Good Samaritan Laws

When you see someone in distress, your first instinct is probably to help. The last thing you're thinking about is that the victim will sue you, even if you saved a life. However, in our overtly litigious society, even the Good Samaritan was at risk at one time from being sued for personal injury.

Case in point: A man has a heart attack in a restaurant. Luckily, there is a woman at a nearby table who is a CPR superstar. She promptly administers the life-saving measure until the paramedics arrive. Her quick thinking saves this guy's life, but in the frantic setting she accidentally breaks one of his ribs. The man is not happy about the broken rib and files a lawsuit against her.

There's no way the man would do this to someone who stopped him from walking through the pearly gates, right? Where are the ethical lawyers steering these misguided people down the right path? But this is a true story, and these types of lawsuits used to happen more often than you might think. Then the lawmakers got wise.

Affirmative-Duty Laws

There is generally no duty for you to save another person, as long as you did not cause the accident. Thus, if you're walking by a pond and happen to witness someone drowning, you are under no obligation to jump in and save them. This is especially true, say, if you can't even swim. Also, if a person has a heart attack in front of you, there is no legal duty to perform CPR or even phone for assistance. You can simply walk around that person and stroll on your merry way.

These harsh scenarios seem to strike a moral chord in people and are the subject of much debate in law-school classrooms. But in the end, just about every state, minus Vermont, does not require you to act if someone is in trouble. In Vermont the law requires you to act only if doing so poses no risk to you. Failing to take action will only set you back around $100. However, many European countries also have affirmative-duty laws, and the fines for failing to act are a bit stiffer.

Good Samaritan Laws

Good Samaritan laws were generally enacted to protect physicians from liability when assisting a person in distress. Soon after, most states extended the laws to protect anyone helping out in an emergency from facing liability if something went wrong.

Now every state has a statute that protects a person acting in good faith from a lawsuit. Of course, if you are grossly negligent in your actions, all bets are off.

To minimize your risk, consider doing the following:

• Take a CPR and First Aid class so you know what and what not to do.

• If the person is conscious, ask the person for permission to help.

• Don't try anything you don't know how to do.

• Don't take gifts from the people you help.

Helping people in need is a moral duty for most people. Thousands of stories tell of ordinary citizens who have risked life and limb to save another. The Good Samaritan laws make it easier to help the helpless without the fear of spending the next year in and out of a courtroom.