, your own account. By the time of an appeal it is years too late to add any of it.

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

Plan for both. In the best case the records show a gap and the right people got notice in time. In the worst case a deadline has passed or the owner's system holds up. Each has a next step, and some claims should not be brought.

Two things about the right-hand column.

A bad answer on one line does not end the claim. The woman at the Starbucks patio had two eyewitnesses against her on where she fell, and won.

And sometimes the honest answer is that there is no claim. A landlord with a sensible winter program that was followed that morning is not liable because one spot was missed. A city that worked through a record storm is not grossly negligent because your street came last. The three people in this guide who lost on appeal each paid between $5,000 and $17,500 in appeal costs alone. A first conversation with a lawyer costs nothing and can tell you which kind of case you have before you spend a year finding out.

Key terms explained

Court of Appeal for Ontario. The province's highest court. It reviews decisions of trial judges for error. It does not rehear the evidence.

Occupier. The person or company in control of a property or responsible for its condition. There can be more than one for the same place.

Reasonable care. The standard an occupier must meet. Not perfection. What is reasonable in all the circumstances.

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

Notice. A written warning of a claim, due within a short time after the fall. 10 days for a municipality, 60 days for snow or ice on private property.

Limitation period. The time limit to start a lawsuit. Generally two years in Ontario.

Summary judgment. A decision made by a judge on written evidence, without a full trial.

Default judgment. A judgment given because the defendant never answered the lawsuit.

Costs. Money the losing side is ordered to pay toward the winning side's legal expenses.

Exterior common areas. The outdoor parts of a rental complex that tenants share. The landlord must keep them free of unsafe ice and snow.

Accident benefits. Benefits paid by a car insurer after an incident involving the use of a car, whoever was at fault.

Winter maintenance contract. The agreement between a property owner and the company that plows and salts.

How VC Lawyers can help

These decisions were won and lost on things that are gathered in the first weeks: who controlled the spot, who got notice, what the logs say, what the witnesses saw. That is the work we do. We identify every owner, tenant, manager and contractor, send the notices on time, write to have video and maintenance records kept, and build the hour by hour timeline that decides whether the care was reasonable.

We act for people hurt in falls across Ontario under the Occupiers' Liability Act. The first consultation for an injury claim is free, and we work on a contingency fee, so you pay legal fees only if we recover compensation for you. If you are not sure whether your fall is one worth pursuing, contact us. We will tell you plainly which of these cases yours looks like.