Snow and ice: a property owner’s liability

Kentucky has no statute that says who pays when someone falls on snow or ice. The rules come from court decisions, and those decisions have shifted. A property owner is no longer automatically protected because the snow or ice was natural and easy to see.

The old rule and what replaced it

For decades, Kentucky courts held that an owner had no duty to remove or warn about natural outdoor hazards, such as snow and ice, that were as obvious to the visitor as to the owner. In 2010 the Kentucky Supreme Court ruled in Kentucky River Medical Center v. McIntosh that an obvious danger does not automatically defeat a claim if the owner should have expected someone to be hurt anyway. In 2015, in Carter v. Bullitt Host, the court applied that reasoning to ice at a hotel entrance and held that the old snow and ice rule is no longer good law.

The question now is whether each side acted reasonably. Kentucky uses comparative fault, which means a judge or jury assigns each party a percentage of the blame, and an injured person’s recovery is reduced by his or her own share (KRS 411.182). An owner who has done everything reasonable under the circumstances is not liable.

Businesses and homeowners

The Supreme Court’s recent decisions involved businesses, which must use reasonable care to keep their premises reasonably safe for customers. A social guest at a home is treated as a “licensee,” meaning a person present with permission but not for the owner’s business. Kentucky decisions describe the duty to a licensee mainly as warning of dangers the owner knows about that the guest would not notice. Courts have not fully spelled out how the newer cases apply to a private home.

Public sidewalks and city ordinances

Many cities require owners to keep the public sidewalk beside their property clear, and these ordinances vary. In Schilling v. Schoenle, a 1990 case from Newport, the Kentucky Supreme Court held that an ordinance of this kind creates a duty the owner owes to the city. It does not by itself make the owner liable to an injured pedestrian.

Landlords

A landlord who keeps control of shared areas such as walkways, steps and parking lots must use reasonable care to keep them reasonably safe for tenants. The Kentucky Court of Appeals applied that duty to natural snow and ice in Davis v. Coleman Management Co. (1989). What is reasonable depends on facts such as how long the condition lasted and whether the landlord had a fair chance to deal with it.