On Halloween night in 2004, five friends, three of them co-workers in a San Fernando Valley department store, went out for a night of drinking and dancing. At 1:30 am, they departed the nightclub in two cars.
The lead car was driven by Anthony Watson with Alexandra Van Horton in the front passenger seat. Watson’s car crashed into a light pole at 45 mph. The second car pulled over and one of the co-workers in that second car, Lisa Torti, jumped out and ran to the aid of Van Horton. Fearing the car could catch on fire, she pulled Van Horton from the wreck.
Unfortunately, Van Horton’s injuries left her a paraplegic. As a result of the tragedy Van Horton sued both Watson and Torti. I am not surprised Watson was sued as he was the driver of the car. However, Van Horton sued Torti claiming that her assistance aggravated a spinal cord injury and was causal in her paralysis. In its infinite wisdom, the California Supreme Court provided a bizarre interpretation of the Good Samaritan Law by declaring that it only applies to people who offer medical help. Consequently, Van Horton’s right to sue her “alleged” saver was upheld.
While I am tempted to address the injustice of suing the driver of the car with whom you willingly became a passenger of your own free will after a night of drinking, I have been absent from this blog for such a long time that I fear I could strain a long unused literary muscle taking that one on. Rather, I want to ease back into my writing with an obvious and easy target.
Even though there is nothing in California’s Good Samaritan Law that states anything about being exclusive to medical services, the justices determined that because it was included in the section of the California law that covers emergency medical services it should therefore only apply to medical services. Here is a copy of the actual statute.
1799.102. 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. The scene of an emergency shall not include emergency departments and other places where medical care is usually offered.
Although this may surprise a layman, most lawyers know that in the United States there is no responsibility to rescue. You cannot be held liable for standing by while someone in a burning building dies, a swimmer in trouble drowns, or an incapacitated person in a car accident gets blown up with the auto.
But most states have a Good Samaritan Law that provides protection to those people who are willing to take a chance on behalf of someone else, as Torti did the night of the accident. She testified she saw smoke and dripping liquid coming from the wrecked car which motivated her to get Van Horton immediately out of harms way. I think any reasonable person would forgive her for the fact that the smoke was caused by the deployment of the airbag. In hindsight, perhaps Van Horton should have sued the manufacture of the airbag for emitting smoke which “forced” Torti to make her a cripple?
But I digress.
To increase my confusion over the ruling, I read an excerpt from the decision written by Justice H. Walter Croskey.
"There may be circumstances in which moving someone from their current location is a matter of medical exigency, such as where a carbon monoxide poisoning victim needs to be moved to a source of fresh air. We do not hold that the act of moving a person is never the rendition of emergency medical care, only that it was not in this case."
So I guess that if I come across someone in a life threatening emergency while in California, I will first contact Walt for a ruling on whether my involvement will constitute medical attention or not. Hopefully, the person in distress won’t meet an unfortunate end while I await his opinion.
California residents are demanding that the legislature rewrite the law to make it clear that it protects anyone who makes a good-faith effort to help someone in an emergency.
Even though the language of the law appears clear to me, I agree.
And while they are at it, I would recommend a cleansing purge of the members of the California Supreme Court.
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