$380,000 Settlement – Icy Sidewalk Fall in the Bronx
| Settlement Amount | $380,000 |
| Injury Type | Distal radius fracture (wrist), torn shoulder labrum |
| Location | The Bronx (commercial property) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Practice Area | Slip and Fall / Premises Liability / Snow and Ice |
What Happened
Our client stepped outside his Bronx apartment building approximately six hours after a snowstorm had ended and walked past a commercial property on his way to work. The sidewalk in front of that property was a sheet of ice – unsalted, unshoveled, and indistinguishable from the surrounding pavement until his foot went out from under him.
He landed hard, instinctively reaching out with both arms. The fall fractured his wrist and tore the labrum in his shoulder, both injuries requiring surgical repair.
The neighboring commercial property had been cleared. Multiple properties along the same block had been cleared. The property where our client fell had not been touched – no shoveling, no salt, no sand, no effort of any kind. Under New York City law, that is not an accident. It is a failure of a legal duty.
The Injuries
The fall caused a distal radius fracture – a break at the end of the radius bone near the wrist, one of the most common injuries from a hard fall onto an outstretched hand. The fracture required open reduction internal fixation surgery: the surgeon made an incision, repositioned the fractured bone, and secured it with a metal plate and screws. The hardware remains in place.
The same fall also tore the labrum in our client’s shoulder – the ring of cartilage that stabilizes the shoulder joint. That injury required arthroscopic surgery to repair, with a separate recovery period and its own course of physical therapy.
Combined, these two surgeries meant months of recovery, limitations on the use of his dominant arm, and a permanent awareness of both joints that simply was not there before he slipped on that icy sidewalk.
How Liability Was Established
New York City Administrative Code § 7-210 imposes a clear duty on the owners of commercial properties in New York City: after a snowstorm ends, they have a reasonable period of time – generally understood by courts to be four hours after the storm stops – to clear and treat their abutting sidewalks. If they fail to do so and someone is injured, they are liable.
Jason’s case rested on three documented facts. First, the property’s own maintenance records – obtained through subpoena – showed no record of any salting, shoveling, or sidewalk treatment activity in the hours following the storm. No maintenance log entry. No work order. Nothing.
Second, photographic evidence and eyewitness testimony documented the conditions at the specific location of the fall, showing accumulated and untreated ice on the sidewalk abutting the commercial property.
Third, and most critically for the liability timeline: the sidewalk in front of adjacent properties – properties whose owners had complied with their § 7-210 obligations – had been fully cleared. This comparative evidence was powerful. It demonstrated that property owners on the same block, facing the same storm and the same conditions, had managed to comply with the law. The defendant had simply chosen not to.
Challenges in the Case
The property owner’s primary defense was the “storm in progress” doctrine – a well-established principle under New York law that relieves property owners of liability for snow and ice conditions if the storm is still ongoing at the time of the accident. The rationale is that it would be futile to require sidewalk clearing while snow is actively falling. If the defense could establish that the storm was still “in progress” when our client fell, the liability case evaporated.
Jason attacked this defense directly with weather service records. He obtained time-stamped National Weather Service data for the specific Bronx location, establishing with precision when precipitation had last been recorded and when the storm officially ended. The data confirmed that the storm had definitively ended more than six hours before our client’s fall – well outside any reasonable interpretation of “storm in progress,” and well past the time period within which a commercial property owner is required to act.
The defense’s weather argument could not survive documented meteorological data. With the storm-in-progress defense neutralized and the maintenance records showing no remediation effort, the defendant had no viable path to avoiding liability.
The Outcome
The case settled for $380,000 – a result that reflected our client’s two surgical injuries, his recovery period, his pain and suffering, and the recognition that a property owner who does nothing to address an icy sidewalk in the hours after a storm bears full responsibility for the consequences.
For our client, the settlement closed a difficult chapter and provided meaningful compensation for injuries he sustained simply walking to work.
Injured in a slip and fall on snow or ice in New York City? These cases often turn on weather records and timing – and they require a lawyer who understands the storm in progress doctrine and how to defeat it. Call Linden Law as soon as possible after your accident.
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Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case is unique. The facts, injuries, and legal theories in your case will determine its value. This summary has been anonymized to protect client privacy.