To boot or not to boot
’Tis the season to be merry! For some of us that might involve a night on the town dressed up in our holiday finest.
However, as I’ve learned from both personal and professional experience, dress shoes have a bad tendency to have zero tread. Apparently, Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo didn’t spend much time in Canada during the winter.
While we all want to look our best, the law can be very unforgiving when it comes to a person’s choice of footwear appropriate to weather conditions.
While the law places a duty on a property owner/operator to properly maintain their premises, particularly in a commercial setting, it also places an expectation on members of the public to be using footwear appropriate to weather conditions.
Due to a concept known as “contributory negligence,” damages in a case can be significantly reduced if it can be shown that a fall was due in part to a poor choice of footwear.
In fact, one of the first requests often made by insurance companies resolving these cases is for photos of the footwear a person was wearing at the time of the incident.
If it appears your shoe choice contributed to the incident, your lawyer may even request your shoes be kept maintained as evidence in their office for the duration of your claim. And yes, we actually do have a cabinet at the office filled with carefully labelled and itemized footwear. It also contains an air freshener.
Liability in a slip-and-fall incident can be a complex analysis. If you or a loved one has been injured because of improperly cleared snow or ice, reach out to a lawyer as soon as possible, both to preserve evidence and ensure parties are placed on notice of a claim as soon as possible.
Happy New Year’s, everyone!
This article was originally published by The Hamilton Spectator.
