The holidays bring people together – office parties, family gatherings, school events, shopping trips, and winter travel. They also bring predictable hazards: snow and ice, crowded stores, temporary decorations, alcohol-related incidents, and rushed schedules.
If you’re hurt during the holiday season, you may have legal options through an injury claim. The key question is liability: who controlled the hazard, who had a duty to act reasonably, and what evidence shows the injury was preventable? In Missouri and Illinois, these cases often turn on what the property owner, employer, venue, municipality, or manufacturer knew (or should have known) and what they did in response.
This article explains common holiday injury scenarios, who can be held liable, what compensation may be available, and the steps that protect your health and your claim.
Common Holiday Injury Scenarios
- Winter Slip-and-Falls
The most common holiday injuries involve snow and ice. People slip on untreated sidewalks, parking lots, porch steps, and building entrances. Black ice, also known as glaze, can be especially dangerous because it can look like wet pavement. - Wet Entryways and Tracked-in Slush
Retail entrances can stay slick all day when snow melts and is carried inside. If mats, signage, and routine cleanup are missing or inconsistent, falls are more likely. - Trips From Seasonal Setup
Extension cords, light strands, temporary decorations, loose rugs, gift clutter, and rearranged furniture can create trip hazards, especially in dim lighting or crowded rooms. - Crowd-Related Injuries
Malls and holiday events can become chaotic. People can be injured by pushing, collisions, inadequate security, or poorly managed lines and entrances. - Alcohol-Related Injuries
Holiday events sometimes involve overservice, impaired driving crashes, falls, and altercations tied to intoxication. - Defective Products and Decorations
Some injuries happen because something fails – an unstable ladder, a defective tree stand, a collapsing chair at a venue, or a defective toy or decoration that breaks and causes injury.
Who Can Be Held Liable for Holiday Injuries?
Most holiday injury claims are built around the four elements of negligence:
- Duty: The responsible party had a legal duty.
- Breach: The responsible party failed to meet that duty.
- Causation: That failure caused the accident and injury.
- Damages: Medical expenses, wage loss, pain and suffering.
Imagine you’re holiday shopping at a store that’s open to the public. Snow has been falling outside, and customers are tracking in slush all day. The entrance area is slick, there are no warning cones, and the floor mats are bunched up and do not cover the wet area. You step inside, your foot slides, and you fall hard, injuring your knee and wrist.
Duty: Because the store invited customers in, it had a duty to take precautionary measures to keep the entrance reasonably safe during foreseeable winter weather conditions.
Breach: The breach is the store’s failure to act reasonably under those conditions, such as failing to place mats correctly, failing to put up warning signage, and failing to monitor and address a predictable wet-floor hazard during heavy foot traffic.
Causation: Causation is shown when the evidence ties your fall to that specific hazard. For example, your shoe slipped on the wet entrance surface (or caught on the bunched mat), and that caused the fall that injured you.
Damages: Damages are shown through medical evaluation and follow-up care (imaging, physical therapy, possible surgery), wage loss if you miss work, and the day-to-day limitations the injury creates.
In practice, the “proof” often comes from ordinary sources: photos of the wet entrance and mat placement, an incident report, witness statements, your medical records tying the injury to the fall, and (when available) surveillance footage showing the condition of the entrance before you fell.
Property Owner Liability (Social Hosts, Stores, and Malls)
Property owner liability usually comes down to control and reasonableness. If a person or business controls the area where you were hurt, they generally have a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable hazards and to warn about dangers they know about (or should know about through reasonable inspections).
For social hosts, the focus is often on whether the hazard was known. A host may be liable when they create a danger (like running an extension cord across a walkway) or ignore a known risk (like icy steps, a broken handrail, or lighting that’s been out for weeks).
For stores and malls, liability may apply when a business owner or employee knew–or should have known–of a dangerous condition, and failed to fix it or warn visitors of it.
In winter slip-and-fall claims, one dispute claimants face is how long the hazard existed. A practical way to evaluate “notice” is to look for signs that the condition was present long enough to be discovered. Tracked-in slush that has turned gray or gritty, cart tracks through a wet area, pooled water with visible streaking, or mats that are saturated and pushed out of place can all suggest the condition wasn’t brand new. If you can safely do it, photograph these details, not just the general area. Those “small” indicators help show notice, meaning the owner should have known about the hazard with reasonable monitoring, especially during predictable holiday foot traffic in winter weather.
Employer Liability (Holiday Parties & Events)
Injuries at employer-sponsored holiday events can involve workers’ compensation, third-party liability, or both. The legal path depends heavily on how connected the event was to work and who controlled the environment where the injury occurred.
If the party is strongly tied to work, such as being held on company property, during work hours, or with clear expectations to attend, workers’ compensation may come into play. If it’s held at a third-party venue (a hotel, banquet hall, restaurant, or event space), liability may also involve that venue or vendors responsible for security, maintenance, setup, or cleaning.
Manufacturer Liability (Defective Products)
Some holiday injuries are caused by defective products rather than unsafe property conditions. A product case generally requires evidence that the product was unreasonably dangerous because of a design defect, manufacturing defect, or inadequate warnings/instructions. The best early evidence is often simple: the product itself, photos of its condition, packaging, or receipts if available, and a clear description of how it was being used at the time of injury.
If a defective holiday product is involved, photograph any label, model number, and serial number immediately. Then preserve the item “as-is.” Those identifiers matter because recalls and defects are often product-line specific. Even if there is no recall, keeping the identifiers and the product intact helps an expert later evaluate whether the failure was due to a design defect, a manufacturing defect, or a warning defect.
Municipalities (Snowy/Icy Sidewalks & Public Buildings)
When an injury happens on public property, such as a city sidewalk, public parking area, or government building, the case can be more technical. Public entities often have special procedural rules, shortened notice requirements, and defenses that don’t apply to private property owners. For example, under Missouri Revised Statute § 81.060, you must file a claim with the municipality within 90 days of the accident date.
Responsibility can also be confusing. A sidewalk might appear “public,” but control and maintenance responsibility can vary based on the location and surrounding property. Sometimes, a nearby business, landlord, or homeowner is responsible for maintenance even when the area feels public. Identifying who truly controlled the hazard is one of the first steps in evaluating a potential claim.
What Damages Can Be Recovered in Holiday Injury Claims?
If you have a viable claim–that is, breach of a recognized legal duty–the next question is damages. In most holiday injury claims, damages fall into two broad categories: economic damages and non-economic damages.
Economic Damages are the financial losses tied to the injury. These usually start with medical care: emergency room or urgent care visits, imaging like X-rays or MRIs, follow-up appointments, prescriptions, physical therapy, and any recommended specialists. Economic damages can also include future medical costs when an injury requires ongoing care or surgery, plus out-of-pocket expenses like braces, crutches, mileage to appointments, or home assistance during recovery.
Economic damages also include income loss. That can mean missed workdays, reduced hours, being unable to perform the same job duties, or needing to take a lower-paying position while you heal. In more serious cases, wage loss may include diminished earning capacity if the injury affects your long-term ability to work.
Holiday injuries often create wage-loss issues that may be overlooked. Many people earn overtime, commissions, seasonal shift differentials, tipped income, or year-end bonuses during November and December. If you’re injured during that window, your losses may be significantly higher than your “average” week.
To document this, save more than just pay stubs. Keep schedules, screenshots of assigned shifts, tip logs, commission statements, and any employer communications showing canceled shifts, reduced duties, or missed overtime. If your job historically spikes during the holidays (retail, hospitality, delivery, warehouse, or sales), collect last year’s comparable records if you have them. This kind of documentation helps credibly present wage loss and reduces the chance that an insurer minimizes your claim by claiming the holidays are just another ordinary pay period.
Non-Economic Damages are the human losses that don’t come with a neat receipt. This category can include pain and suffering, inconvenience, emotional distress, and the loss of enjoyment of life, meaning the ways the injury limits your daily activities, sleep, hobbies, and relationships.
Key Steps to Take After a Holiday Injury
1. Seek Medical Attention
Even if you think you’re just “sore,” get evaluated as soon as you can. Some injuries, like concussions, back injuries, and ligament tears, may not show their full symptoms until hours or days later. Prompt medical care does two important things: it helps you get the right treatment, and it creates a medical record tying your injury to the incident.
2. Gather Evidence
If you can do so safely, document the scene before it changes. Start with photos or videos that show the general area and then the specific hazard. If the issue is ice or snow, try to capture the lighting and weather conditions as well. If the hazard has an obvious source, like a downspout draining across a walkway or a bunched mat at an entrance, photograph that too.
Witness information matters even when the injury seems straightforward. Get names and contact information for anyone who saw the accident, saw the hazard shortly before it happened, or helped afterward. While it’s fresh, write down who you spoke with, what was said, the exact location, and how your symptoms developed over the next several hours.
Holiday injury scenes are unusually temporary. Snow and ice can melt or be salted, wet floors can be mopped, and event staff may rearrange furniture or remove decorations within minutes. That’s why early documentation should focus on “what made this spot dangerous,” not just “I fell here.” If you’re able, take one photo that shows the broader location, one that shows the hazard clearly, and one that shows any source or contributing condition (downspout runoff, missing mats, poor lighting, uneven pavement). Those extra context shots help later when a property owner argues the hazard wasn’t there or wasn’t the way you remember it.
3. Keep Track of Medical Records
Save discharge papers, imaging reports, doctor’s notes, work restrictions, and receipts. Fill prescriptions, attend follow-ups, and go to physical therapy if ordered. Gaps in treatment are frequently used to argue that injuries weren’t serious or weren’t caused by the accident.
Many people also benefit from a simple journal on paper or on their phone. Note pain levels, sleep problems, trouble with walking or stairs, missed work days, and everyday tasks (childcare, chores, exercise) that are now harder or impossible. This kind of documentation helps show the real-world impact of the injury beyond just medical codes and billing.
4. Report the Accident
Report the injury to whoever controls the location. That may be a manager or mall security, a venue supervisor, your employer or HR, a landlord or property manager, or an appropriate public entity if the injury happened on public property.
Ask whether an incident report is being created and request a copy or a report number. If they won’t provide a copy, write down the name and title of the person you spoke with and the date and time you made the report. That record helps prevent later disputes about whether the injury was reported promptly.
5. Consult an Experienced Attorney
A prompt call can protect your rights, especially in holiday injury cases where evidence can disappear quickly. An attorney can investigate the scene, interview witnesses, obtain medical records, coordinate billing and liens, and value the case for settlement–or file suit if needed.
Holiday injury claims can involve multiple layers of responsibility and insurance coverage. Getting legal guidance early helps you avoid common pitfalls, like giving a recorded statement too soon, signing paperwork you don’t understand, or settling before you know the full extent of your injuries and future care needs.
Get Help With Your Holiday Accident
At Brown & Crouppen Law Firm, our experienced attorneys are here to help you. We work on a contingency fee basis, meaning you pay nothing unless we win your case. With over $1 billion won in personal injury cases, we’re committed to achieving justice for our clients. We’ll help determine fault, build a strong claim, and fight for the compensation you deserve.
Getting started with your case is easy. Call us at 888-609-4967 for a free consultation or get help with your case online from our legal team today.
