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Mailing List Logs for ShadowRN

Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Derek Hyde)
Subject: Good Samaritan Laws.
Date: Wed May 29 09:40:01 2002
> Same for anyone else who's interested. Check out what the
requirements
> are where
> you live, I'm really curious to know.

Some states in the US do still have good Samaritan laws, Iowa for
example, if you've had any form of training you're legally obligated to
stop and help until EMT's or whatever arrives, of course this all also
stems from the fact that they're all improbable because you would have
to have someone that was there that could prove that you'd gone by and
that they KNEW for a fact you were CPR Certified or EMT Certified or
whatever. On the up side if you're trained to do something and you
follow the training to the letter they can't sue you for damages
incurred in the attempt to save someone (i.e. broken ribs during CPR,
moving someone with a spinal injury, things like that) however in the
reverse by my understanding IF the person died and you didn't stop and
they can prove that you were there they can tag you with wrongful death.
I'm not 100% sure on if this is exactly how it reads as it's been a few
years since I lived in Iowa or took my CPR Cert tests for that matter so
I may be a little off.

Derek
Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Christian Casavant)
Subject: Good Samaritan Laws.
Date: Wed May 29 11:10:00 2002
Derek,


> Some states in the US do still have good Samaritan laws, Iowa for
> example, if you've had any form of training you're legally obligated to
> stop and help until EMT's or whatever arrives, of course this all also
> stems from the fact that they're all improbable because you would have
> to have someone that was there that could prove that you'd gone by and
> that they KNEW for a fact you were CPR Certified or EMT Certified or
> whatever. On the up side if you're trained to do something and you
> follow the training to the letter they can't sue you for damages
> incurred in the attempt to save someone (i.e. broken ribs during CPR,
> moving someone with a spinal injury, things like that) however in the
> reverse by my understanding IF the person died and you didn't stop and
> they can prove that you were there they can tag you with wrongful death.
> I'm not 100% sure on if this is exactly how it reads as it's been a few
> years since I lived in Iowa or took my CPR Cert tests for that matter so
> I may be a little off.

This is interesting. Within the commonwealth, there is a substantial
difference between malfeasance (doing wrong) and nonfeasance (doing nothing)
where you are not responsible for any inaction, and have no duty towards
them under common law.

In cases where people with special skills have higher duties of care towards
people who require assistance, I think the only territory within the
commonwealth where there may be a duty of care is in Quebec. These positive
responsibilities certainly don't exist in Canada, and I'm only guessing but
I suspect they don't exist in the rest of the commonwealth either.

>From a philosophical, and most likely a constitutional standpoint, I don't
think the US federal government (or supreme court) would be able to uphold
any state rulings in this respect, since the US gov't shouldn't be able to
force citizens to "do" anything. Rather the government should only tell you
what you "can't do" in order to serve a higher good. (I refer to Isaiah
Berlin's notions of polictical/negative liberty (freedom) where no person,
group of persons, or ruling body can coerce activity upon a person.)

Caveat: I am neither a lawyer, nor a consitutional expert, just guessing.

Further Reading

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Thwap!