Massachusetts Slip and Fall Lawyer

A fall on someone else’s property can break a wrist, a hip, or a life. Massachusetts law gives you a real claim when a property owner let a hazard sit there, but the rules are narrower and the deadlines shorter than most people expect, and one of them can run out in thirty days. Melanson Law Group represents people injured in falls across Massachusetts, from grocery stores and apartment stairwells to icy parking lots and office lobbies. The consultation is free, and if we take your case you pay no attorney fee unless we recover for you. Call 617-683-1983 to speak with a Massachusetts slip and fall lawyer.

What You Actually Have to Prove

Massachusetts does not make a property owner responsible for every fall that happens on their land. Since the Supreme Judicial Court decided Mounsey v. Ellard in 1973, an owner owes a single standard of reasonable care to all lawful visitors, which ended the older system that gave a social guest less protection than a paying customer. What that means in practice is that you have to show the owner knew about the hazard, or should have found it through reasonable inspection, and then failed to fix it or warn you about it. A puddle that appeared ninety seconds before you walked through it is usually not a case. That same puddle sitting in a busy aisle for an hour, with employees walking past it, usually is.

Snow and Ice Cases Changed in 2010, and the Change Favored You

For more than a century, Massachusetts property owners had a powerful defense available to them. They were not liable for snow or ice in its natural state, only for accumulations that human activity had altered. That defense is gone. In Papadopoulos v. Target Corporation, 457 Mass. 368 (2010), the Supreme Judicial Court abolished the distinction between natural and unnatural accumulation and held that snow and ice carry the same obligation of care that applies to any other dangerous condition on the property. An owner now has to act reasonably to clear or treat ice, accounting for how much foot traffic an area gets and how long the hazard has been sitting there. If you fell on an untreated lot two days after a storm ended, that is a materially different case than it would have been in 2009.

Injured in a fall on someone else’s property? Get a free case review from a Massachusetts injury attorney. Call 617-683-1983.

The Thirty Day Notice Rule Almost Nobody Warns You About

This is the deadline that quietly kills snow and ice claims. Under chapter 84, section 21, the notice provisions that govern public way defects also reach claims against private property owners when the injury was caused by snow or ice. Section 18 sets that notice period at thirty days from the date of injury, and the notice has to state your name, your place of residence, and the time, place, and cause of the injury.

Here is the part most summaries online get wrong. Missing the thirty day deadline does not automatically end your claim. Both sections say in plain terms that failure to give the notice is not a defense unless the defendant proves it was prejudiced by the delay. A late notice is therefore a problem rather than an automatic loss, and it turns into a fight over whether the delay actually cost the owner a fair chance to investigate. That said, the safe course by a wide margin is to get written notice out inside thirty days, and it is one of the first things we handle when someone calls us after a winter fall.

Falls Inside Stores Follow a More Favorable Rule

If you fell in a self-service store, Massachusetts gives you an easier path than the general rule provides. In Sheehan v. Roche Bros. Supermarkets, 448 Mass. 780 (2007), the Supreme Judicial Court adopted what is known as the mode of operation approach. When a business chooses a self-service model in which customers handle the merchandise themselves, it is already on notice that spills and dropped items are a foreseeable byproduct of that choice. You no longer have to prove how long the grape or the spilled detergent sat on the floor. Instead you show that the hazard was foreseeable given how the store operates and that the store failed to take reasonable precautions against it. That shift matters enormously, because the length of time a hazard was on the floor is precisely the fact an injured customer almost never has and the store almost always does.

Falls on Public Sidewalks Are a Much Harder Case

This one surprises people. If you fell because of a defect in a public way or sidewalk, your claim against the city or town runs through chapter 84, section 15, and it carries severe limits. Recovery from a county, city, or town is capped at five thousand dollars no matter how badly you were hurt. You still have to give notice within thirty days under section 18, and suit has to be brought within three years. Courts have also read section 15 to require that the defect be the sole cause of the injury, which means contributing negligence by you or by anyone else can defeat the claim outright. A fall on government property that is not a way, such as inside a public building, runs under a different statute with its own presentment requirement and its own short deadline. If your fall happened on public property, the deadlines are the urgent part, and an early call is worth considerably more than a late one.

Being Partly at Fault Does Not End Your Case

Property owners and their insurers will argue that you were looking at your phone, wearing the wrong shoes, or walking past a hazard that anyone would have noticed. Massachusetts follows modified comparative negligence under chapter 231, section 85. You can still recover as long as you are not more than fifty percent responsible, although your award is reduced by your share of the blame. At fifty one percent, recovery disappears entirely, which is exactly why adjusters press the blame narrative from the very first phone call. We push back with evidence: incident reports, inspection and maintenance logs, weather records, and surveillance video. The same fifty one percent rule shapes every Massachusetts injury claim, including the cases we handle for injured cyclists.

Three Years to Sue, but Evidence Has a Shorter Shelf Life

Massachusetts gives you three years from the date of the fall to file a personal injury suit under chapter 260, section 2A. That sounds like a comfortable margin, and it is a large part of why good claims fall apart. Surveillance footage gets recorded over, often within a week or two. The broken step gets repaired, which removes the evidence and makes the owner look responsible in the same stroke. The employee who mopped the aisle changes jobs. The store’s own incident report, frequently the single most valuable document in the entire case, is far easier to obtain early. Every week between the fall and the first letter from a lawyer makes the claim harder to prove.

What a Melanson Law Group Slip and Fall Lawyer Does for You

We send the preservation letters that stop video from being erased, and we request the incident report before memories fade. We identify who actually controlled the property, which is often not who you would assume, because landlords, management companies, commercial tenants, and snow removal contractors can each carry a share of the responsibility. We document the full scope of your injuries, including future treatment and lost earning capacity, and we deal with the adjusters so you are not talked into a recorded statement that gets used to build the comparative negligence argument against you. If a fair settlement is not on the table, we are prepared to file suit. These cases are handled on a contingency fee, which means you pay no attorney fee unless we recover for you. You can read more about our broader personal injury practice as well.

Talk to a Massachusetts Slip and Fall Lawyer

If you were hurt in a fall, the two things worth doing today are getting your treatment properly documented and getting the deadlines under control. We offer a free consultation with no pressure attached, and there is no fee unless we win your case. Call 617-683-1983, or visit our office at 130 Bishop Allen Drive, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139. If your fall involved snow or ice, please call sooner rather than later, because that thirty day notice window is already running.