Generally speaking, business owners owe a duty of care to their patrons. In some situations, however, the owner doesn’t owe you a duty of care. These include:
If you were trespassing. If you didn’t have a legal right to be on someone’s property, they can’t be liable for your injuries.
You were committing another crime on the property. A property owner isn’t negligent if you were in the process of breaking the law.
They were reasonably careful. If an owner knew about a situation and remedied to the best of her or his ability, the courts are unlikely to find this person responsible. Snow and ice injuries can be the trickiest to navigate. For example, if you slipped and fell on freshly fallen snow in the middle of a storm, the owner of the property probably wasn’t negligent (especially if he or she was clearing snow periodically). On the other hand, if you slipped on packed down ice from a storm three days ago, you might have a case for negligence.