Someone Slipped on the Public Sidewalk Outside Your House: Gross Negligence, the 10-Day Notice and Your Snow-Clearing Duty in Ontario

Fresh snow, a refreeze, a ridge out of your driveway, ice off your roof or a lifted slab: what was on the concrete decides which Ontario rule you are reading.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a real estate broker in Toronto.

Picture a corner lot in January. The sidewalk across the front of the house is short. The one running down the side, along the flanking street, is a lot longer, and it is easy to assume that stretch belongs to the City. Under Toronto’s snow by-law it doesn’t, at least not for shovelling purposes: the duty covers any sidewalk on a public road in front of, alongside or at the rear of the building.

That detail is a good way into the question owners usually only ask after something has gone wrong: if someone slips on that public sidewalk, what does the law actually say? The answer depends on what was underfoot. Snow that is still falling, ice that formed after you salted, a ridge pushed out of your driveway, a chunk that came off your eaves, or a slab that heaved last spring each send you to a different rule.

So I’m going hazard by hazard. For each one: what Toronto’s by-law asks of the person who owns or lives in the house, and which part of the provincial statute the municipality is measured against. I’m setting out the statutes only. Whether a homeowner ends up paying the person who fell is a question the statutes don’t settle on their own, and I leave it to lawyers.

First, find your rulebook

Two different sets of rules sit on the same strip of concrete.

The first is the municipality’s own liability for the road, sidewalk included. Outside Toronto that is section 44 of the Municipal Act, 2001. Toronto has its own statute, the City of Toronto Act, 2006 (COTA), and its section 42 repeats the key wording almost word for word.

The second is the homeowner’s duty to clear, which comes from a municipal by-law, not a provincial statute. In Toronto that is Chapter 719 (Snow and Ice Removal) of the Municipal Code; the published consolidation is dated June 16, 2022. Other Ontario municipalities write their own clearing rules and they are not identical, so outside Toronto, read your own municipality’s current by-law before leaning on the Toronto timings below.

One Toronto wrinkle before the scenarios: §719-2C says the owner’s clearing duty in §719-2A does not apply where, under City policy, the City has taken on clearing the sidewalk at that location. The by-law does not list which streets that covers, so confirm it for your address rather than assume either way.

Hazard 1: It is still snowing, or it stopped less than 12 hours ago

Toronto’s clock starts when the weather stops, not when it starts. §719-2A requires every owner or occupant of a building to clear away and completely remove snow and ice from the sidewalk within 12 hours after any fall of snow, rain or hail has ceased. While that window is still open, an uncleared walk is not, on its own, a breach of Ch.719.

The municipal side. The hazard is snow or ice on a sidewalk, so the special sidewalk rule governs. According to the Municipal Act, 2001 (s.44(9)): “Except in case of gross negligence, a municipality is not liable for a personal injury caused by snow or ice on a sidewalk.” COTA s.42(5) uses the same words for the City of Toronto. The Act does not define gross negligence. On its plain wording, though, the opening it leaves is narrower than the ordinary repair standard you will see under Hazard 6, and how it applies to a particular storm is decided on the facts.

Hazard 2: More than 12 hours have passed and the walk still isn’t done

Now the person responsible for the house is out of step with the by-law, and Ch.719 has its own consequences:

• An offence. Contravening any provision of the chapter is an offence, with the fine set by the Provincial Offences Act (§719-6). The general maximum in POA s.61 is $5,000.
• The City can do it for you, at the owner’s expense. If snow and ice are not removed within 12 hours after the snow, rain or hail stops, the City may clear the sidewalk, including dealing with a slippery surface, at the expense of the owner of the building or vacant lot (§719-3A). It keeps an account of the cost (§719-3B) and can recover it in any manner, including the way COTA s.386 provides (§719-3C). Section 386(3) of COTA lets the City recover such costs by action or by adding them to the tax roll and collecting them like property taxes.

The municipal side does not move. It is still snow or ice on a sidewalk, so the gross-negligence rule in s.44(9) / COTA s.42(5) is still the one the municipality is measured against. Ch.719 is written as a duty owed to the City and enforced through fines and cost recovery; it contains no clause about compensating someone who falls.

Hazard 3: You cleared it, then it froze over

This is the scenario people underestimate. §719-2B: after the snow and ice have been removed, if any part of the sidewalk becomes slippery from any cause, the owner or occupant must immediately and as often as necessary apply ashes, sand, salt or some other suitable material so as to completely cover the slippery surface.

Read the wording closely. There is no new 12-hour window for a refreeze; the word is “immediately.” “From any cause” covers meltwater from your own downspout as much as an overnight temperature drop. And “as often as necessary” makes it a running duty, not a one-time job.

The municipal side. Ice is ice: s.44(9) / COTA s.42(5) again.

Hazard 4: The ridge came out of your driveway

§719-5 is short: no property owner, occupant or other person shall move or permit to be moved snow or ice from private property onto a highway, sidewalk or lane way.

Two phrases do the work. “Or other person” and “permit to be moved” mean the wording is not limited to the shovel in the owner’s own hands. My reading, not a ruling: if a snow contractor you hired piles your driveway snow onto the public sidewalk, the plain words point back at you as well as at them.

This also interacts with your own driveway. Since By-law 594-2022, §719-4.1B has required owners and occupants to clear steps, landings, walks, driveways, parking spaces, ramps and similar areas of the yard within 24 hours of a snowfall. §719-5 means that job cannot be done by relocating the snow onto the public sidewalk.

The municipal side. Once the snow is lying on the sidewalk, it is snow on a sidewalk, so s.44(9) / COTA s.42(5) apply.

Hazard 5: It came off your roof

§719-4A applies to the owner or occupant of any building that fronts on, abuts, or is built near a highway, where snow or ice from the building may fall onto the highway. Whenever snow or ice builds up on any part of the building to an extent that is dangerous to the public using the highway, sidewalk or lane way, they must have it removed immediately. §719-4B adds that during removal they must take proper care and precaution to warn and protect the public underneath.

In practice that turns icicles over the front steps and a snow overhang on a street-facing eave into a by-law item, not just a gutter-maintenance item.

The municipal side. This is the one hazard where the statute does not sort itself neatly. Section 44(9) speaks of injury “caused by snow or ice on a sidewalk.” Ice that drops from a private building onto someone walking past is not described anywhere in s.44. Which framework, if any, would reach the municipality in that situation is not something the wording answers, and I’m not going to guess.

Hazard 6: It wasn’t snow at all: a crack, a heaved slab, a raised edge

Ch.719 is about snow and ice only. It puts nothing on the homeowner about the concrete itself.

The duty to keep the sidewalk in repair sits with the municipality that has jurisdiction over the road. Section 44(1) requires it to keep the highway “in a state of repair that is reasonable in the circumstances, including the character and location” of the highway. If it defaults, it is liable for the resulting damages, subject to the Negligence Act (s.44(2)). Section 44(3) then gives it three defences:

(a) it did not know, and could not reasonably have been expected to know, about the state of repair;
(b) it took reasonable steps to prevent the default from arising; or
(c) minimum standards set by regulation applied to that highway and that alleged default when the claim arose, and those standards were met.

COTA s.42(1)–(3) mirrors this for Toronto; in (c), the minimum standards are those made by regulation under COTA s.117. That is the contrast with Hazards 1 to 4: there the municipality answers only for gross negligence, while here it is measured against reasonable repair and these three defences. The gross-negligence carve-out plays no part here, because it is limited to snow or ice.

The 10-day notice: whose clock it is, and what it has to say

According to the City of Toronto Act, 2006 (s.42(6)), and in the same terms Municipal Act s.44(10), no action for damages under the repair-liability provision can be brought unless, within 10 days after the injury, written notice of the claim and of the injury, including the date, time and location of the occurrence, has been served on or sent by registered mail to the clerk. If two or more municipalities are jointly responsible for that stretch, the notice goes to the clerk of each. The section sets no separate notice rule for snow and ice; s.44(10) and COTA s.42(6) are the only notice provisions in it.

Two exceptions are written into the section:
• If the injured person dies as a result of the injury, missing the notice does not bar the action (s.44(11); COTA s.42(7)).
• Missing or insufficient notice does not bar the action if a judge finds there was a reasonable excuse and the municipality is not prejudiced in its defence (s.44(12); COTA s.42(8)).

Two practical points for a homeowner. First, this clock belongs to the person who was hurt, not to you; it governs their claim against the municipality. Second, if you are ever the one who goes down on a municipal sidewalk, note what the section actually describes: a written notice, served or sent by registered mail, to the clerk. A phone call or a general service request is not the thing the section names.

Where this article deliberately stops

Everything above is the statutory framework: what the municipality is measured against for each kind of hazard, and what Toronto’s by-law asks of an owner or occupant toward the City, with the fine and cost recovery behind it.

What it does not tell you is whether a homeowner ends up compensating the person who fell. That turns on the facts of the particular fall and on how courts have dealt with situations like it, and I have intentionally cited no cases here. If you are on either side of that question, it is a conversation for a lawyer.

If the fall happened on your own steps, walkway or driveway rather than the public sidewalk, a different statute is involved, the Occupiers’ Liability Act, which is covered in a separate article on this site.