Home / Case types / Slips, trips and falls / British Columbia
Occupiers’ liability — ice, floors, stairs, parking lots, property maintenance · BC
Slips, trips and falls in British Columbia
For crashes, the right to sue was largely removed in 2020. Everything else still runs through the courts.
These claims are won or lost on evidence that stops existing within about seventy-two hours.
Provincial detail verified 2026-05-01
Two years
The Limitation Act sets two years from discovery for most claims, with a fifteen-year ultimate limit. Enhanced Care benefit disputes run on their own internal review and Civil Resolution Tribunal timelines, which are shorter and easier to miss.
Not the same case twice
Occupiers’ liability is not about whether you fell. It is about whether the person responsible for that property had a reasonable system of inspection and maintenance, and whether they followed it that day. That means maintenance logs, contractor records, weather data and surveillance footage that overwrites itself on a loop. The claim is effectively built or lost before most people have finished being sore.
Short fuses in British Columbia
The deadlines that end claims long before the limitation period does
These are provincial and they are short. Whether any of them apply to your facts is a legal question — which is the reason we ask about them in the first ten minutes.
- ICBC requires prompt reporting of the accident; late reporting complicates entitlement.
- Benefit decisions carry short internal-review windows that expire long before any limitation period.
- Claims against municipalities and public bodies have their own statutory notice requirements.
What changes the match
Facts that move a slips, trips and falls file to a different practitioner
Who controlled the property
Owner, tenant, property manager and snow-removal contractor may all be liable, or none of them. Naming the wrong defendant and discovering it after a limitation period expires is a known, preventable disaster.
Snow and ice specifically
Several provinces impose a short written-notice requirement for winter falls that is far shorter than the limitation period. Missing it can end the claim outright.
Whether it happened on public property
Municipal claims carry their own short notice periods and, in some provinces, a higher standard of proof against the municipality.
Footwear, lighting and what you were carrying
Contributory negligence is the defence’s main lever here. A firm that gathers these facts honestly early builds a stronger case than one that avoids them.
Whether an incident report was filed
A report filed at the time is powerful. No report is not fatal, but it changes how quickly counsel must move to secure independent evidence.
- Post-2020 the useful question is no longer "who wins trials" — it is who moves benefit classifications and who handles the exceptions that still permit an action.
- Non-auto injury work in BC (occupiers’ liability, malpractice, product) is still conventional tort litigation and a different bench of firms.
Worth doing now
Early moves that decide how this file ends
- A preservation letter for video surveillance within days — most systems overwrite in one to four weeks.
- Formal requests for maintenance and inspection logs and any snow-clearing contract.
- Securing archived weather station data for the relevant hours.
Property owners are not automatically responsible for every fall on their land. The legal standard is reasonableness, not perfection. A firm that promises you a result before seeing the maintenance records is selling something.
Ten minutes gets you one name for a British Columbia slips, trips and falls file
The intake asks the British Columbia-specific questions above, reads back what it sees, and nothing reaches any firm until you say go.
Same claim, other provinces
InjuryLawyerNearMe.ca is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice, legal opinions, or legal representation. We are an independent matching service. Nothing on this site creates a solicitor-client relationship. Deadlines and entitlements depend on facts we cannot assess from a web page — speak to a lawyer promptly.