Premises Liability & Slip, Trip and Fall Claims

You walked into a store, an apartment building, a parking lot, or a friend's house, and you left in an ambulance. A wet floor with no sign, a broken step, a pothole hidden by a puddle, an unlit stairwell, a dog that was never restrained. These are premises liability cases, and they are harder than most people expect, because Ohio law gives property owners several defenses that insurance companies use aggressively.

This page explains those rules honestly, including the ones that hurt injured people, and how a thorough investigation gets around them. In more than 30 years of handling these cases, the ones we win are the ones where we got to the evidence first.

What the owner owed you depends on why you were there

Ohio still follows the old common-law categories. In Gladon v. Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Auth., 75 Ohio St.3d 312 (1996), the Supreme Court of Ohio confirmed that "the status of the person who enters upon the land of another" continues to define the duty the owner owes:

• Invitees enter by invitation, express or implied, for a purpose that benefits the owner: customers, patients, delivery drivers, and tenants' guests in common areas. The owner owes an invitee "ordinary care," which includes inspecting for hazards and fixing or warning about them.
• Licensees are there with permission but for their own purposes; a social guest is traditionally treated much like a licensee. The owner must refrain from willful, wanton, or reckless conduct and warn of known hidden dangers.
• Trespassers are there without permission and are owed only a duty to refrain from willful, wanton, or reckless conduct, plus ordinary care once discovered in peril.

Gladon also teaches that status can change: a transit passenger who ended up on the tracks lost his invitee status because the invitation did not extend there. Insurers use this idea to argue that a customer who stepped into an employees-only area is owed less; we answer it by proving the invitation was broader than the owner now claims.

The "open and obvious" defense

The most common defense in an Ohio fall case is that the hazard was "open and obvious." In Armstrong v. Best Buy Co., 99 Ohio St.3d 79, 2003-Ohio-2573, the Supreme Court held that the doctrine survived Ohio's adoption of comparative fault: "where a danger is open and obvious, a landowner owes no duty of care to individuals lawfully on the premises." A customer who tripped over a visible guardrail bracket lost his case on summary judgment.

The doctrine does not reduce your recovery by a percentage. It eliminates the owner's duty entirely, which ends the case. The court was explicit that the doctrine "relates to the threshold issue of duty," not to whether you were careless. That is why defense lawyers raise it in nearly every case, including cases where the hazard was anything but obvious.

The honest assessment: the doctrine is bad for injured people, but it is a defense, not a rule of automatic loss. The question is whether the hazard was observable to a reasonable person in your position at the time, not in a photograph the adjuster took afterward with the area cleared.

Attendant circumstances are the key. Distractions and conditions surrounding a hazard can make an otherwise visible condition not open and obvious. The Supreme Court applied this reasoning in Cash v. Cincinnati, 66 Ohio St.2d 319 (1981), where a pedestrian stepped into a depression in a busy downtown crosswalk at lunch hour. The court held that a pedestrian at a busy intersection "necessarily has his attention diverted by traffic signal lights, by surrounding vehicular traffic, and by other pedestrian traffic," and quoted the rule that a pedestrian "is not, as a matter of law, required to look constantly downward." Those facts went to the jury.

The same reasoning applies in a store. A customer looking at shelves, a shopper pushing a cart through a crowded aisle, a visitor stepping from bright sunlight into a dim entryway: each is an attendant circumstance that can defeat the defense. We gather proof of those circumstances before the owner cleans up the scene.

The "two-inch rule" for sidewalks and walkways

Ohio courts have long held that a height difference of two inches or less in a walkway is presumed "insubstantial," meaning not actionable as a matter of law. Cash v. Cincinnati refused to apply that rule mechanically, holding that "all the attendant circumstances should be considered," and sent a case to the jury where the defect was less than two inches deep but 12 to 14 inches wide, spanned at least three feet of the crosswalk, and sat at a busy intersection.

So a small step-up does not automatically end your case. The width and location of the defect, lighting, crowds, and whether the owner knew about it all matter. Immediate measurements and photographs are critical. If you fell on a public sidewalk or in a government building, Ohio's immunity statute limits when the government can be sued and the deadline is short; see our claims against the government page.

Ice and snow

Ohio's winter rule is the harshest one on this page. In Brinkman v. Ross, 68 Ohio St.3d 82 (1993), the Supreme Court held that a property owner has no duty to remove "natural accumulations" of ice and snow from walkways or to warn visitors about them, reasoning that "everyone is assumed to appreciate the risks" of winter in Ohio. The rule applies to business invitees and social guests alike.

The word that matters is "natural." The rule does not cover an unnatural accumulation: ice created or made worse by something the owner did or failed to maintain. A downspout that discharges across a walkway and freezes, a lot graded so that melt water pools and refreezes at the entrance, or plowing that leaves ridges and runoff in a travel path can each be an unnatural accumulation the owner is responsible for. Proving it takes fast evidence: photographs of the ice and its source, weather records, and sometimes a site inspection before the thaw. If you fell on ice, call us the same day.

Store and business falls

Spills, tracked-in rain, loose mats, and broken pavement in parking lots are the bread and butter of premises cases. For a store, the legal question is usually notice: did the business create the hazard, know about it, or have it long enough that it should have found and fixed it? That last category, "constructive notice," is where most store cases are won or lost.

Evidence that proves notice:

• Surveillance video. Most stores overwrite footage within days or weeks. We send a written preservation demand immediately, and if a store destroys video after receiving it, a jury may draw conclusions from that.
• Incident reports. The store's own report, filled out at the scene, is often the best evidence of what the floor looked like.
• Inspection and sweep logs. Stores that claim to inspect hourly must produce the logs. Missing or falsified logs tell a story.
• Prior complaints and prior falls. A hazard that injured someone before is one the owner knew about.

Our guide chapters on gathering evidence and preserving documents explain what to collect and send to us.

Negligent security

Owners who invite the public can be responsible for criminal attacks that were foreseeable and preventable. An apartment complex with broken gates and a history of break-ins, a bar that ignores repeated fights, or a parking garage with no lighting may be liable for an assault that follows. The questions are foreseeability, based on prior incidents, and whether reasonable security would have prevented the attack. Police call logs are the starting point.

Dog bites

Ohio's dog-bite statute is one of the most favorable to injured people in the country. Under R.C. 955.28(B), "the owner, keeper, or harborer of a dog is liable in damages for any injury, death, or loss to person or property that is caused by the dog." There is no need to prove carelessness or a prior bite. The only exceptions are for victims who were trespassing or committing a crime, or who were "teasing, tormenting, or abusing the dog."

The word "harborer" was the subject of a recent decision from our own county. In L.H. v. Sun Secured Financing, L.L.C., 2026-Ohio-2219, decided June 17, 2026, the Supreme Court of Ohio reversed the Second District in a case arising from a bite at the playground of the Oakwood Village manufactured-home community in Montgomery County. The court held that "to harbor a dog under R.C. 955.28(B), one must shelter, protect, or exercise control over it," so a community owner that merely allowed leashed dogs in common areas was not a harborer. The decision narrows the ability to reach landlords under the statute, as we explain in our post on Ohio dog-bite harborer liability.

The dog's owner or keeper remains strictly liable, and a landlord may still be liable in negligence if it knew about a dangerous dog and did nothing. Homeowner's and renter's insurance often covers these claims.

Apartment and rental property injuries

Ohio landlords have duties written into statute. R.C. 5321.04(A) requires a landlord to comply with building, housing, health, and safety codes "that materially affect health and safety," to make repairs needed to keep the premises "in a fit and habitable condition," to "keep all common areas of the premises in a safe and sanitary condition," and to maintain electrical, plumbing, heating, and other fixtures in good and safe working order.

A tenant or guest injured by a broken stair rail, a collapsed balcony, a dark stairwell, or an icy common walkway fed by a broken gutter may have a claim based on these duties. Written repair requests and city code-violation records are the evidence we look for first.

What to do after a fall

Report the fall to the owner or manager and ask for a written incident report. Photograph the hazard, the lighting, and your injuries before anything is cleaned up. Get names and numbers of witnesses, including employees, keep the shoes you were wearing, and see a doctor the same day. Do not give a recorded statement to the owner's insurer before calling us.

Premises cases are judged under Ohio's comparative fault rule, R.C. 2315.33, so an insurer will try to assign you a percentage of blame for not watching where you walked; our guide chapter on what your case is worth explains how that affects the numbers. When a fall or an attack causes a death, see our wrongful death page.

Frequently asked questions

The store says the spill was obvious and I should have seen it. Is my case over? No. The open-and-obvious doctrine from Armstrong v. Best Buy Co. depends on the facts. Attendant circumstances such as displays, crowds, lighting, and store layout can defeat it.

I slipped on ice in a parking lot. Can I recover? Under Brinkman v. Ross, not for a natural accumulation. But if the ice came from a downspout, a drainage problem, or careless plowing, that is an unnatural accumulation and the owner may be liable.

A tenant's dog bit me at an apartment complex. Can I sue the landlord? The dog's owner is strictly liable under R.C. 955.28(B). After L.H. v. Sun Secured Financing, a landlord is a "harborer" only if it sheltered, protected, or controlled the dog, but a negligence claim against a landlord who knew of a dangerous dog may still be available.

How long do I have to file? Generally two years from the injury against a private owner, and two years with additional immunity hurdles against a government. Evidence disappears much faster than that.