In Massachusetts, a property owner owes lawful visitors a duty to use reasonable care to maintain the property in a reasonably safe condition, including taking reasonable measures to address hazardous accumulations of snow and ice. That rule comes from Papadopoulos v. Target Corp., a 2010 Supreme Judicial Court decision that ended the state's natural accumulation rule. Before it, an owner generally faced no liability for snow or ice that fell and stayed where the weather left it. An injured visitor generally had to show that an act or failure to act had changed the condition of naturally accumulated snow or ice so that it became an actionable hazard. The question now is whether the person responsible for maintaining the property acted reasonably under the circumstances, including what that person knew or reasonably should have known about the hazard; disputed issues may be decided by the fact finder.

That moved the argument. Instead of debating how a patch of ice formed, the injured person shows what the owner knew about the hazard and how the owner responded.

It also reached landlords, businesses, property managers, and the contractors they hire. Anyone weighing Massachusetts personal injury claims after a fall on ice should know what the standard asks and what it does not.

What Was the Natural Accumulation Rule?

The rule began as nineteenth-century landlord-tenant law, not as a principle of premises liability. A landlord of that era was liable only for hazards he created or placed in a common area; snow that fell on its own was not one of them.

It never applied to business visitors. As early as 1906, a Massachusetts court held a company responsible for an icy plank walkway its employee had to cross, without asking whether the ice was natural or artificial.

The rule became a broad defense much later than most people assume. In Aylward v. McCloskey, decided in 1992, the court declared that a natural accumulation was not an actionable property defect at all, and Sullivan v. Brookline reinforced it two years later. For eighteen years after that, a doctrine borrowed from landlord-tenant cases shielded property owners statewide.

What Happened in Papadopoulos v. Target Corp.?

Emanuel Papadopoulos parked at the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers on a December morning below freezing. It was not snowing. The lot had been plowed and was mostly clear, though scattered snow and ice remained, and a plow had pushed a snow pile onto a raised median beside his car.

Walking back after shopping, he stepped on a piece of ice frozen to the pavement, lost his balance, and fractured his hip. The ice had either fallen off the snow pile or formed when snow melted off the pile and then refroze.

He sued Target, which controlled that part of the lot, and Weiss Landscaping Company, the contractor hired to clear it. A judge ruled the ice was a natural accumulation either way and granted summary judgment, and the Appeals Court affirmed. The Supreme Judicial Court then took the case to reexamine the rule itself.

The fight continued after that ruling. On remand, a jury assigned Target eighty percent of the fault, the trial judge set the verdict aside, and the Appeals Court reinstated it in 2015, thirteen years after the fall.

Why the Supreme Judicial Court Abandoned the Rule

The distinction had no principled basis. An owner who learns a customer dropped a banana peel must act, even if the owner did not put it there. The court saw no reason to treat a hazard produced by weather differently from one produced by a person.

It was also close to unworkable. Fresh snow on a busy walkway changes within hours as feet and tires pass over it. Courts had suggested frozen ruts could make an accumulation unnatural, and that time alone might too. Nobody could predict which side of the line a patch of ice fell on.

The rule was a regional outlier besides. Every other New England high court had rejected what treatises called the "Massachusetts rule." And state sanitary, fire, and building codes already required most owners to keep access and egress clear, so reasonable care asked less than regulations did.

How Are Snow and Ice Cases Evaluated in Massachusetts Today?

Property owners are not insurers and are only liable for falls caused by their negligence. The Supreme Judicial Court restated the standard as recently as 2020: owners owe reasonable care in the circumstances, and a fact finder weighs several things.

• The burden of removal. The cost and effort of clearing a hazard are weighed against the probability and seriousness of foreseeable injury.
• The foot traffic is anticipated. Reasonable snow removal looks different for a single-family home, an apartment building, a retail store, and a nursing home.
• Notice of the hazard. An owner answers where it was placed, whether they knew about it, or whether they should have known because the condition had been there long enough.
• Open and obvious conditions. A landowner generally has no duty to warn lawful visitors of an open and obvious danger because the danger itself provides the warning. However, the landowner may still have a duty to remedy the condition when the landowner can and should anticipate that it will cause physical harm despite its known or obvious nature.
• Comparative negligence. You recover as long as your share of the fault is not greater than the defendants' combined share, with damages cut by that percentage. The comparative negligence statute puts the burden of proving your fault on the defendant.

The same principles run through the snow removal laws in Massachusetts generally.

Massachusetts Has Not Adopted a Storm in Progress Rule

This point gets misstated often, including by sources that should know better.

Some states apply a storm in progress rule: no duty to clear arises until a storm ends and a reasonable time passes. Connecticut adopted that approach in Kraus v. Newton. Because the reasonable care standard the SJC adopted traces back to an older Connecticut case, the two are often bundled together as "the Connecticut rule."

They are not the same thing, and Massachusetts adopted only one of the two standards. The Papadopoulos court addressed the storm-in-progress variant in a footnote and expressly declined to decide whether it applies here, noting the plaintiff had not fallen during a storm. No Massachusetts appellate decision has adopted it since.

The consequence is practical. An owner arguing that snow was falling when you fell is making a jury argument, not invoking a rule that ends the case. How long a hazard sat untreated still matters, and how long property owners have to clear a walkway is a question of what was reasonable rather than a fixed number of hours.

What Evidence Helps Prove a Property Owner Was Negligent?

Because the question is what the owner knew and did, evidence about conditions and timing is key in slip and fall injury claims involving winter hazards:

• Photographs from the scene. Images of the ice and the absence of salt or sand, taken before anything melts or is cleared.
• Certified weather records. Official climatological data showing when precipitation started and stopped, which anchors any argument about how much time the owner had.
• Incident reports. Reports filed with the store, property manager, or police create a contemporaneous record.
• Maintenance and contractor logs. Service contracts and daily records showing when the property was last plowed, salted, or inspected.
• Surveillance footage. Video showing how long the hazard existed and how the fall happened.
• Witness statements. Accounts from people who saw the fall or noticed the condition beforehand.

Much of this evidence disappears fast. Ice melts, video is overwritten within weeks, and contractor logs are not always kept.

Why Does the 30-Day Notice Deadline Matter So Much?

Snow and ice claims can carry a short thirty-day notice requirement in addition to the ordinary limitations period. Missing it can give the defense an argument unrelated to whether the property was negligently maintained.

A separate notice statute applies the notice provisions in G.L. c. 84, §§ 18-20 to actions founded on a defective condition of private premises or adjoining ways when the condition is caused by or consists in part of snow or ice resulting from weather conditions. The notice generally must be written and signed, provided within thirty days, and state the injured person's name and place of residence and the time, place, and cause of the injury. Section 21 also permits notice to be given by posting it conspicuously on the premises and leaving it with a person occupying all or part of the premises, if such a person exists.

The statute softens the consequence on private property: failure to give notice is a defense only if the owner proves the delay prejudiced it. That is no reason to relax, because prejudice is precisely what a defendant claims when melted ice and overwritten video mean it never got to investigate.

Claims against public property work differently, and the notice rules that apply to cities and towns are stricter still.

What Papadopoulos Means for Injured People Today

Before 2010, falling on a patch of ice nobody had touched usually meant no case. Now the same fall is evaluated under the reasonable-care standard that applies to other premises hazards, without treating the natural origin of the snow or ice as a categorical bar to liability.

That does not make every winter fall a claim. It makes it a question, answered by what the owner knew and how long the condition lasted. Where the answers show a property owner's failure to remove snow and ice fell short of reasonable care, there is a path to compensation that did not exist a generation ago.

Frequently Asked Questions About Papadopoulos v. Target Corp.

Does Papadopoulos Mean a Property Owner Is Always at Fault if I Slip on Ice?

No. The decision replaced a categorical defense with a reasonableness standard. Owners are not insurers of their property and are only liable for falls caused by negligence. If an owner cleared and treated a walkway on a reasonable schedule given the conditions and the traffic the area saw, the evidence may establish that there was no negligence. What changed is that liability is evaluated under ordinary reasonable-care principles instead of turning on whether the snow or ice was classified as a natural or unnatural accumulation.

Can I Still Bring a Claim if It Was Snowing When I Fell?

Yes. Massachusetts has not adopted a storm in progress rule, so there is no automatic bar on claims arising during active weather. The Supreme Judicial Court left that question open in 2010, and no appellate decision has answered it since. An owner can argue that clearing during a storm would have been unreasonable, but that argument is weighed by the fact finder rather than applied as a rule that ends the case.

How Long Do I Have To File a Slip-and-Fall Lawsuit in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts gives you three years from the date the claim accrues, which is usually the date of the fall. Snow and ice claims carry a separate thirty-day written notice requirement on top of that deadline. The two are independent, and satisfying one does not excuse missing the other, so both belong on your calendar immediately.

Can I Recover Compensation if I Was Partly at Fault?

Yes, as long as your share of the fault is not greater than the defendants' combined share. Massachusetts applies modified comparative negligence, so an injured person who is 50 percent responsible can still recover, reduced by that percentage, while someone more than 50 percent responsible cannot. The defendant carries the burden of proving your negligence, and you are presumed to have exercised due care.

Call Brandon J. Broderick For Legal Help

A winter slip and fall can mean surgery, weeks away from work, and bills that arrive long before any settlement does. Owners who let walkways and lots go untreated should answer for the harm that follows.

Our team handles Massachusetts premises liability claims and knows how quickly the evidence in a snow and ice case disappears. We move to preserve surveillance video, pull certified weather data, obtain contractor logs, and deal with the insurers so you can focus on recovering. If you were hurt in a fall on snow or ice, reach out today for a free consultation.