Snow and Ice Accidents on Sidewalks in New York City: Who Is Liable and When

Quick Answer

In New York City, the owner of the property next to the sidewalk is responsible for clearing snow and ice, but only after the snow stops falling and a reasonable time has passed. Sanitation rules give owners 4 hours after snowfall ends (14 hours for evening storms, and until 11 AM for overnight storms). Under Administrative Code section 7-210, a commercial or multi-unit owner who fails to remove snow or ice is liable for a pedestrian’s injuries. Owner-occupied one-, two-, and three-family homes used only as residences are exempt unless the owner’s own shoveling, salting, drainage, or driveway use created or worsened the ice. Claims against the City are possible but narrow, and require a notice of claim within 90 days.

Key Takeaways

• No one has to shovel while it is still snowing. Under the storm in progress rule, a property owner’s duty begins only after the precipitation ends and a reasonable time has passed.
• NYC Administrative Code section 16-123 sets the clock: clear a path at least 4 feet wide within 4 hours after the snow stops, not counting the hours between 9 PM and 7 AM.
• Administrative Code section 7-210 makes the adjoining owner, not the City, liable for injuries caused by the negligent failure to remove snow and ice from most sidewalks.
• Owner-occupied one- to three-family homes used exclusively as residences are exempt from that liability, but the exempt owner can still be sued if their own actions created or worsened the icy condition.
• The City of New York can be liable for ice in front of an exempt home or in the street, but only if it had a reasonable time after the storm to act and either created the condition or had notice of it. A 2026 appellate decision dismissed such a claim after only 18 hours.
• Deadlines are short. A claim against the City requires a notice of claim within 90 days and a lawsuit within one year and 90 days. A claim against a private owner must be filed within three years.
• Ice melts. Photograph the sidewalk, the ice, and the surrounding snow piles immediately, and note the exact time.

How Long Does a Property Owner Have to Clear Snow in NYC?

Central Park averages 29.8 inches of snow a year according to National Weather Service records, and the 1995-96 season brought 75.6 inches, so the question of how fast a sidewalk must be cleared comes up every winter. New York City does not leave the timing to guesswork. Section 16-123 of the Administrative Code requires every owner, lessee, tenant, or occupant in charge of a building or lot abutting a paved sidewalk to remove snow, ice, dirt, or other material from the sidewalk and gutter within four hours after the snow ceases to fall. The hours between 9 PM and 7 AM do not count toward the four hours. The Department of Sanitation translates that rule into three practical windows:

The path must be at least four feet wide. Owners and occupants must also clear snow and ice from around fire hydrants and from the pedestrian ramps and curb cuts in front of or next to their buildings. A corner property is responsible for the full intersection quadrant, including access to the crosswalk. Property owners are also responsible for bus stops without shelters in front of their buildings, while the Department of Transportation handles the inside of bus shelters. Snow may not be shoveled, blown, or pushed into the street, a crosswalk, or a bike lane.

If the snow and ice have frozen so hard that they cannot be removed without damaging the pavement, section 16-123(b) allows the owner to spread ashes, sand, sawdust, or some similar suitable material within the same time window, and then to clean the sidewalk thoroughly as soon as the weather permits.

Failing to comply is a civil offense enforced by the Department of Sanitation. The statute sets penalty ranges of $10 to $150 for a first violation, $150 to $250 for a second violation within twelve months, and $250 to $350 for a third or later violation within twelve months. The Sanitation Department’s published schedule is $100, $150, and $250. A fine is not the same as liability to an injured pedestrian, but the same failure that earns a summons is usually the failure that gets an owner sued.

The Storm in Progress Rule: No Duty Until the Snow Stops

The owner does not have to shovel until the snow stops. New York’s highest court has held that a property owner will not be held liable for injuries from an icy condition occurring during an ongoing storm or for a reasonable time afterward (Solazzo v. New York City Transit Authority, 6 N.Y.3d 734 (2005)). The Court of Appeals reaffirmed the rule in Sherman v. New York State Thruway Authority, 27 N.Y.3d 1019 (2016), where an overnight ice storm gave way to an intermittent wintry mix, and it was still raining when the claimant fell, with temperatures near freezing. Because precipitation was still falling at the time of the accident and had been for a substantial time before it, the court held that the storm was still in progress and the duty to clear the ice had not yet arisen.

The practical effect is that timing decides many of these cases. Suppose the snow stopped at 9 AM and a pedestrian fell at 9:30 AM. A court would very likely hold that the owner was not yet obligated to shovel, because a reasonable time had not passed since the storm ended. If the same pedestrian fell at 4 PM, seven hours after the snow stopped, the owner could be liable for failing to take reasonable steps to clear a path. The Sanitation windows above are not the legal test in an injury case, but they are the clearest benchmark of what the City itself considers a reasonable time.

Two details matter more than most people expect:

• Lulls do not restart the clock in the pedestrian’s favor. If precipitation resumes, the storm is generally treated as continuing.
• Temperature matters as much as snowfall. Defendants routinely submit certified climatological records to show when the storm ended and how cold it was. In Gonzalez-Taveras v. City of New York (1st Dept 2026), the court dismissed a claim where four inches of snow ended at 2 PM and the plaintiff fell at 8:15 the next morning, about 18 hours later, because temperatures had swung between 21 and 34 degrees overnight and the defendants had not had a reasonable time to discover and treat the ice.

A pedestrian who fell during the storm itself, or during flurries at its start, usually has no case unless the ice they fell on was old ice from an earlier storm that the owner had already had time to address.

Who Is Liable for Snow and Ice on a Sidewalk in New York City?

Since September 14, 2003, section 7-210 of the New York City Administrative Code has placed the duty to maintain the public sidewalk in a reasonably safe condition on the owner of the abutting real property. The statute specifically says that failure to maintain the sidewalk includes “the negligent failure to remove snow, ice, dirt or other material from the sidewalk.” An owner who breaches that duty is liable for personal injury or death proximately caused by the breach. The same section removes the City from liability for most sidewalks.

That rule reaches further than many owners realize:

• The duty is non-delegable. In Xiang Fu He v. Troon Management, Inc., 34 N.Y.3d 167 (2019), the Court of Appeals held that an out-of-possession landlord remains liable under section 7-210 for a fall on snow and ice even where the lease made the commercial tenant responsible for shoveling. The landlord can seek indemnification from the tenant, but the injured pedestrian’s claim against the owner survives. We covered that decision when it came down in our article on the landlord’s non-delegable duty to keep sidewalks free of snow and ice.
• Tenants, managing agents, and snow removal contractors can also be liable, but generally only where they actually undertook removal and did it negligently, or where a contract gives them complete control of maintenance.
• Corner owners are responsible for the intersection quadrant, not just the frontage.

Apartment buildings, office buildings, stores, restaurants, houses of worship, schools, parking lots, and any one- to three-family home that is rented out or partly commercial all fall under the general rule. For the broader question of which party owns a given stretch of sidewalk, see our companion article on who is responsible for the sidewalk in New York City.

The Owner-Occupied Home Exemption and the “Made It Worse” Rule

Section 7-210(b) does not apply to one-, two-, or three-family residential property that is, in whole or in part, owner occupied and used exclusively for residential purposes. Both conditions must be met. A two-family house where the owner lives in one unit and rents the other qualifies. The same house with a dentist’s office or a home-based business open to the public on the ground floor does not.

Three points follow from that exemption, and the original version of this article stated the first one too broadly.

First, the exemption removes statutory liability, not the shoveling duty. Section 16-123 applies to “every owner,” so an exempt homeowner who leaves the sidewalk buried can still be fined by the Sanitation Department. They simply cannot be sued under section 7-210 for a pedestrian’s injuries.

Second, the exempt homeowner can still be liable under ordinary negligence principles if they created or worsened the condition. New York courts have applied this rule for decades, going back to Zahn v. City of New York, 299 N.Y. 581 (1949), where a homeowner’s shoveled snow melted and refroze into black ice on the sidewalk. The modern formulation is that an exempt owner is liable only if they “undertook snow and ice removal efforts that made the naturally occurring condition more hazardous or caused the defect to occur because of a special use” (Mullaney v. City of New York, 125 A.D.3d 948 (2d Dept 2015)). Common examples:

• A drainpipe or downspout that discharges meltwater onto the sidewalk, where it freezes.
• Snow piled at the curb or against the house in a way that melts across the walkway and refreezes.
• Salting or shoveling a narrow strip that channels runoff into a sheet of ice.
• A driveway (a “special use” of the sidewalk) where cars drag snow and slush onto the walk and compress it into ice.

Third, incomplete shoveling is not enough. The Second Department has repeatedly held that an exempt owner “may not be held liable for removing ice or snow in an incomplete manner” (Mullaney; John v. City of New York, 77 A.D.3d 792 (2d Dept 2010)). The plaintiff must show that the removal effort itself made things worse, not merely that it was not thorough. Speculation is not evidence. In a June 2026 Kings County decision, Allen v. Pink Plaza Management, the court dismissed a claim against owner-occupants of two-family homes because the plaintiff’s theory that shoveled snow inside a fenced yard melted and refroze on the sidewalk was unsupported by any photographs, witness testimony, weather data, or expert proof.

The lesson for an injured pedestrian is that the location of the fall alone does not decide the case. What the homeowner did, or failed to do, in the days before the fall has to be investigated quickly.

Can You Sue the City of New York for Ice on a Sidewalk or in the Street?

Section 7-210(c) leaves the City responsible for sidewalks in only two situations: sidewalks abutting exempt owner-occupied one- to three-family homes, and sidewalks abutting property the City itself owns, such as parks, schools, and public buildings. The City also owns the streets, and section 16-124 directs the Sanitation Commissioner to remove snow and ice from the streets “immediately after every snowfall.”

Owning the sidewalk or street is not the same as being liable for ice on it. A claim against the City faces three hurdles that a claim against a commercial owner does not:

1. The storm in progress rule applies to the City just as it applies to private owners. The City must have had a reasonable time after the storm to discover and treat the condition. In Gonzalez-Taveras v. City of New York (1st Dept 2026), the fall happened on the sidewalk in front of an exempt single-family home about 18 hours after four inches of snow ended, with temperatures fluctuating below and above freezing. The court granted summary judgment to both the City and the homeowners: the City because it had not had a reasonable time to act and had neither created nor had notice of the ice, and the homeowners because the exemption applied and nothing showed that the owner’s shoveling the day before had created or worsened the condition. The plaintiff recovered from no one.
2. The City must have created the condition or had notice of it. The strongest City cases involve the City’s own snow operations, for example, a plowed mound at a corner that melts and refreezes across a crosswalk or curb cut. In San Marco v. Village/Town of Mount Kisco, 16 N.Y.3d 111 (2010), the Court of Appeals held that when a municipality’s own snow removal creates black ice, it cannot hide behind a prior written notice statute, because it needs no additional notice of a danger its own plowing created.
3. For streets and crosswalks, the City’s prior written notice law adds another layer. Section 7-201(c)(2) of the Administrative Code bars a lawsuit for an unsafe or obstructed street, sidewalk, or crosswalk unless the City received written notice of the condition and failed to fix it within 15 days, or written acknowledgment, or a prior injury with written notice. Section 7-210(d) expressly preserves that requirement. The affirmative creation exception described in San Marco is the usual way around it in snow cases.

Practically, this means the two answers in the original version of this article, that “the City would be liable” for ice in front of a single-family home and that the City “would be responsible” for ice in the road, were incomplete. The City can be liable in both situations. It is not automatically liable in either, and these are among the hardest snow and ice cases to win.

The procedure is also unforgiving. A notice of claim must be served on the Comptroller within 90 days of the accident under General Municipal Law section 50-e; the City may demand a sworn hearing under section 50-h, and the lawsuit must be started within one year and 90 days under section 50-i. Claims against the New York City Housing Authority follow a parallel 90-day and one-year-90-day schedule under Public Housing Law section 157. Claims involving State-owned property go to the Court of Claims under its own short deadlines.

Who Is Responsible? Common New York City Scenarios

Every row in this table assumes the storm had ended and a reasonable time had passed. During the storm, no one is liable for a natural accumulation.

Melting, Refreezing, and Black Ice: The Owner’s Ongoing Duty

The obligation does not end with the first shoveling. If snow melts during the day and the water refreezes at night, the owner must salt and remove the ice again, even if this becomes a daily routine for weeks after a storm. Sidewalks below awnings, next to snow banks, at the bottom of stoops, near drains, and in the shade of buildings are the usual trouble spots.

The legal standard for these “refreeze” cases is notice. The owner is liable if they created the icy condition or had actual or constructive notice of it and failed to correct it within a reasonable time. Constructive notice means the ice was visible and apparent and existed long enough before the fall that the owner should have discovered it. A “general awareness” that ice tends to form somewhere on the property is not enough on its own (Piacquadio v. Recine Realty Corp., 84 N.Y.2d 967 (1994), applied to winter conditions in Solazzo). What does work is evidence of a recurring condition in the specific spot that the owner knew about and routinely left unaddressed, or evidence that the ice had been there for days.

This is why the age of the ice matters so much. Dirty, rutted, footprinted ice; ice fused to compacted snow from a storm a week earlier; and ice fed by a visible drip line all point to a condition that existed long enough to be found and treated. Clear, thin ice that formed overnight from a sudden temperature drop is much harder to pin on anyone, which is exactly what happened in Gonzalez-Taveras, where the plaintiff described the ice as “practically transparent.”

What If You Fell on the Way Into Work?

Falls at the entrance to an office building raise two separate questions.

The claim against the building owner is a standard sidewalk case. If your employer is one of many tenants and the fall was on the public sidewalk, the responsible party under section 7-210 is the building owner, not your employer. Your employer’s lease does not change that as far as you are concerned, because the owner’s duty is non-delegable.

Whether you also have a workers’ compensation claim depends on where and how the fall happened. Under New York’s “going and coming” rule, injuries on the way to or from work are generally not compensable. The Court of Appeals recognized an exception in Matter of Husted v. Seneca Steel Service, 41 N.Y.2d 140 (1976): as an employee gets close to the workplace, there is a “gray area” where the risks of the street merge with the risks of employment, and an accident on a public sidewalk does not automatically defeat a claim. The test is whether there was a special hazard at that spot and whether the route was closely associated with the employer’s premises. A fall on ice at the very door your employer requires you to use is a stronger compensation claim than a fall halfway down the block, and the Workers’ Compensation Board decides these questions case by case.

If the compensation claim is accepted, you can still sue the building owner. Workers’ Compensation Law section 29 allows an injured worker to collect benefits and pursue the third party, subject to the carrier’s lien on the recovery for benefits it paid. Our article on what workers’ compensation insurance covers explains the benefits side in more detail.

How to Prove a Snow and Ice Sidewalk Case

Snow and ice cases are won or lost on evidence gathered in the first day or two, because the condition disappears. In our experience, early investigation makes the difference. In past cases, we have been able to reach the scene and photograph the snow and ice before it melted.

• Photograph everything, immediately. The patch you fell on, the surrounding sidewalk, snow piles at the curb and against the building, drains and downspouts, the condition of neighboring sidewalks for comparison, and any salt or sand (or its absence). Include something that shows scale and, if possible, a timestamp.
• Record the exact time of the fall and the exact time the snow stopped. Both sides will rely on certified weather records from the National Weather Service’s Central Park station or the nearest airport. Those records set the start of the “reasonable time” clock.
• Identify the property. Note the address, whether it is a house or a larger building, whether the owner lives there, and whether there is any business on the premises. These facts decide whether the exemption applies.
• Look for prior complaints and summonses. 311 complaints about an uncleared sidewalk and Sanitation Department violations are public records that establish notice and a pattern.
• Get witnesses and any video. Doorman logs, storefront cameras, and neighbors who saw the sidewalk that morning are often the best evidence of how long the ice had been there.
• Seek medical treatment the same day and describe the mechanism of the fall accurately.

Comparative negligence remains a live issue. An owner will argue that you were looking at your phone, wearing smooth-soled shoes, or cutting across a snow bank instead of using the cleared path. Under CPLR 1411(a), a pedestrian’s own carelessness reduces the recovery in proportion to their share of fault but does not bar the claim. The 2026 amendments to New York’s comparative negligence law added a 51 percent bar only for motor vehicle cases under Insurance Law Article 51; they do not apply to sidewalk and premises cases.

Deadlines for New York Snow and Ice Sidewalk Claims

A late notice of claim against the City can sometimes be excused by court order under General Municipal Law 50-e(5), but the application must be made within the one-year-90-day period and is never guaranteed.

What Compensation Is Available After a Fall on Ice?

Winter sidewalk falls produce a recognizable set of injuries: wrist and hip fractures from bracing or landing, ankle fractures, shoulder dislocations and rotator cuff tears, herniated discs, and head injuries from falling backward. A successful slip and fall claim can recover medical expenses, lost earnings and lost earning capacity, and pain and suffering, and there is no cap on non-economic damages in a New York premises liability case. For a fuller discussion of how these claims are valued, see our articles on getting a monetary recovery for injuries from a broken sidewalk and how much pain and suffering is worth in a slip and fall.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long do you have to shovel your sidewalk after it snows in NYC?

Four hours after the snow stops, not counting the hours between 9 PM and 7 AM. In practice, the Sanitation Department’s windows are: snow ending between 7 AM and 4:59 PM, clear within 4 hours; ending between 5 PM and 8:59 PM, clear within 14 hours; ending between 9 PM and 6:59 AM, clear by 11 AM. The path must be at least four feet wide.

I fell on ice on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to my employer’s office building. My employer is one of many businesses in the building. Who is responsible?

The building owner is responsible for keeping the public sidewalk clear under Administrative Code 7-210, and that duty cannot be shifted to the tenants as far as you are concerned. Your personal injury claim would be against the landlord, and potentially against any contractor or tenant who actually did the shoveling negligently.

Would I also have a case against my employer if I was coming to work?

Not a lawsuit, because workers’ compensation is your exclusive remedy against your employer. You may, however, have a workers’ compensation claim if the fall happened in the “gray area” at the entrance to your workplace, where the risks of the street merge with the risks of the job. That is a fact-specific question decided by the Workers’ Compensation Board. If benefits are awarded, you can still sue the building owner, and the compensation carrier will have a lien on part of any recovery.

I slipped on ice on an uncleared sidewalk in front of a two-family home. Who is responsible?

If the owner lives in one of the units and the building is used only as a residence, the owner is exempt from liability under Administrative Code 7-210(b), even though they can still be fined for not shoveling. You could sue the owner only if their own conduct created or worsened the ice, for example by piling snow so that it melted across the walk or by letting a downspout drain onto the sidewalk. A claim against the City is possible but requires showing that the City had a reasonable time after the storm and either created the condition or had notice of it, and it must begin with a notice of claim within 90 days. If the building has a commercial use, such as a doctor’s office, the exemption does not apply, and the owner is liable in the ordinary way.

I fell at the beginning of the storm when there were only flurries, and there was no accumulated snow or ice. Do I have a case?

Almost certainly not. First, no owner has a duty to shovel while precipitation is falling. Second, you must show a dangerous condition that caused the fall, and a wet or lightly dusted sidewalk at the start of a storm is not one. The exception would be if you actually fell on old ice left from an earlier storm that the owner had already had ample time to remove.

I fell on ice in the street. Who is responsible?

The City of New York owns the streets, and the Sanitation Department is responsible for plowing and salting them, so the City is the potential defendant. Winning the case is another matter. You would need to show that the storm had ended long enough before your fall for the City to act, that the City either created the ice (for example, through a plowed pile that melted and refroze) or had written notice of the condition under Administrative Code 7-201(c), and you would need to serve a notice of claim within 90 days.

Does the City of New York clear sidewalks?

No. The City does not clear snow or ice from sidewalks in front of residential or commercial property, from alleys, or from snow blocking a sidewalk or driveway even if the City’s own plow put it there. The Sanitation Department plows the City’s roadways and salts bike lanes, the Parks Department handles sidewalks in and around parks, and the Department of Transportation clears snow and ice inside bus shelters.

What if the property owner shoveled but did a poor job?

It depends on who the owner is. A commercial or multi-unit owner has a duty to maintain the sidewalk in a reasonably safe condition, and a half-cleared path that left ice can support a claim. An exempt owner-occupant of a one- to three-family home is different: courts have held that such an owner is not liable merely for removing snow in an incomplete manner. The plaintiff must show that the shoveling actually made the condition more dangerous than the natural accumulation would have been.

Talk to a New York Sidewalk Accident Lawyer About Your Fall

The rules above make snow and ice cases some of the most technical premises liability claims in New York. The same fall can be a strong case against a commercial landlord, no case at all against an exempt homeowner, and a narrow, deadline-driven case against the City, depending on facts that must be pinned down within days.

Mark E. Seitelman has represented injured New Yorkers for more than 45 years and has handled sidewalk accident cases across all five boroughs, including snow and ice falls in front of apartment buildings, stores, private homes, and City property. Our firm maintains offices at 111 Broadway in the Financial District, 570 Grand Street on the Lower East Side, and 605 East 82nd Street on the Upper East Side.

If you were hurt on an icy sidewalk in New York City, do not wait for the ice to melt. Contact our office for a free consultation. We will identify the responsible party, preserve the weather and property records, and make sure no notice of claim deadline passes.