Slip-and-fall claims: the snow removal proof that holds up
General information, not insurance or legal advice. Your contract and state rules control.
For a snow removal contractor, the money risk isn't the plowing — it's the phone call that comes weeks later: someone slipped on a lot you serviced, and now their insurer wants to know whether you actually did the work. If you can't show what you did and when, you can end up paying for a fall that had nothing to do with your service. The fix is boring and cheap: document every visit while you're standing on the lot.
Why proof of service decides the claim
In a slip-and-fall case the question is almost never "was there ice?" — it's "was the lot serviced to the standard the contract required, and can the contractor prove it?" A property owner or their insurer will try to shift liability onto whoever last touched the lot. A complete, dated record of your visits flips that: it shows you met your obligations, and it often moves the exposure back to the owner (who chose the service frequency) or to conditions outside your control, like a re-freeze hours after you left.
What to record on every single visit
- Time on and time off site. The window you were there, not a rounded guess. Re-freeze timing is a common defense — your departure time matters.
- Snow depth on arrival. A quick number that justifies whether you plowed, salted or both.
- What you did. Plowed, shoveled walks, applied salt or de-icer, and roughly how much material.
- Before and after photos. Same angles each time — the lot entrance, high-traffic walkways, problem corners. Timestamped photos are the backbone of the record.
- Conditions. Active snowfall, freezing rain, temperature if it drives your decision to re-salt.
Consistency beats a few great photos
A single perfect before/after set doesn't win a case — an unbroken season does. The dangerous record is the one with a gap: the storm where the claim happened is the visit you forgot to photograph. Build the same short routine into every stop so the log fills itself in, and you never have to reconstruct a night from memory. If you also handle general contracting or property work off-season, the same discipline carries over to jobsite documentation with JobProof.
How it holds up when someone disputes it
When a claim or a no-pay dispute lands, you hand over the record for the exact dates in question: time-stamped photos plus a per-visit log showing you were there and what you did. Because it was created at the site in the ordinary course of your work — not written up after the lawsuit — it carries real weight with adjusters and courts. Most disputes end there, before they become expensive. PlowProof keeps that record on your phone and exports it as a clean PDF you can send to a client, an insurer or your attorney.
Snow removal service log · proof of plowing and salting. Local-first, one-time purchase, PDF export.
- Nothing leaves your phone. No server, no account, no analytics — your records live on-device and export to your own iCloud Drive or Files.
- Yours, even if we disappear. Cloud tools get shut down and take your data with them. A local-first app can't be switched off from a server — your records stay files you control.
- Paid once. One-time purchase. No subscription, no upsell, updates included.
FAQ
A property owner slipped on a lot I plowed. What proves I did my job?
The dated record of that visit: arrival and departure times, snow depth on arrival, whether you plowed, salted or both, and before/after photos with visible timestamps. A slip-and-fall claim turns on whether the lot was serviced to the standard your contract set — a contemporaneous log made at the site is far stronger evidence than a memory reconstructed months later at deposition.
Does a photo taken on my phone actually count as evidence?
Yes. Photos carry the date, time and often GPS location in their metadata, and a consistent per-visit habit of shooting the same angles makes them credible. Courts and insurers weigh contemporaneous records made in the ordinary course of business heavily. The weak spot is a gap — a visit with no photo and no log — so the goal is a complete, unbroken season record, not a few good shots.
The client says I never showed up and won't pay. How does a log help?
A time-stamped service log with photos settles a no-pay dispute the same way it settles a liability claim: it shows you were on site, when, and what you did. When you can hand over a clean per-visit record for every event they are disputing, most invoices get paid without a fight.
How long should I keep snow removal records?
Slip-and-fall suits are often filed months or years after the incident, and statutes of limitation vary by state — commonly two to three years. Keep each season's records at least through your state's limitation period, and ask your insurer or attorney what they recommend for your contracts.