Everyone has heard a story of a friend or relative who has suffered a slip and fall accident. This kind of accident may occur in an icy parking lot in the winter or on a wet floor of a retail store. In Ontario, the law applicable to these accidents is found in the Occupiers’ Liability Act. An occupier of premises has a duty of care towards people who use their premises, “the invitees,” and may be liable for the injuries caused by the accident.
An occupier is any person who is in physical possession of the premises, for example, a retailer who is renting space in a plaza. An occupier may also be a person who has control over the condition of the premises. A landlord may be considered an occupier if the landlord has agreed to snow-plow the parking lot where the slip and fall occurred.
The legislation states that an occupier of the premises owes a duty to an invitee to take care that the invitee is reasonably safe while on the premises. If there is a situation of danger on the premises, such as a wet entrance way to the premises, an occupier must take reasonable steps to alert the invitee of the danger. A familiar example is a yellow sandwich board sign on a floor stating “Caution! Wet Floor.”
While the duty of care rests with the occupier, there is an onus on the invitee to prove that there is a situation of danger requiring the exercise of reasonable care. A “trip and fall” over a trolley in a grocery store used to stock shelves will not normally constitute a danger. People are familiar with such obstacles in grocery stores and their presence can be reasonably expected to be encountered by the invitee.
The Occupiers’ Liability Act has been the law in Ontario for thirty years. The legislation replaced the common law duty of care required of occupiers. The common law was more lenient towards occupiers because an occupier was only required to protect invitees from an unusual danger. Some of the provinces in Canada have no legislation similar to Ontario and thus the common law still applies.