End-of-Storm General Notice Rule: Duty to Remove Ice and Snow on Commercial Premises After a Snowstorm

1. Introduction

In Lois Brown v. Wal-Mart Stores East, LP, No. 24-1102 (4th Cir. June 4, 2025), the Fourth Circuit confronted a classic slip-and-fall dispute arising from a post-snowstorm incident in a Wal-Mart parking lot in Lynchburg, Virginia. The plaintiff, Lois Ann Brown, slipped on an apparently invisible patch of ice early on the morning of January 28, 2021, after a light snowstorm the prior night. Brown sued Wal-Mart for negligence, alleging that the store failed to exercise reasonable care in clearing its outdoor premises of snow and ice. Wal-Mart moved for summary judgment, arguing (1) it had neither actual nor constructive notice of the specific patch of “black ice” on which Brown fell, and (2) even if it had notice, its contractors had cleared and de-iced the lot in a reasonable manner. The district court granted summary judgment for Wal-Mart on both grounds, and Brown appealed.

The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded, clarifying—and indeed newly emphasizing—that in inclement-weather premises-liability cases, the conclusion of a storm itself furnishes generalized notice of potentially slippery conditions across all outdoor areas, triggering a duty to use reasonable care to remove accumulations of ice and snow. The court further held that genuine disputes of material fact existed as to whether Wal-Mart discharged that duty, precluding summary judgment.

2. Summary of the Judgment

The Fourth Circuit’s opinion, authored by Judge Richardson, delivered three primary holdings:

General Notice from the Storm: A business’s duty to remove natural accumulations of ice and snow arises “a reasonable time” after the cessation of the storm. The snowstorm itself gives a landowner general notice of all potential slippery conditions on its outdoor premises, so a plaintiff need not show notice of a specific patch of ice.
Duty Acknowledged: Here, the storm ended by 6:15 AM, and Brown fell at approximately 8:30 AM, so more than two hours had passed—sufficient time to trigger Wal-Mart’s duty to clear its parking lot. The district court erred in requiring Brown to identify exactly when or how the particular patch of ice formed.
Existence of Factual Disputes: Conflicting surveillance footage, declarations, and testimony created genuine disputes of material fact regarding (a) what steps Wal-Mart and its independent contractor actually took—scraping, salting, de-icing—and (b) whether those steps satisfied the standard of reasonable care. Summary judgment was therefore inappropriate.

The court vacated the summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

The Fourth Circuit grounded its decision in Virginia’s long-standing premises-liability jurisprudence, citing cases such as:

Mary Washington Hosp., Inc. v. Gibson, 319 S.E.2d 741 (Va. 1984): “[T]he duty to remove ice and snow from outdoor areas . . . is keyed to the end of the storm and a reasonable time thereafter.”
Walker v. Memorial Hospital, 45 S.E.2d 898 (Va. 1948): Recognizing the special nature of natural accumulations and rejecting an “insurer” standard, but requiring reasonable care once the storm ceases.
Langhorne Road Apartments, Inc. v. Bisson, 150 S.E.2d 540 (Va. 1966): Extending the post-storm duty to landlords and outdoor common areas.
Colonial Stores Inc. v. Pulley, 125 S.E.2d 188 (Va. 1962): Articulating general invitee duty and notice requirements for “foreign objects,” later analogized to ice and snow hazards.
Grim v. Rahe, Inc., 434 S.E.2d 888 (Va. 1993): Defining constructive notice in one-off hazard cases as requiring duration and conspicuousness of a defect.

Notably, the court distinguished one-off-hazard cases (banana peels, broken fixtures) from inclement-weather scenarios, stressing that generalized notice is both logical and consistent with the nature of storms.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

Two fundamental questions arise in Virginia slip-and-fall law: duty (did the landowner have to act?) and breach (if so, did it fail to act?) (Colonial Stores, 125 S.E.2d at 190). The district court held that Brown lacked evidence of notice of the exact ice patch, thus no duty, and that she further failed to show any deficiency in Wal-Mart’s efforts. The Fourth Circuit reversed both holdings:

No Specific-Patch Notice Required:
Unlike a stray object, ice and snow blanket large areas uniformly. Virginia law places the notice inquiry on the broader phenomenon of inclement weather: once the storm ends, the property owner “should have known” that all outdoor surfaces might be slippery. The reasonableness clock does not start until the storm’s end. For Brown, the storm had stopped by 6:15 AM, and she fell after 8:30 AM—well beyond any reasonable grace period.
Factual Dispute on Breach:
Summary judgment requires the evidence, viewed in the plaintiff’s favor, to yield no rational jury verdict for the plaintiff (Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. 242 (1986)). Here:
- Surveillance video showed a contractor vehicle entering at 7:30 AM but taking no visible de-icing actions on camera.
- The store manager, Anthony Ware, denied noticing any salt in the lot or being informed of contractor activity.
- Wal-Mart’s Asset Protection Coach, Tyler Pritt, in a late discovery declaration, claimed to have observed active scraping and salting—but none of those actions appear on video.
- Brown’s wet clothing bore no traces of salt or chemicals.
These conflicting accounts leave open multiple inferences as to what “reasonable care” required and what measures Wal-Mart actually took. That is a jury question, not a summary-judgment determination.

3.3 Impact

This decision carries significant ramifications for premises-liability law in Virginia and beyond:

Clarifies Notice Standard: Affirming that a concluded storm equates to general notice of slippery conditions streamlines plaintiffs’ burdens in ice-and-snow cases and prevents defendants from hiding behind overly narrow “specific patch” notice theories.
Encourages Proactive De-icing: Businesses must monitor weather forecasts and deploy de-icing measures promptly after storms, or face jury scrutiny on whether they exercised “reasonable care.”
Preserves Jury’s Role: Reinforces that fact-intensive inquiries—such as how much salting or scraping suffices under particular conditions—must be resolved by juries.
Model for Other Jurisdictions: States confronting divergent approaches to ice-and-snow liabilities may look to Virginia’s end-of-storm rule as a balanced model.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Actual vs. Constructive Notice: Actual notice means the owner literally knew about the hazard. Constructive notice means the hazard existed long enough and was conspicuous enough that a reasonable owner “should have known.” In ice-and-snow cases, the storm’s end puts every parking spot on “notice” simultaneously.
Reasonable Care: Businesses are not guarantors of safety but must take steps that an ordinarily careful person would take under similar circumstances—e.g., timely plowing, scraping, salting, or otherwise warning invitees.
Summary Judgment vs. Jury Trial: Summary judgment resolves cases where no factual disputes exist and one side is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. When evidence conflicts on key points—like whether salt was applied—those “credibility determinations” go to the jury.

5. Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit’s Lois Brown v. Wal-Mart decision establishes a clear, rule-based approach for ice-and-snow premises liability in Virginia: once a storm ends and a reasonable period to address it has elapsed, a commercial property owner has general notice of slippery conditions across its outdoor areas and a concomitant duty to exercise reasonable care in clearing those conditions. By rejecting the district court’s narrow “specific-patch notice” requirement and emphasizing the jury’s role in evaluating “reasonable care,” the ruling bolsters invitees’ protections against winter hazards, incentivizes prompt de-icing protocols, and reaffirms the fact-finder’s primacy in negligence cases. The vacatur and remand ensure that Wal-Mart’s winter-weather practices will receive full scrutiny at trial.