Connecticut Slip and Fall Laws: Proving Premises Liability

To win a slip and fall claim in Connecticut, you must show that the property owner was negligent, knew or should have known about the hazard, and that the hazard caused your injury. Connecticut follows a modified-comparative (51% bar) negligence rule under CGS Section 52-572h.

Proving a slip and fall claim in Connecticut

Connecticut premises liability law requires you to establish four elements. First, the property owner or occupier owed you a legal duty of care. Owners owe invitees a duty of reasonable care to keep the property in a reasonably safe condition, and owe trespassers only a duty to avoid willful or wanton injury.

Do not assume a social guest is owed less. CGS Section 52-557a provides that "the standard of care owed to a social invitee shall be the same as the standard of care owed to a business invitee," a rule Connecticut has had on the books since 1963. If you fell at a friend's or a relative's home, you are owed the same reasonable care as a customer in a store.

Second, a dangerous condition existed on the property. Third, the owner must have had actual or constructive notice of the hazard. Actual notice means the owner knew about it directly. Constructive notice means the condition existed long enough that a reasonable owner exercising ordinary care would have discovered and fixed it. Courts look to the duration of the condition, the frequency of inspections, and what a reasonable inspection would have found to decide whether constructive notice exists.

Connecticut recognizes an important exception for self-service retail settings. In Kelly v. Stop & Shop, Inc., 281 Conn. 768 (2007), the Connecticut Supreme Court adopted the "mode of operation" rule: a plaintiff injured in a self-service store need not prove the business had actual or constructive notice of the specific hazard if the store's chosen method of operation made that type of hazard foreseeably recurring. The rule removes the notice hurdle in cases where the business model itself creates the risk.

Fourth, the hazard must have caused your injuries and resulting damages. Without notice, even a clearly dangerous condition may not be enough to establish liability.

The open-and-obvious doctrine in Connecticut

Connecticut does not treat an open-and-obvious hazard as an automatic bar to recovery, but the rule is narrower than that phrase suggests, and it works differently for the duty to warn than for the duty to keep the property reasonably safe.

The starting point is Warren v. Stancliff, 157 Conn. 216 (1968), a fall on an icy, snow-covered driveway. The Connecticut Supreme Court held that an invitee is owed reasonable care to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition, citing Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 343, and that this duty "included the duty to warn the plaintiff-invitee of dangers which the plaintiff could not reasonably be expected to anticipate." The same opinion states the limit just as plainly: "The possessor of land has no duty to warn an invitee of a dangerous condition when the invitee has actual knowledge of the condition."

Warren also shows how narrow "obvious" can be in practice. The plaintiff had seen ice on the driveway days before, but a snowfall the night before his fall concealed it, so the court held that a jury, not the trial judge, had to decide whether he was or should have been aware of the danger at the moment he fell. A condition you knew about last week is not necessarily an obvious condition today.

One caution about how this case is often described: Warren did not adopt Restatement (Second) of Torts Section 343A, the provision under which an owner can still be liable for a known or obvious danger if the owner should have anticipated the harm anyway. Section 343A appears in the Warren opinion only in the dissent. Treat any claim that Section 343A is settled Connecticut doctrine with caution, and expect obviousness to be argued on the facts of the individual case.

Practically speaking, a plaintiff's awareness of the hazard does not defeat the claim outright. It instead becomes a factor in comparative fault under CGS Section 52-572h. If a jury finds the plaintiff was 30% responsible for encountering an obvious hazard, damages are reduced by 30%. Recovery is only barred if the plaintiff's total fault reaches 51% or more.

Ice, snow, and natural accumulation in Connecticut

Connecticut is not a no-duty natural-accumulation state. Landowners owe invitees an ordinary reasonable-care duty to address dangerous accumulations of ice and snow on their property. This distinguishes Connecticut from states like Illinois and Ohio, where naturally accumulated ice and snow generally create no liability.

The key limitation is the ongoing-storm doctrine established in Kraus v. Newton, 211 Conn. 191 (1989). Under that rule, in the absence of unusual circumstances, a property owner is not required to clear outside walks and steps while a storm is actively in progress. The owner must act within a reasonable time after the storm ends, but is not negligent for failing to remove accumulations during the storm itself.

Two important caveats: First, ice or snow that predates the current storm remains actionable regardless of whether a new storm is underway. Second, "unusual circumstances" can override the storm-in-progress suspension. If you fell on ice during a storm but that ice was from a prior freeze or from a drainage defect unrelated to the current weather, the ongoing-storm doctrine may not apply. The ordinary reasonable-care standard governs, and liability turns on whether the owner had reasonable time to discover and address the hazard.

If your fall happened on a public sidewalk rather than on private property, a separate statute can change both who you sue and how long you have. See the discussion of CGS Section 7-163a in the deadlines section below before you assume the town is the defendant.

How fault is shared: Connecticut's negligence rule

Connecticut follows modified-comparative negligence with a 51% bar, codified in CGS Section 52-572h(b). Under this rule, a plaintiff may recover only if the plaintiff's own negligence "was not greater than the combined negligence" of the defendant or defendants. Recovery is permitted when the plaintiff's fault is 50% or less, but is completely barred when the plaintiff's fault reaches 51% or more.

When recovery is permitted, damages are reduced in proportion to the plaintiff's percentage of fault. For example, a plaintiff found 30% at fault who suffered $100,000 in damages recovers $70,000. Section 52-572h(f) also requires the trier of fact to apportion fault among all parties, including any defendants who have settled.

The rule applies to negligence actions. Claims based on recklessness or intentional torts are treated differently and are not subject to the same comparative-fault reduction framework.

Deadlines: statute of limitations and government claims

The standard personal-injury statute of limitations in Connecticut is 2 years, under CGS Section 52-584. The clock starts when the injury is first sustained or discovered, or when it reasonably should have been discovered. Importantly, Section 52-584 also imposes a 3-year outer statute of repose: no action may be brought more than 3 years from the date of the act or omission that caused the injury, even if the injury was not discovered until later.

If you were injured on government property, strict pre-lawsuit notice requirements apply and missing them can end your claim entirely. For falls on defective municipal roads, bridges, or public sidewalks, CGS Section 13a-149 requires written notice of the injury, including a general description of the cause, time, and place, delivered to the town clerk or a selectman within 90 days of the injury. Suit must then be filed within 2 years. Courts apply this requirement strictly.

Ice and snow on a public sidewalk is the major exception, and getting it wrong means suing the wrong party on the wrong deadline. CGS Section 7-163a lets any Connecticut town, city, or borough adopt its provisions by ordinance. In a municipality that has done so, subsection (b) provides that "notwithstanding the provisions of section 13a-149 or any other general statute or special act," the municipality "shall not be liable to any person injured in person or property caused by the presence of ice or snow on a public sidewalk," unless the municipality itself owns or controls the land abutting that sidewalk, and it remains liable for its own affirmative acts. Subsection (c) shifts that same duty of care onto the owner or person in possession and control of the abutting land, and gives you two years from the date the injury is first sustained to sue that owner.

So the first question after a fall on an icy public sidewalk is whether that municipality has adopted Section 7-163a. If it has, the defendant is the abutting property owner and your window is 2 years, not a 90-day notice to the town. If it has not, Section 13a-149 governs and the 90-day notice controls. Because ordinance status is not always obvious from the outside, the safe course is to preserve both paths: identify the abutting owner and serve the 90-day notice on the town anyway.

Other government falls have different windows. Claims tied to a negligent municipal employee under CGS Section 7-465 require written notice within 6 months. Claims against the State of Connecticut itself must be presented to the Office of the Claims Commissioner within 1 year under CGS Section 4-148.

For more on Connecticut's general personal-injury deadlines, see the Connecticut statute of limitations page.

What a Connecticut slip and fall claim is worth

A Connecticut slip and fall settlement or verdict can include economic damages (medical bills, lost wages, future medical care, rehabilitation costs) and non-economic damages (pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life). Connecticut does not impose a general statutory cap on non-economic damages in personal-injury cases.

Your recovery is directly reduced by your share of comparative fault under CGS Section 52-572h. A 25% finding of fault against you reduces a $200,000 recovery to $150,000. If you are found 51% or more at fault, you recover nothing, regardless of the severity of your injuries.

Claim value also depends on the severity of the injury, the clarity of the owner's notice of the hazard, the strength of the ongoing-storm or open-and-obvious defense, and whether government notice requirements were met. Use the Connecticut slip and fall settlement calculator for a rough estimate based on your specific facts.

This article is general legal information, not legal advice. Premises liability law varies by state and changes, and case values depend on the specific facts. For advice about a specific fall, consult a licensed attorney in Connecticut.

See also: Slip and Fall Laws by State | Connecticut Slip and Fall Settlement Calculator

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