Recent Court Decision May Change the Rules for Good Samaritans

Q: I was listening to the radio recently and heard about a woman who is being sued after she pulled a friend out of a crashed car. Isn’t there a law that protects people from being sued in this kind of Good Samaritan situation? Why would anyone help their fellow man if he’s just going to sue them?

A. Not that we help friends or strangers in need because we’re looking for their undying gratitude or anything, but being sued for it seems beyond ungrateful. I thought the golden rule indicated that we’re supposed to help people who are in a bad spot.

It does, and to encourage Californians to help someone who is hurt, there is some legal protection from being sued for any damages caused while administering aid. It’s called the Good Samaritan law, it’s in California’s Health and Safety code and it reads, in part:

“No person who in good faith … renders emergency care at the scene of an emergency shall be liable for any civil damages resulting from any act or omission.”

So the intent is that if you help someone in an emergency and you, for example, break some of their ribs while performing CPR, this law shields you from having to pay the injured party for breaking those ribs. If I need CPR I’d rather have it with a few broken ribs than die with intact ribs, that’s for sure.

Seems like the state wants people to help their neighbors.

The case you heard about has been working its way through the California court system and the decisions that were made by the court have a big impact on the way that this Good Samaritan law is interpreted. And the case affects anyone who helps a friend or stranger in need.

First, the case at hand.

The basic details of the case are that friends were driving home from a night of drinking and revelry when one of their two cars crashed into a pole. The second car in the convoy stopped to help the crashed friends and Lisa Torti pulled her friend Alexandra Van Horn out of the car, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times by Carol J. Williams.

Torti says she thought the car was going to explode and that Van Horn had to be moved. Still, Torti only moved her out of the car, not outside of a blast radius.

Van Horn says that not only did the car not blow up, but that it was obvious that it wasn’t going to blow up and that Torti should have kept her hands to herself, the LA Times story states. Van Horn was injured in the crash, but Torti’s rescue allegedly worsened the injury and left Van Horn a paraplegic.

The California Supreme Court has found that Torti isn’t shielded by the Good Samaritan law. Now she may end up paying damages for compounding Van Horn’s injuries.

Emergency Care vs. Medical Care?
Tiffany Smith-Henson, a local personal injury attorney for eight years, told me that the law is not clear on whether the “emergency care” covered by the Good Samaritan law is limited strictly to medical care. The court’s decision points to only medical care being immune from damages, she said. Other “care” may not be exempt.

Torti didn’t give medical care to Van Horn. She “just pulled the friend out of the car,” said Smith-Henson, of the Law Offices of Tiffany Smith-Henson.

The Supreme Court’s decision has caused a lot of controversy because the decision was split so closely, Smith-Henson said. Even the majority wasn’t uniform in its interpretation of the law. Supreme Court Justice Marvin Baxter, who sided with the majority opinion, said that he doesn’t agree that the law only applies to medical care, but he’s on the majority anyway. His thinking seems to be that the Good Samaritan law covers both emergency care and medical care, but that Torti’s actions still aren’t immune from liability.

Even though Justice Baxter isn’t looking to change the way the law is interpreted, the result of the decision could be to restrict the ways you can—without fear of being held liable—help a stranger in dire straits, Smith-Henson said.

So, why would you help someone who’s going to sue you later? After all, you don’t have to help them in the first place. “California common law doesn’t obligate a lay person to help a someone,” Smith-Henson pointed out. You can’t be held liable for not helping in an emergency.

Senator John J. Benoit (R-Bermuda Dunes) is proposing a change to the Good Samaritan law that should give people more incentive to help out, Smith-Henson said.

Benoit’s Good Samaritan Protection Act would apply to people who provide all kinds of emergency care—not just medical care—and make it clear that emergency assistance is shielded from liability under this law.

This means that if you see someone drowning and hurt them when you pull them out of the water, you’re not going to have to pay damages for those injuries. Seems like a good way to encourage people to care about others and help when they can, instead of looking at strangers—and even friends—as potential challengers in court.

To Help or Not to Help
So should you help someone who’s injured? That depends on you. Calling 9-1-1, when it’s warranted, seems pretty low-risk for most people. Performing the Heimlich maneuver or CPR, if you know how, is neighborly.

You’re not required to do any of these things, but if you do, be smart about it. Smith-Henson pointed out that one basic rule of negligence is that you must act as a reasonable person would. So I read that as: if a reasonable person wouldn’t do it, you shouldn’t either.

An example I can think of is that a reasonable person probably wouldn’t move someone who was just in a serious car crash out of the way of an impending explosion, and then leave the victim right next to the car that’s about to explode.

There’s some medical aid that I don’t know how to perform, so I wouldn’t because I’d do more harm than good. But if I did know how to do it, I’d sure try to help. Being a Good Samaritan is good karma, after all.

What’s the 411?
The 411 answers readers’ questions about emergency responders and all those who give aid when disaster and misfortune strikes. So if you’ve got a puzzler that could rescue others from confusion, be a Good Samaritan, send your question to me at info@valleyresponsemagazine.com. I’ll talk to the experts and share the 411 with your fellow man.

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