Massachusetts Slip and Fall Settlement Calculator
Estimate a slip and fall settlement under Massachusetts law. The calculator applies this jurisdiction's own comparative fault rule and damages ceilings, and every figure below is the one our verified data holds, with the statute behind it and the date we checked it.
What Massachusetts law does to your claim
Four things in state law shape a slip and fall claim: how long you have to file, how soon a government must be told when it owns the property, what happens if you were partly at fault, and whether the state puts a ceiling on what a jury can award. Here is what we hold for this one.
Massachusetts bars recovery if plaintiff is 51% or more at fault.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 231, § 85·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
A civil action may not be brought against a public employer unless the claim was first presented in writing to its executive officer within two years after the cause of action arose and finally denied; no written denial within six months counts as a final denial. No action may be brought more than three years after the cause of action accrued. Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 258, § 4 reads: “A civil action shall not be instituted against a public employer on a claim for damages under this chapter unless the claimant shall have first presented his claim in writing to the executive officer of such public employer within two years after the date upon which the cause of action arose, and such claim shall have been finally denied by such executive officer in writing and sent by certified or registered mail, or as otherwise provided by this section; provided, however, that a civil action against a public employer which relates to the sexual abuse of a minor, as provided in section 4C of chapter 260, shall be governed by section 4C1/2 of said chapter 260 and shall not require presentment of such claim pursuant to this section. The failure of the executive officer to deny such claim in writing within six months after the date upon which it is presented, or the failure to reach final arbitration, settlement or compromise of such claim according to the provisions of section five, shall be deemed a final denial of such claim.” and “No civil action shall be brought more than three years after the date upon which such cause of action accrued” We read this section only, so it is not a complete account of suing a government in Massachusetts.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 258, § 4·Last reviewed 2026-10-16
None on record means our verified data holds no figure of this kind for this state. It is not a finding that no limit could apply to your claim.
What partial fault costs you in Massachusetts
The same claim, fracture with surgery, several months of recovery, run through the calculator above four times, with nothing changed but the share of fault assigned to the claimant. The numbers are the engine's output, not an editorial claim about what these cases are worth.
One case, run through the calculator above four times with only the claimant's share of fault changed, under Massachusetts law. No coverage ceiling is applied, because we would be inventing the at-fault party's policy. These shares illustrate the rule; they are not an estimate of your own fault.
Every Massachusetts deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Massachusetts periods in our verified data, with the statute behind each one. A deadline is the outside limit, never a target, and other rules can shorten it.
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 4·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 229, § 2·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 152, § 41·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorMass. Gen. Laws ch. 260, § 2A·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the dog bite calculatorMassachusetts against the rest of the country
Every count below is read from our state-law data across all 51 jurisdictions, so it moves when the data does. What you will not find here is an average settlement figure: the only one we could compute is a model, and a model presented as a measurement is not a fact.
- 24 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar, and Massachusetts is one of them.
- Its 3 years to file is longer than the 2 years that 25 jurisdictions use. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 6 years.
- We have read the official text of 30 jurisdictions' rules on the notice or claim a government must receive before an injury suit, and Massachusetts is one of them: 2 years, under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 258, § 4.
- 7 of the 51 jurisdictions limit non-economic damages (pain and suffering) in our data and Massachusetts is not among them, so an estimate here is not held down by a ceiling we hold.
Comparisons are drawn from the legal levers that actually move a case value, not from closed-case data, which we do not hold. See the full methodology
Massachusetts calculators
Massachusetts Slip and Fall questions
Every document behind our state injury law figures, each linked with the date we last read it, is listed on our State Injury Law research sources page.