Snow and Ice Liability: What Commercial Property Owners Owe
Every winter, the same scenario plays out across the Pacific Northwest: a short freeze, a skiff of snow, an untreated walkway, and a fall that turns into a claim. Because heavy winter weather is occasional here rather than constant, many commercial properties are less prepared for it than properties in colder regions, and courts do not treat infrequency as an excuse. If you own or manage commercial property in British Columbia, Washington, or Oregon, you carry a legal duty toward the people walking across it. This article explains where that duty comes from in each jurisdiction, what the municipal bylaws add on top, and what a defensible winter operation actually looks like.
This is general information, not legal advice. Liability outcomes turn on specific facts, so consult your legal counsel and your insurance broker about your own properties.
British Columbia: The Occupiers Liability Act
In BC, the governing statute is the Occupiers Liability Act. Section 3 places a duty on the occupier of a premises, which includes owners and property managers with responsibility for and control over the property, to take reasonable care to see that people on the premises are reasonably safe. That duty covers the condition of the premises and activities on it, and snow and ice on walkways, entrances, and parking areas fall squarely inside it.
Two points matter for property managers. First, the standard is reasonableness, not perfection. Courts in BC look at what a prudent occupier would have done in the circumstances: was there a system for monitoring weather, was there a plan for clearing and de-icing, was the plan followed, and is there evidence of all three. Second, the duty does not disappear because you hired a contractor. A well drafted service agreement and a competent vendor help significantly, but occupiers are generally expected to have a reasonable system in place and to have chosen and monitored their contractor sensibly.
On top of the Act, municipal bylaws add hard deadlines. The City of Vancouver requires property owners and occupants to clear snow and ice from the full width of sidewalks bordering their property by 10 a.m. the morning after a snowfall, under Street and Traffic By-law 9964, with fines starting at $250 and rising to $750 if snow and ice remain beyond 24 hours. Most Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley municipalities have similar provisions. Bylaw fines are modest compared to injury claims, but an uncleared sidewalk photographed at noon makes an uncomfortable exhibit. For a deeper walkthrough of the Vancouver rules, see our companion guide to Vancouver's snow removal bylaw.
Washington and Oregon: Premises Liability and the Invitee Standard
South of the border, snow and ice claims run through common law premises liability. Customers, tenants, and vendors on a commercial property are invitees, the category owed the highest duty of care. An owner or possessor of land must exercise reasonable care to protect invitees from dangerous conditions the owner knows about or should discover through reasonable inspection, and that includes accumulations of snow and ice.
Some colder states historically gave owners a pass on natural accumulations of snow. Washington and Oregon courts have not been generous with that idea for commercial occupiers, and the practical reality is that a business inviting the public onto its property is expected to inspect, treat, and warn. Municipal codes add the sidewalk layer: Seattle Municipal Code 15.48.010 requires owners and occupants to remove snow and ice from adjacent sidewalks in a timely manner, and the City of Seattle confirms that sidewalk maintenance responsibility sits with the adjacent property owner. Portland assigns sidewalk responsibility to abutting owners in much the same way. In other words, the walkway between the curb and your front door is generally your problem, not the city's. We break down what "timely manner" actually means in practice in our guide to Seattle's snow removal laws.
There is a second layer of exposure that owners often miss: melt and refreeze. A lot plowed at 6 a.m. can still generate a claim at 6 p.m. when meltwater runs across a walkway and refreezes in a shaded corner. Pacific Northwest freeze thaw cycles, where daytime temperatures hover just above freezing and drop below at night, make refreeze the dominant hazard here, more than snowfall depth itself. Drainage condition and pavement grading are winter safety issues, not just summer maintenance items.
What Courts and Insurers Look For
Across all three jurisdictions, snow and ice cases tend to be decided on the same handful of questions. Did the occupier have a written winter plan that identified priority areas like entrances, accessible stalls, ramps, and high traffic walkways? Was there a trigger for service, such as a temperature or accumulation threshold, rather than ad hoc calls? Who monitored conditions between storms, and how were refreeze checks handled? And critically, can any of this be proven with records?
Service logs are the difference between a defensible file and a credibility contest. A log showing the date, time, conditions, areas serviced, and materials applied, kept contemporaneously by the crew doing the work, is the single most valuable document in a slip and fall defense. Photographs with timestamps strengthen it further. If your current vendor cannot produce this kind of record for last winter, you have a documentation gap regardless of how good the plowing was.
Contracts and Vendors: Allocating the Risk Properly
Your snow and ice management contract is a risk document as much as a service document. The scope should state exactly which surfaces are covered, because the gaps between the plow contract and the sidewalk crew are where claims live. Service triggers should be objective and written down. Insurance requirements should be verified with current certificates, not assumed. Indemnification language deserves legal review, since a contractor's promise to indemnify is only as good as their insurance behind it.
Be cautious with the cheapest bid on a per push basis. Per push pricing can create an incentive to wait for accumulation thresholds while ice forms underneath, and the liability for that interval sits with the property, not the vendor's pricing model. Seasonal contracts with monitoring obligations cost more up front and tend to cost less after one avoided claim.
A Practical Pre Winter Checklist for Multi Site Portfolios
Before the first freeze, walk each property with winter in mind. Confirm drainage is clear so meltwater has somewhere to go other than across your walkways. Identify shaded areas and north facing approaches that refreeze first. Verify your vendor's coverage areas match your site maps, stall by stall and door by door. Confirm the reporting format you will receive after each service event. And put the documentation somewhere central, because in a claim you may be asked to produce records from two winters ago.
Properties that treat this as an annual operational cycle rather than a storm by storm scramble consistently see fewer incidents and resolve the incidents they do see faster.
Conclusion
The legal standard in BC, Washington, and Oregon is versions of the same idea: commercial occupiers must take reasonable, provable care to keep people safe on their property in winter conditions. Reasonable care is a system with a plan, objective triggers, monitored execution, and records, and none of those pieces can be improvised in the middle of a storm.
Invictus Northwest Group has managed winter risk on commercial properties across Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver, BC for more than 30 years, with the service documentation to stand behind the work. To review winter readiness across your portfolio before the season starts, call 888.459.0994.
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