In Washington, we are required to render assistance under a Good Samaratin law. We also have a law that gives liability immunity to those who do render assistance (RCW 4.24.300).
While I don’t like beginning required by the state to do anything, I’m wondering how it could be worse than this
Being a good Samaritan in California just got a little riskier.
The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn’t immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn’t medical.
The divided high court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued.
Lisa Torti of Northridge allegedly worsened the injuries suffered by Alexandra Van Horn by yanking her “like a rag doll” from the wrecked car on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.
Torti now faces possible liability for injuries suffered by Van Horn, a fellow department store cosmetician who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident that ended a night of Halloween revelry in 2004.
Now, we don’t know if the car was on fire or if Ms. Torti was requesting help, but this is just plain stupid (aka: Par for the course in California).
I’d have to read the court transcript on this one. It just could be that the “good Samaritan” used rescue techniques that were so out of line with reality that no reasonable person could be expected to employ them.
The fault in this judgment may lie with the ambulance-chaser puffing up the claim of malfeasance, too.
“We have to protect our phony baloney jobs gentlemenn!” Blazing Saddles
Still running up and draging somebody from a car not at risk of fire by the scruff of the neck is not real smart…still what standards to you place on average citizens?
Want to see America circa 2060 read Michael Z. Williamson’s “Freehold” and “The Weapon” where it is an arrestable offense to render aid if you are not from the government, amoung other things….
I wonder how many people will die while former Good Samaritans sit on their hands and wait for the “professionals” to get there.
As I recall, it was Stalin who said that “Gratitude is a disease of dogs.”
Clearly Californians have taken the lesson to heart.
Let’s remember that giving aid to Californians is a bad idea when they start asking for a federal bailout of the state government.