Black Ice Season in Maryland: Snow, Ice, and Premises Liability
The first hard freeze of the season is here, and with it comes the injury we see every winter: the fall on ice. A parking lot at dawn. A shaded sidewalk that never thawed. Pavement that looks merely wet until the moment your feet leave the ground. Broken wrists, shattered hips, and head injuries follow — and so does a body of Maryland law that is famously unforgiving to the fallen.
Unforgiving, but not hopeless. Whether a Maryland winter fall case is viable usually comes down to one question: could you see the danger?
The two doctrines stacked against you
Maryland winter fall cases must survive two complete defenses, either of which bars all recovery:
Contributory negligence. If the property owner can show you were even 1% careless — hurrying, looking at your phone, wearing the wrong shoes — Maryland's all-or-nothing rule bars your claim entirely.
Assumption of the risk. This is the defense that dominates ice cases. If you knew of the danger, appreciated it, and voluntarily encountered it anyway, you assumed the risk as a matter of law — the judge never lets the jury decide. The leading example is Morgan State University v. Walker, 397 Md. 509 (2007): a visitor crossed a parking lot covered in visible snow and ice, fell, and lost her case on summary judgment. Maryland's highest court held that the danger of visible ice is so obvious that anyone who walks onto it is deemed to know and accept the risk.
For years, defense lawyers stretched Walker to argue that any winter fall — visible ice or not — was assumed. Then came black ice.
Poole: the black ice difference
In Poole v. Coakley & Williams Construction, Inc., 423 Md. 91 (2011), a worker crossed a stream of water flowing across his employer's parking lot — water he said appeared to be just that, water — and fell on black ice hidden beneath it. The trial court applied the usual rule and threw the case out.
The Court of Appeals of Maryland reversed, and the distinction it drew now governs every winter fall case in the state: assumption of the risk requires actual knowledge of the specific danger, and black ice — by its nature invisible — is not a danger a court can presume you saw. Knowledge of the possibility of ice somewhere, sometime, is not knowledge of this ice, here. Unless the undisputed facts show the person actually knew ice was present, the question goes to the jury.
| Visible snow/ice (Walker) | Black or hidden ice (Poole) | |
|---|---|---|
| Can the court presume you knew the danger? | Yes — visible ice speaks for itself | No — invisible danger cannot be "known" by looking |
| Typical result | Summary judgment for the owner | Jury question |
| What the case turns on | Whether you voluntarily crossed what you could see | What you actually saw, said, and knew |
The owner's side of the equation
None of this matters unless the property owner was negligent in the first place. Maryland owners and occupiers owe invitees — customers, tenants' guests, visitors on business — reasonable care to keep premises safe, which in winter means reasonable snow and ice removal within a reasonable time, reasonable inspection, and warning of dangers the owner knows or should know about. The recurring fact patterns that create liability: downspouts that discharge across walkways and refreeze overnight; plowing that leaves melt-and-refreeze channels across pedestrian routes; lots salted once and forgotten through a week of freeze-thaw cycles; unlit walkways where even careful eyes cannot see the glaze.
What this means for injured people in Maryland
What you say and do in the first hour matters enormously in these cases:
- Photograph the spot immediately — before salt hits it. Black ice cases are won with images showing the surface looked wet or clear.
- Watch your words. "I saw the ice and chanced it" is a case-ending sentence. Describe honestly what you actually perceived — most people who fall on black ice saw nothing at all.
- Note the conditions: temperature, precipitation history, the refreeze source (gutter, plow pile, sprinkler), lighting.
- Identify witnesses and report the fall to the property owner in writing.
- Move quickly. Weather data, maintenance logs, and salting records establish what the owner knew and when — and they fade fast.
Maryland winter law gives property owners powerful defenses, but Poole keeps the courthouse open for the fall you never saw coming — which is precisely the fall reasonable maintenance is supposed to prevent.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.