# Supreme Court Rules Woman Who Saved Friend Is Liable



## MMiz (Dec 23, 2009)

*Supreme Court Rules Woman Who Saved Friend Is Liable*

Boston (SmartAboutHealth) - The California Supreme Court has ruled that a woman who saved her co-worker from a car crash is liable for damages caused to her friend.

The California Supreme Court ruled that an emergency rescue such as this should be done by a trained professional.

The woman, Lisa Torti Northridge saved her co-worker Alexandra Van Horn as she pulled her from a car crash on Halloween in 2004.

*Read more!*


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## Melclin (Dec 23, 2009)

Seeing as though that article has almost no information, here's the court record:

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/archive/S152360.PDF 

It makes for interesting reading.

It makes mention of how the good Samaritan law or whatever you want to call it, is "certainly open to [the defendant's] plain language interpretation", but that the intention of the law is probably not in line with her defense. Apparently how the law reads is irrelevant, so long as some idiot can convince a bigger idiot that the intention was this or the intention was that.  Definitely feels like changing the rules of the game after you lose so that you end up winning. 

Do you think those supreme court judges would go to bed that night and think, well I sure am glad I accepted those 30 pages of technicalities, that, as technical and extensive as they were, are _still_ open to interpretation [let alone the fact that it was almost impossible for the defendant to be aware of that interpretation], to quash an intuitively and legislatively supported common sense idea that protects people acting, often bravely, and in good faith, from mean spirited and greedy lawsuits...yep, a good days work, sure am glad I read law at college.


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## reaper (Dec 23, 2009)

Just one more reason for the average person to keep on walking!


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## EMSLaw (Dec 23, 2009)

I thought I'd seen this before - then I realized this case was from December 2008.


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## Scott33 (Dec 23, 2009)

reaper said:


> Just one more reason for the average person to keep on walking!



Got to agree.


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## zmedic (Dec 23, 2009)

If you read the case it says that they were smoking weed, and then went drinking and then crashed. So one question is "is it prudent to try to rescue your friend when your judgment may be way off." If certainly doesn't help the defendants case that the car was in peril of explosion. 

Also I think the ruling makes a good distinction between "medical care" and rescue. It makes sense that a good sam law protects medical care and not rescue. Most untrained people who are trying to provide first aid or medical care really aren't going to make things worse, if they are providing care consistant with their level of training. What are they going to do besides putting pressure on a wound or doing CPR? They aren't carrying the equipment or drugs to actually make the patient worse (usually).

  Rescue is a whole other situation. You can imagine a lot of situations where people try  swift water rescue, high angle etc and take a victim from a stable but imperiled situation to an actively dangerous one. The rope breaks, the patient drowns etc. 

Also note the EMS arrived minutes later. It's not like they were out in rural Alaska and it was going to take an hour for help to arrive. It's not like that patient wasn't breathing and a rapid move was justified under ABCs. It was a drunk/high person yanking their friend out of a car that wasn't on fire. 

I do wonder how they proved that the paralysis was caused by the move and not in the initial accident.


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## lightsandsirens5 (Dec 23, 2009)

Gag me!

What is the point of the Good Samaritan laws if they can just be trampled all over like that before practically being thrown out the window?


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## zmedic (Dec 23, 2009)

Are you arguing that dragging people out of cars in what good sam laws were meant to protect? It's to protect normal people providing normal care. It's not permission to do whatever you want just because you had an idea or something something on "ER" once.


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## Summit (Dec 23, 2009)

Untrained person does rapid extrication paralyzing patient on the basis that the car might explode.

Protected action or not? That's the question.


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## John E (Dec 23, 2009)

*Not quite...*

Untrained person under the influence of alcohol and other drugs tries to drag her friend from a crashed car and after the fact tries to claim that the car was on fire and about to explode. The drugs and the drinking were witnessed, the impending explosion was apparently a figment of imagination in the mind of the so called "rescuer" as the car not only didn't explode, no fire was witnessed by any other person there.

John E


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## Lifeguards For Life (Dec 23, 2009)

Under the good samaritan laws, if the good samaritan makes an error while rendering emergency medical care, he or she cannot be held legally liable for damages in court. However, two conditions usually must be met; 1) the aid must be given at the scene of the emergency, and. 2) if the "volunteer" has other motives, such as the hope of being paid a fee or reward, then the law will not apply.

Some states offer immunity to good samaritans(no recovery shall be made), but sometimes negligence could result in a claim of negligent care if the injuries or illness were made worse by the volunteer's negligence. Statutes typically don't exempt a good samaritan who acts in a willful and wanton or reckless manner in providing the care, or assistance. 

Negligence, is not the same as "care lessness".

Is rapid extrication from a vehicle, on part of an untrained lay person, who is under the impression that peril is imminent if left in the vehicle, unreasonable?

I believe the good samaritan law states that "No person who in good faith, and not for compensation, renders emergency care at the scene of an emergency shall be liable for any civil damages resulting from any act or omission."

Does rapid extrication from a vehicle  constitute"emergecny care"?


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## zmedic (Dec 23, 2009)

Lifeguards For Life; said:
			
		

> Does rapid extrication from a vehicle  constitute"emergecny care"?



If you read the supreme court ruling, it basically says the law was written specifically about medical care, and not all other emergency care. The court says that the state could have chosen also include protecting non medical emergency care for lay people, as they chose to do for rescuers. But the state chose not to when making the law, this combined with their repeated use of "medical care" lead the court to decide that the intent of the good sam law was to protect medical care. Therefore it upheld the lower courts ruling that this extrication was not medical care. 

In the state where this happened, medical care for lay people is protected, emergency care isn't.


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## Melclin (Dec 23, 2009)

zmedic said:


> If you read the supreme court ruling, it basically says the law was written specifically about medical care, and not all other emergency care. The court says that the state could have chosen also include protecting non medical emergency care for lay people, as they chose to do for rescuers. But the state chose not to when making the law, this combined with their repeated use of "medical care" lead the court to decide that the intent of the good sam law was to protect medical care. Therefore it upheld the lower courts ruling that this extrication was not medical care.
> 
> In the state where this happened, medical care for lay people is protected, emergency care isn't.



And yet, the the law actually says emergency care. 

The issue of her having smoked and drank before hand is not really relevant. It doesn't change her good intentions. It doesn't change Perhaps if you had a clear law saying, "no rescuing" then ...maybe.

The thing I really take issue with is how is a person supposed to be aware of and interpret the law in the same way as the supreme court in a matter of seconds before they try and do what they think is the best thing for their mate. *They are taking an arse load of technicalities analysed over months and and disagreed upon even by experts (even 3/7 of the judge didn't think she was liable), then saying that a lay person should have been able to make the same choice in a split second, having had a few beers, in an unfamiliar and frightening situation, with a friend potentially in danger.* That's just bloody madness.


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## Lifeguards For Life (Dec 23, 2009)

Melclin said:


> And they the law actually says emergency care.



that's what i thought.


> California's Good Samaritan Law is part of Division 2.5 of California's Health and Safety Code. Among other things, Division 2.5 covers emergency medical services for the state. Because of that, the appellate court plugged the word "medical" where it doesn't exist.
> 
> *From Division 2.5 of the California Health and Safety Code:
> 
> ...


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## Melclin (Dec 23, 2009)

Lifeguards For Life said:


> Under the good samaritan laws, if the good samaritan makes an error while rendering emergency medical care, he or she cannot be held legally liable for damages in court. However, two conditions usually must be met; 1) the aid must be given at the scene of the emergency, and. 2) if the "volunteer" has other motives, such as the hope of being paid a fee or reward, then the law will not apply.
> 
> Some states offer immunity to good samaritans(no recovery shall be made), but sometimes negligence could result in a claim of negligent care if the injuries or illness were made worse by the volunteer's negligence. Statutes typically don't exempt a good samaritan who acts in a willful and wanton or reckless manner in providing the care, or assistance.
> 
> ...



Read the link I posted. They manage to put together 30 pages of legalese to obviate the entire piece of legislation. The way they get so technical about the definitions of words and terms annoys me, because they could just as easily ascribe different definitions if they chose too; like the term "medical care". I can just see in the future a bunch of wanking over definitions like this so that a person isn't protected because medical care may be technically be understood to mean that provided by a medical practitioner ie an MD. Or "emergency care"; you might end up not being protected if 3 years of wankers arguing decides it wasn't technically an emergency. 

This sort of arguing over semantics is pointless and ignores completely what seems to be the point of the laws, which ironically is what they defer too when trying to change the rules after the fact regarding the definition of emergency care.


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## Lifeguards For Life (Dec 23, 2009)

Melclin said:


> Read the link I posted. They manage to put together 30 pages of legalese to obviate the entire piece of legislation. The way they get so technical about the definitions of words and terms annoys me, because they could just as easily ascribe different definitions if they chose too; like the term "medical care". I can just see in the future a bunch of wanking over definitions like this so that a person isn't protected because medical care may be technically be understood to mean that provided by a medical practitioner ie an MD. Or "emergency care"; you might end up not being protected if 3 years of wankers arguing decides it wasn't technically an emergency.
> 
> This sort of arguing over semantics is pointless and ignores completely what seems to be the point of the laws, which ironically is what they defer too when trying to change the rules after the fact regarding the definition of emergency care.



While the statute itself, does leave room for interpretation, the court in question exhibited an exceedingly narrow interpretation, that IMO, may possibly defer any care emergency, or medical in situations where it is needed.

The law is written to protect the untrained lay person is it not? The normal interpretation, I believe is not consistent with the rulings in california. I am deeply disturbed that your "wankers" were able to not interpretate it differently, but to completely change the literature,


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## High Speed Chaser (Dec 23, 2009)

It's a tough one, I have been told (I still have to find out exactly for which state I'm in as the good Samaritan law is determined at a state level) where I am from that if you stop and administer first aid, you can be sued but the judge must throw out the case if it is deemed that the good Samaritan stayed in the level of training which is determined by the Federal Government and if there was no gross negligence on the part of the good Samaritan (also if the good Samaritan was not expecting a reward etc). Please correct me if I'm wrong.

On one hand this could be considered gross negligence but on the other hand I really dislike seeing people getting sued for trying to do their best to help. A 911 call probably would have helped assuming call takers are trained to deal with these types of emergencies.


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## CAOX3 (Dec 23, 2009)

zmedic said:


> Are you arguing that dragging people out of cars in what good sam laws were meant to protect? It's to protect normal people providing normal care. It's not permission to do whatever you want just because you had an idea or something something on "ER" once.



Whats normal care?  If she believed the car was going to "explode" then pulling her friend from it seems reasonable action to me.


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## Melclin (Dec 24, 2009)

CAOX3 said:


> Whats normal care?  If she believed the car was going to "explode" then pulling her friend from it seems reasonable action to me.



And with the popular notion encouraged by moviews etc, that cars explode in a fierce mushroom cloud every time you dent you bumper bar, can she really be blamed? I think its important to add that if she thought the car was about to explode, that sticking around to pull her friend out is nothing short of brave. 

*Chaser*, in general in Australia while there is no duty to rescue, but if you do, the rescuer is expected to provide a standard of care at the level of "any reasonable rescuer" operating in that environment and "historically the courts have taken a very lenient attitude" to what may be considered reasonable (quotes from my legal textbook, 'Essentials of Law for HCPs'). In Victoria, Section 3B of the wrongs act says that a person acting as a good Samaritan is not personally liable where they act in good faith to provide *assistance, advice or care in an emergency or accident*. Note that "assistance, advice or care in an emergency or accident" is far more inclusive than the Californian, "emergency care". That in combination with a history of common law lenience in 'good faith' action says to me : 'don't worry, we're fine'. Vollies, are also equally protected under section 37 of the wrongs act so SJA service doesn't increase your civil liability. But you'll learn all this in your legal requirements in first year. 

That said if you put an AED on someone who's awake talking to you, you'll probably get done for assault


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## Melclin (Dec 24, 2009)

zmedic said:


> Are you arguing that dragging people out of cars in what good sam laws were meant to protect? .



Very much so. In my extensive legal education  (one semester of legal studies for the health care professional), the examples for how people are protected under the good Samaritan laws were almost always to do with this exact scenario, spinal injury after a bystander pulling people out of crashed cars (that and choking was the other one that came up a lot for some reason). In fact our good Samaritan law actually includes, as I mentioned above, the term "accident" and also the terms "assistance" and "advice" in addition to "care", so its pretty clear that it includes things like the scenario in question over here in Aus. I can only imagine that the intentions of your good Samaritan laws are roughly similar to ours.


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## Akulahawk (Dec 24, 2009)

While Good Sam (now) covers "Medical Care" and not RESCUE... someone who stops to render aid to someone who is injured and needs to remove the injured person from a vehicle to address severe bleeding/injury would not (and could not) be held liable for the medical care... but could completely liable for secondary injury caused/aggravated by the "rescue" that was necessary to be able to address the severe injury/bleeding that would have been untreatable before... Why? Rescue isn't considered "medical care."

In any event, unless absolutely necessary, I'm not going to want to attempt a rapid extrication from a vehicle by myself...


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## Jeffrey_169 (Jan 12, 2010)

I don't like to curse, but YOU GOTTA BE F-IN KIDDING ME RIGHT!!! What kinda of horse bologna is this!!! You do the right thing, and this...I guess its true, no good deed goes unpunished.


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