Elizabeth Brock
Licensed investigator with over
10 years of investigative experience.
Snow and ice during the winter weather is dangerous and can bring out the worst when it comes to driving and accidents. Examples of this we have observed at Root Investigations includes an icy parking becoming a lottery ticket, a slip on a wet floor turning into a six-figure demand. Individuals shoveling who claim they have broken backs. In the middle of it all, someone needs to determine the facts. That is where Root Investigations comes into play.
At Root Investigations, we have worked countless slip-and-fall cases over the years. Most of the investigations aren’t as straightforward as either side believes. The plaintiff swears they were gravely injured through no fault of their own. The property owner insists they did everything right. The truth is usually somewhere in between.
Winter claims are different because the conditions don’t last. Evidence disappears when the snow and ice melts. If you don’t act fast, you might lose your chance to know what really happened.
When someone reports a slip-and-fall on your property in winter, you have about 48 hours to document conditions before they’re gone.
Snow melts. Ice refreezes. Parking lots get plowed and salted. Walkways get cleared. By the time you’re talking to your attorney or your insurance company a week later, the scene looks nothing like it did when the incident allegedly occurred.
I’ve seen property owners lose cases they should have won because no one thought to take photos immediately. I’ve also seen plaintiffs caught in lies because private investigators documented conditions within the allotted time period and proved the claimed hazard never existed.
Whenever I receive a call about a winter slip-and-fall, I first ask when it happened. If it’s been more than two days, we’re already behind. If it just happened, we have a chance at solving the case and being able to assist you depending on which side you are on.
What does this mean for our private investigators? This includes obtain the facts, such as photographing the exact location from multiple angles, determining if neighbors have ring cameras that could have picked it up, checking the weather and wind conditions for the date and time, measuring snow/ice if present, talking to witnesses, and finding any potential surveillance footage.
Most commercial camera systems only retain footage for a limited time and sometimes as little as 72 hours. If you wait a week to start investigating, that footage can be overwritten. This can be the make-or-break for a case – if that footage had shown the person walking normally before and after their supposed fall, or shown them deliberately choosing to walk through an icy area when a clear path existed, you’ve lost your best evidence.
A slip-and-fall claim isn’t just about whether someone fell. It’s about how badly they were actually hurt.
I’ve investigated cases where someone claimed a fall left them unable to work, unable to drive, unable to live normally, and then conducted surveillance showing them doing all of those things within weeks and months of the incident, while claiming still fully injured. As investigators we understand that someone can have a good day and recommend to do multiple days of surveillance in order to establish a routine.
One example of a case involved a woman who claimed a fall in a grocery store parking lot, causing severe back and hip injuries that left her essentially bedridden. Her attorney was demanding a substantial settlement. The store’s insurance company hired us to conduct surveillance.
Over the course of a week, we documented her driving herself to multiple locations, carrying shopping bags, walking her dog, and bending down repeatedly to garden in her front yard. We discovered during the social media investigation that she was at the gym regularly doing extensive lifting. None of that proved she didn’t fall. But it absolutely proved her injuries weren’t as severe as she claimed.
The case settled for a fraction of the original demand.
Winter injuries are particularly easy to exaggerate because pain is subjective and soft tissue injuries don’t show up clearly on imaging. Someone can claim they’re in agony with no true way to prove otherwise. This is why surveillance matters. It shows what someone actually does when they’re not performing for a camera.
Some winter slip-and-fall claims aren’t exaggerated…just fabricated.
There have been cases Root Investigations has conducted where the alleged fall never happened at all, or happened elsewhere and was blamed on a property owner with deep pockets.
In one instance, a man claimed he slipped on ice at an individuals home and severely injured his knee. He said it happened early in the evening right as it was dark. The property owner’s Ring Camera showed the lot had been salted previously, and there was no snow after that.
We pulled footage from surrounding location. The man’s car wasn’t in the location at the time he claimed to have fallen. We eventually found footage of him arriving three hours later, walking normally, and then sitting in his car for twenty minutes before limping into the residence and calling to report his fall.
He withdrew his claim once he knew we had the footage.
That’s not common, but it’s not rare either. Winter creates plausible deniability. Everyone knows ice is dangerous. Everyone has slipped before. It’s easy to claim you fell somewhere when conditions were legitimately hazardous—even if you didn’t.
If you own or manage commercial property on Long Island or in New York City, you’re going to deal with slip-and-fall claims this winter. It’s not a question of if, it’s when.
Here’s what I tell every property manager I work with: document everything, every time.
Keep detailed logs of when you salt, plow, and shovel. Take timestamped photos of your lots and walkways after you clear them. Make sure your cameras are working and retaining footage for at least four weeks, not two days.
When someone reports a fall, treat it seriously and move fast. Get their account in writing while it’s fresh. Preserve footage immediately. Document the scene as it exists right then, not how you think it existed earlier.
If the claim seems off, if the person’s story doesn’t match the conditions, or if they’re demanding a settlement before they’ve even seen a doctor, call a private investigator immediately. The sooner we get involved, the more options you have.
Defense attorneys who handle premises liability claims know that winter cases are won or lost on evidence that disappears within days.
If you’re representing a property owner or business in a slip-and-fall case, early investigation changes everything. Waiting until discovery to think about surveillance means you’ve already lost months of opportunity to document the plaintiff’s actual condition and capabilities.
I’ve worked with attorneys who brought me in within a week of a claim being filed, and I’ve worked with attorneys who waited until six months later when they finally realized the case wasn’t settling. The difference in what we can deliver is night and day.
Early surveillance establishes a baseline. It shows what the plaintiff could or couldn’t do before they started preparing for depositions and being careful about their public activity. It catches them when they’re still living normally because they don’t yet know someone is watching.
And if the claim involves conditions on the property, obtaining a private investigator out there immediately means we can document what actually existed, talk to witnesses, and pull footage before it’s gone.
Root Investigations conducts discreet, evidence-driven surveillance and scene investigations throughout Long Island, New York City, and Westchester.
From Suffolk County and Nassau County to the Hamptons, North Fork, and the five boroughs, winter slip-and-fall claims move fast, and evidence doesn’t wait. If you’re dealing with a questionable claim or need documentation that holds up in court, the time to act is now.
Contact Root Investigations to discuss your case.
We are a boutique private investigation agency serving New York City and Long Island with professional private investigation services.
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