Manitoba Slip and Fall Laws: Occupiers' Liability Act Guide

If you were injured in a slip and fall on someone else's property in Manitoba, the law that governs your claim is The Occupiers' Liability Act, CCSM c O8. Unlike the old common-law rules that treated invitees, licensees, and trespassers differently, Manitoba's Act imposes a single statutory duty of reasonable care on occupiers to all authorised visitors. Understanding that duty, the important exceptions for recreational and agricultural land, and the two-year limitation period under Manitoba's new Limitations Act can be the difference between a successful claim and a barred one.

The Occupiers' Liability Act: the foundation of every Manitoba slip and fall claim

Manitoba enacted The Occupiers' Liability Act (CCSM c O8) to replace the old three-tier common-law system under which a visitor's legal category (invitee, licensee, or trespasser) determined the duty an occupier owed. The Act replaced those categories with a single statutory standard for all authorised visitors.

Section 3(1) sets out that standard: an occupier owes a duty to take such care as, in all the circumstances of the case, is reasonable to see that the person or property will be reasonably safe while on the premises. The phrase "in all the circumstances" is deliberate; it directs a court to weigh factors such as the nature of the premises, the foreseeability of harm, the burden of taking precautions, and the vulnerability of the visitor rather than applying a rigid rule.

Section 3(2) makes clear that the duty is not limited to the physical condition of the land or structure. It extends equally to activities carried out on the premises and to the conduct of third parties present on the premises. This means an occupier of a shopping centre, apartment building, or workplace cannot escape liability simply because the hazard arose from someone else's conduct rather than a structural defect.

An "occupier" under the Act includes any person in physical possession of premises and any person with responsibility for and control over the condition of the premises, activities conducted there, or access to it. Where two parties simultaneously occupy a property (for example, a building owner and a commercial tenant), both may owe the statutory duty, and a claimant may name either or both.

"Premises" is defined broadly to include land and structures, water, ships and vessels, trailers and portable structures, and railway cars, aircraft, or vehicles when they are not in operation as conveyances. A claim arising from a fall on a loading dock, inside a food truck parked permanently at a market, or on a commercial vessel moored at a pier would all fall within the Act's scope.

What you must prove to succeed

Because the Act imposes a positive duty of reasonable care, the burden in a Manitoba slip and fall case sits squarely on the occupier to show they acted reasonably, not on the injured person to show the occupier was negligent in the traditional common-law sense. In practice, plaintiffs still need to establish the core elements of any civil claim: the defendant was an occupier of the premises, a hazardous condition or activity caused the injury, and the occupier's failure to take reasonable care in all the circumstances was the cause of that harm.

"Reasonable care in all the circumstances" invites a contextual assessment. A commercial grocery store with heavy customer traffic and a known risk of liquid spills is expected to run frequent inspection and cleaning programmes; a one-off evening event in a private home is not held to the same standard. Courts have consistently held that the occupier need not eliminate every conceivable risk; the question is whether the steps taken or omitted were those of a reasonably prudent occupier given what they knew or ought to have known about the risk.

Notice of the hazard is therefore central to most claims. An occupier who is unaware of a freshly created spill and had no reasonable opportunity to discover and address it may satisfy the duty. An occupier who knows of a recurring icy patch at an entrance but takes no preventive steps will not.

Reduced duty on recreational and rural land

One of the most practically important features of Manitoba's Act is its reduced-duty regime for persons who enter certain categories of land without the occupier's authorisation.

Section 3(4.1) of the Act provides that persons aged 12 and older who enter agricultural, forestry, grazing, vacant, forested, or recreational trail premises without the express or implied consent of the occupier are owed only a minimal duty. The same reduced duty applies to entries on golf courses (when the course is not open for play), private roads, and utility right-of-way corridors. In these circumstances, the occupier is required only to refrain from creating danger with deliberate intent to harm the person or their property, and to refrain from acting with reckless disregard for the person's presence.

This carve-out reflects a policy balance: rural and recreational landowners should not face the same inspection and maintenance obligations as commercial premises operators merely because members of the public wander onto their land without permission. The provision encourages access to Manitoba's expansive agricultural and forested areas while protecting landowners from ordinary-negligence liability.

The key word is "authorisation." The reduced duty applies only to unauthorised entrants aged 12 and older. Children under 12, and any person who enters with the occupier's permission (express or implied), are entitled to the full reasonable-care duty under s.3(1) regardless of the character of the premises. An informal invitation, a gate left open, or a well-worn access path that the occupier has tolerated for years can all give rise to implied consent, taking the entrant out of the reduced-duty category.

Off-road vehicles: the s.3(4.1)(a) provision

The Act contains a specific provision for persons operating off-road vehicles on premises without the occupier's consent. Section 3(4.1)(a) provides that the reduced reckless-disregard duty applies to a person who is driving or riding on an off-road vehicle, being towed by an off-road vehicle, or riding in a conveyance towed by an off-road vehicle, on the premises without the occupier's consent or permission. The term "off-road vehicle" takes its meaning from The Off-Road Vehicles Act and covers a broad range of recreational and utility vehicles including ATVs, snowmobiles, and similar motorised off-road conveyances.

The structure of the reduced-duty regime is as follows. Section 3(4) sets out the duty itself: in any of the circumstances listed in s.3(4.1), an occupier owes only a duty not to create a danger with deliberate intent of causing harm, and not to act with reckless disregard of the person's presence. Section 3(4.1) is the list of those triggering circumstances; paragraph (a) covers off-road vehicle users without consent.

The practical implication is significant. If an ATV rider or snowmobiler enters private farmland or a rural woodlot without permission and is injured by a hazard they did not know about (a buried wire, an unmarked ditch, a hidden stump), the occupier owes them nothing unless the occupier deliberately created the hazard or acted in reckless disregard of the risk to riders they knew were present. An occupier who simply owns land that a rider crosses without consent has not automatically assumed any duty of care toward that person.

A separate paragraph of s.3(4.1) also covers persons aged 12 and older who enter premises without permission with the intention of, or for the purpose of, committing a criminal act. Those persons are likewise owed only the reckless-disregard standard, not the full reasonable-care duty.

Willingly assumed risks: the volenti principle

Section 3(3) of the Act codifies the common-law defence of volenti non fit injuria (voluntary assumption of risk). Where a person willingly assumes a risk, the occupier owes no duty of care in respect of that particular risk.

In a slip and fall context, this defence is raised most frequently in recreational or sporting settings. A skier who participates in a back-country tour, a rock climber who accesses private land to use a known cliff face, or a recreational cyclist using a trail with clearly posted "ride at your own risk" warnings may be found to have voluntarily assumed the inherent risks of that activity. The defence, however, applies only to risks genuinely and voluntarily accepted by the plaintiff; it does not excuse hazards that go beyond the ordinary risks of the activity, and it does not apply where the occupier created additional dangers not disclosed to the entrant.

Courts have interpreted the assumption-of-risk defence narrowly in the occupiers' liability context. The risk must be truly voluntary, the plaintiff must have been aware of the specific danger, and the danger must not have been one the occupier was under a separate statutory or public-safety obligation to remedy. An employee told by their employer to enter a hazardous area, for example, does not voluntarily assume that risk in the legal sense simply because they complied.

Excluding or restricting the duty by notice or agreement

Section 4 of the Act permits an occupier to restrict, modify, or exclude their duty under s.3 by express agreement with the entrant or by giving adequate notice of the restriction. This creates the legal basis for waiver forms, liability exclusion signs, and contractual release clauses commonly used at recreational facilities, gyms, trampoline parks, ski hills, and similar venues.

The exclusion is not unlimited. The court will consider the nature of the relationship between the occupier and the visitor, the type of injury risk being excluded, the scope of the restriction, and whether the occupier took reasonable steps to bring the exclusion to the attention of the visitor before entry. A small-print clause buried in a lengthy contract may not constitute effective "notice." A large, clearly worded sign posted at the entrance of a facility and a separately signed waiver together will generally satisfy the notice requirement.

Importantly, s.4 exclusions cannot protect an occupier who has acted with deliberate intent to harm or with reckless disregard of a risk. The Act does not allow an occupier to contract out of liability for their own intentional or reckless wrongdoing.

Independent contractors and premises liability

Section 5 of the Act deals with work done on premises by independent contractors. An occupier is not liable for damage or injury caused by the negligence of an independent contractor hired to carry out work on the premises, provided the occupier exercised reasonable care in selecting the contractor and, where the work was of a nature requiring supervision, took reasonable steps to ensure the work was properly carried out.

This provision is relevant in Manitoba slip and fall cases involving maintenance work, construction, or repairs. A building owner who hires a professional snow-removal or landscaping contractor is not automatically vicariously liable for the contractor's failures, as long as the owner hired competently and exercised appropriate oversight. Where the owner knew of a specific hazard and delegated its remediation to an unvetted contractor who then failed to address it, the owner may still be found to have breached the duty to take reasonable care.

Manitoba's new Limitations Act: two years from discovery

Personal injury claims in Manitoba, including slip and fall claims, are now governed by The Limitations Act, CCSM c L150, which came into force in 2022 and replaced the older Limitation of Actions Act. The new Act adopts a discovery-based limitation period that aligns Manitoba with the approach taken in most other Canadian provinces.

Under s.6 of the new Act, a claimant must commence a proceeding no more than two years after the day the claim is discovered. Under s.7, a claim is discovered when the claimant first knew, or reasonably ought to have known, four things: that injury, loss, or damage occurred; that it was caused or contributed to by an act or omission; the identity of the person responsible; and that commencing a court proceeding would be an appropriate remedy. This four-part discovery rule means the two-year clock does not always start on the day of the fall itself, but rather on the day you knew or ought to have known you had an actionable claim.

Section 10(1) of the Act imposes a 15-year ultimate limitation period running from the date of the act or omission that caused the injury, regardless of when the claim was discovered. This ceiling ensures that no claim can be brought more than 15 years after the underlying event, even if the claimant could not reasonably have discovered it earlier.

Two years passes quickly after a serious injury. Medical treatment, rehabilitation, and day-to-day recovery consume time and attention. Missing the limitation period is almost always fatal to a claim; courts extend it only in the most exceptional circumstances. If you were injured in a slip and fall in Manitoba, preserving your rights by obtaining legal advice promptly is essential.

Municipal claims: notice requirements under The Municipal Act

Falls on public property (city sidewalks, municipal parking lots, public parks, community centres, and other infrastructure) raise an additional complication: claims against Manitoba municipalities are subject to the notice provisions of The Municipal Act, CCSM c M225, s.396. The statute requires a claimant intending to sue a municipality for personal injury to provide written notice to the municipality within a prescribed period.

The municipal notice deadline is considerably shorter than the two-year limitation period. Missing it can extinguish a claim entirely, well before the two-year window expires. The notice must be provided to the municipality in writing and should include, at minimum, the date and location of the incident and a description of the injury. Legal advice should be sought immediately after any fall on public property to ensure the notice is served within the required time.

Unlike Ontario, which added a separate 60-day written notice requirement specifically for snow and ice claims on private occupier premises (OLA s.6.1 in force January 2021), Manitoba has no analogous pre-litigation notice rule for snow and ice. On private or commercial premises in Manitoba, no special pre-suit notice is required beyond the ordinary two-year limitation period. The municipal notice requirement applies only where the occupier responsible for the premises is a municipality.

How fault is shared: contributory negligence in Manitoba

Like every other Canadian province, Manitoba has abolished the old common-law rule that any contributory negligence by the plaintiff is a complete bar to recovery. Under the proportionate-apportionment principles applied in Manitoba, damages are allocated among all parties at fault in proportion to their respective degrees of fault. A plaintiff who is 30% responsible for their own fall recovers 70% of their total damages; they do not walk away empty-handed.

In practice, defendants in Manitoba slip and fall cases regularly argue contributory negligence. Common allegations include: the claimant wore inappropriate footwear given the conditions; they were not watching where they were walking; they were carrying items that obstructed their view; or they ignored a clearly posted warning. Courts assess these arguments factually, not categorically, and will reduce an award proportionately where contributory fault is established.

The proportionate system reflects a considered policy choice that the person primarily responsible for maintaining safe premises should not escape all liability merely because the injured person also failed to take reasonable care for their own safety. Both parties share responsibility in proportion to what their conduct contributed to the harm.

Damages available in a Manitoba slip and fall claim

A successful claimant in Manitoba can recover the full range of compensatory damages available in Canadian personal injury law. Economic (pecuniary) damages include past and future medical and rehabilitation expenses, lost income and future earning capacity, the cost of ongoing care, and any other verifiable financial loss directly caused by the injury. Non-economic (non-pecuniary) damages cover pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and loss of amenities.

Non-pecuniary general damages are subject to the informal cap established by the Supreme Court of Canada in Andrews v. Grand and Toy Alberta Ltd, 1978 CanLII 1 (SCC). Indexed for inflation, this cap sits at approximately CAD $430,000 to $450,000 in 2025 dollars. The cap is not a statutory ceiling; it is a judicially established upper limit that applies across Canada and is revisited only in truly exceptional cases. In the vast majority of slip and fall injuries involving fractures, soft-tissue damage, or moderate spinal injuries, awards for non-pecuniary loss fall well below that ceiling. Economic damages remain uncapped.

This article is general legal information, not legal advice. Occupiers' liability law in Manitoba involves factual nuances specific to each situation. For advice about a particular injury, consult a lawyer licensed in Manitoba.

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