A Slip and Fall Just Happened at Your Business: The First 72 Hours
By Claudius Nan, Certified Walkway Auditor (UNT) · NFSI WACH · Technically reviewed July 2026
This article is general information for business owners and facility managers, not legal advice. Consult a licensed attorney about any incident or claim.
Someone fell on your floor. They may be hurt. Whether this becomes a routine incident report or a six-figure claim is substantially decided by what you do and preserve in the next three days. This playbook is written from both sides of that fight: our firm is retained roughly half the time by plaintiffs and half by the defense, so we know exactly what each side’s experts will ask for later.
What should you do in the first hour?
Take care of the person first, then freeze the scene in data. In the first hour: get the injured person medical attention, do not admit fault or speculate about cause, photograph the exact location from multiple angles before anything is cleaned or moved, and identify witnesses while they are still present.
- Help the person. Call for medical assistance if there is any doubt. Nothing below matters more than this, and juries notice.
- Say little, record much. “Are you okay? We’re getting help” is complete. Do not say “this floor is always slippery” or “we’ve been meaning to fix that.” Statements like these surface in depositions.
- Photograph before cleanup. Wide shots establishing location, mid shots showing the walking path, close-ups of the surface condition, any substance, footwear, warning signs (or their absence), and lighting. Timestamped phone photos are fine.
- Capture witnesses. Names and phone numbers of everyone who saw the fall or the floor condition — including your own staff.
Should you preserve video footage immediately?
Yes, and do it today rather than “when legal asks.” Locate every camera covering the area and export footage covering at least several hours before the incident through the aftermath. Many commercial systems overwrite on a rolling loop; footage lost to the overwrite cycle after you knew of an incident can be treated as spoliation (destruction of evidence), and courts can instruct juries to assume the lost footage was bad for you.
What belongs in the incident report?
Stick to facts a stranger could verify. Record who, where (exact coordinates in the space, not “near produce”), when, weather if relevant, what the person was wearing on their feet, what was on the floor, when the area was last inspected and cleaned, and who responded. Skip causes (“floor was wet because…”). Write down what you observed (“clear liquid, approx. 12 in. diameter, no cone present”).
Attach: the photos, the witness list, the maintenance and inspection log for that area covering at least the prior 24 hours, and the footwear description. If you use a sweep-log system, pull and preserve the original rather than a retyped copy.
Should you have the floor tested after a fall?
In most cases, yes. Do it quickly, before the surface condition changes. A slip-resistance test performed under a recognized standard converts “the floor felt slippery” into a number that either side can examine. Under ASTM E303-22, a Pendulum Slip Tester measures pendulum test value (PTV); under ANSI A326.3, dynamic coefficient of friction (DCOF) is measured in the wet condition with a calibrated tribometer. Testing both ways closes the “wrong instrument” argument before it starts.
Two things owners consistently misunderstand:
- Testing is not an admission. Commissioning a test is ordinary post-incident diligence; plaintiffs’ experts may test the site anyway, with or without you. The party with its own contemporaneous data negotiates from strength.
- A “bad” number is better known than unknown. If the surface underperforms, you can remediate and re-test, often within days. A documented fix is a defense exhibit; an unknown condition is a liability that compounds with the next incident.
Days 2–3 are for the paper trail: a written preservation memo to staff (footage, logs, the physical scene if alterable), notify your insurer per policy terms, and schedule testing while conditions match the incident.
What will the other side’s expert look for?
Whatever you failed to keep. Working both sides of these cases, the expert checklist is stable: slip-resistance data (theirs or yours), inspection and cleaning logs, video, prior incident history at the same location, footwear, lighting, warning-sign practice, and whether anything about the surface changed after the incident. Every gap in that list gets filled by the least favorable inference available.
Frequently asked questions
How soon after a fall should the floor be tested?
As soon as practical while the surface condition is representative, ideally within days. Surfaces change: cleaning regimens shift, treatments wear, weather patterns pass. The closer the test is to the incident, the more probative the number.
Can I clean the area, or is that destroying evidence?
Clean it, but only after you’ve photographed and documented it. Leaving a hazard in place creates new risk. What you must not do is alter the surface itself (grinding, coating, replacing tile) before testing and, if litigation is reasonably anticipated, before counsel signs off.
Does a passing slip test mean we’re not liable?
No. Slip resistance is one factor; notice, maintenance practice, lighting, and warnings all matter, and a transient hazard (a spill) is a different question from the floor’s inherent traction. A passing test is strong evidence, not immunity. (Not legal advice — see disclaimer above.)
Need the floor tested this week? Walkway Management performs post-incident slip resistance testing nationwide to ASTM E303-22 and ANSI A326.3, with reports structured to the ASTM F2048-00 format. Call 1-833-DIAL-WMG or learn about post-incident testing.