In article .com,
says...


Banty wrote:
In article , Abe says...

I'll disagree that she had no responsibility. She recognized the
danger and returned the kid to daddy. Kid returned and she saw him
again by the water. She knew it was dangerous and should have returned
him to daddy again.
At the point she returned the child to Dad the first time, she had
already gone above and beyond any requirement to protect the child.
The fact that the Dad let the child return to the dangerous situation
puts the blame squarely on his shoulders.

The (somewhat ironically named) Good Samaritan principal in law holds that
individuals are *not* obliged to help others, unless there is a special
relationship, such as parent to child and spouse to spouse.

(This is different from Good Samaritan Laws, which hold that a person who does
volunteer to help is protected from legal action should there be a problem, as
long as the volunteer does not go beyond their training and usually there is a
'reasonable person' standard.)

Most probably this will be overturned on appeal.

The thing that I don't get about this case is that everything I've ever
learned about rescue is that you *don't* put yourself into a situation
where you could be fatally harmed in addition to the original victim,
because you're just making more trouble for professional rescuers

Oh absolutely.

Imagine if the law required all witnesses on the interstate to stop and try to
help if they see a rollover. The chaos at the scene, the jammed highway.
Imagine if you had the responsibility to determine that each panhandler you pass
really *is* starving or about to freeze.

The law, with few exeptions (taxes being one, certain special relationships
being another) does not put affirmative responsibilites on individuals. It's an
untenable requirement.


Until this case happened, I would have been surprised if even a parent
was penalized for not jumping in to save a child when the parent
couldn't swim and the stream was in flood stage, making it extremely
likely that the parent would be killed along with the child. I could
see charges against the parent for letting the child fall in in the
first place, but not for not jumping in to render a probably futile and
potentially fatal attempt at assistance.

I don't know what specifics would be decided - but a parent would be required to
take whatever steps they could. Parents do have affirmative responsibilites to
their children.


I mean, I'd do it if it were my child without thought, but I'm not even
sure it's the rational thing to do, just the only thing I could do
emotionally. I can't see how having the adult die along with the child
would improve matters.

Leaving the whole question of the unrelated woman aside (that will be
overturned), for the parent, it's an awful situation where one doesn't know what
would create the optimal outcome. Other than that it's a fairly good guideline
that professional help should be sent for first. And to be grateful that in
our society any particular individual would only rarely have to make those
decisions.

Banty