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Liability: I'm not responsible for your kids!
wrote:
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.
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 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.
Beth
I was wondering if I had misread the OP. Nope. It is not clear at all
just what she was convicted of: Failure to keep the boy from falling
in? I suspect so. For not jumping in? I don't think so. Reading the
article, all the bits about jumping in are in opinions from the defense
attorney, the prosecutor and others. There is nothing at all saying
just what the charge was but it appears to be failing to exercise due
care. There I say she is guilty. Same as someone seeing a toddler
weaving his way into traffic and does nothing about it.
Harry K
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