If you saw someone in distress, would you stop to help? Most of us like to think of ourselves as the kind of people who’d be willing to lend a hand in an emergency. Most people never get the chance to pull someone from a burning building or perform CPR, but we’d all like to imagine that we’d be ready at a moment’s notice.
Being a Good Samaritan is a noble intention, but one that can be fraught with peril. What if something goes wrong? In December of 2008, a woman in California was driving behind her coworker when she saw the other woman’s car hit a telephone pole. The woman rushed to the wrecked car and pulled her coworker to safety, thinking that she’d just done a good deed. Her reward? The co-worker sued her for damages, claiming that by moving her from the car, the woman had caused spinal injuries, which resulted in paralysis.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
You’d think that we wouldn’t need to protect people who are trying to do a good deed, but the sad truth is that there are frivolous lawsuits filed every year against people who only wanted to help. People are sued after doing CPR, pushing someone out of the way of a train, or pulling someone out of a car, because the victims claim that the Good Samaritan’s actions did more harm than good. During an emergency, people who are not medically trained or rescue-certified sometimes make mistakes, and too often, the victims of the accident place the blame for their injuries on the rescue, not the accident that precipitated it. Luckily, we have laws that can shield do-gooders from litigation.
Every state in the country has a “Good Samaritan law,” which protects people who try to administer medical care during an emergency. Although the laws vary by state, most of them are surprisingly narrow in what and whom they protect, and unfortunately, they don’t provide amnesty from liability in every situation. Many states’ Good Samaritan laws only protect trained medical personnel. For example, if a doctor attempts to perform a tracheotomy on a plane, the doctor can’t be sued if the procedure goes wrong, as long as the doctor is acting in a volunteer capacity. However, the law doesn’t cover doctors and EMTs when they’re at work. We expect that when we call the paramedics or go to the hospital, the staff will do their job correctly.
Some states extend Good Samaritan protection to the general public as well as trained medical staff, as long as the person who tries to help doesn’t act recklessly or negligently and offers their assistance on a strictly volunteer basis. Good Samaritan laws only protect people who respond appropriately to the emergency and are acting with no expectation of reward. If the person helping receives a gift or token of appreciation later, then the law doesn’t apply.
There are also federal Good Samaritan laws that protect companies and individuals who make donations, especially food donations. Grocery stores and food companies often donate their unused product to food banks and community pantries and the federal laws protect them in case the food makes people ill. As long as the company acted in good faith and didn’t knowingly donate contaminated products, the laws protect them from liability.
Don’t Just Stand There, Do Something!
Good Samaritan laws were originally enacted in order to encourage people to help out in an emergency without fear of being sued, but in some states, the laws work the other way too. The series finale of Seinfeld infamously portrayed Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer as violating a Good Samaritan law after they did nothing to stop a mugging. Bad news for bottleneckers: in Vermont and Minnesota, not helping an accident or crime victim can be construed as a crime itself. It’s considered it a civic duty to assist during an emergency, even if it’s just to call for help.
