Setting aside your children, and of course the answers will vary depending on the location.
There’s a recent story where a man received probation because he let his girlfriend sit on a toilet seat for two years. Why did the courts decide he was legally responsible for an unrelated adult? On the other hand, there was a case where a man watched his friend rape a child (he also killed her, but iirc, the friend didn’t witness it) without legal consequence.
How does this work in general? Does the fact that the lady stuck to the toilet was welcome in her boyfriend’s home play into it? If I hire someone to fix my roof and he slips off and breaks his back, am I legally (obviously, morally I would be) obligated to call 911? What if the roofer is related to me, or is a friend? I’m I required to help a burgler who cuts himself on my window breaking into my home?
Your question is all over the place. I’ll address civil liability. Generally you have no legal duty to help another person out of a peril so long as you did not cause the peril. However, as a property owner, you owe different standards of care to people who come on to your property based on their status as an invitee, a licensee or a trespasser (google the terms).
None of this impacts criminal liability that you might have for assisting in the concealing of a crime.
So, call 911 for the roofer and don’t worry about the burglar’s cuts.
The story about the toilet-seat girlfriend is just so weird that you can understand police needing to investigate, because it’s hard to understand why she did it without being coerced in some way. However, if she voluntarily sat on the toilet seat and injured herself in that way, then I can see any civil or criminal liability on the part of the boyfriend.
A more likely scanario would be if the girlfriend accidentally injured herself at the boyfriend’s house, so that she was unable to move or seek assistance herself. Does the boyfriend then have a legal duty to dial 911, or seek help in some other way? (This would be assuming that, as a householder, he did not have tort liability for allowing a dangerous situation to exist in his home, causing the injury).
Whole bean, Yes, it’s actually a series of questions that I’m trying to use to figure out where the system is coming from. I’m not looking for a broken down point by point answer, but You always hear that “Generally you have no legal duty to help another person out of a peril so long as you did not cause the peril.” yet the guy in the OP is now on probation. What are is the turning points where that quote stops being true? Is it not true for Toilet Guy, for example because they were in a relationship? Because it was his home (where she was welcome)? Because she was incapable of getting help?
You can be prosecuted if you do not respond to a Hue and Cry. I can’t locate the article, but someone was prosecuted for this within the past few years (IIRC he wouldn’t leave his children).
The law says what a “resonable” person would do. This is purposely done that way to leave it open. What is reasonable to one judge is not to another. This was also done to reflect local standards. This is the same way obscenity is judged. What is obscene in one location is OK in another.
What is reasonable in one community is unreasonable in another. And a judge decides what is reasonable.
This is why criminals in the USA have such widely varying sentences for similar crimes.
Weren’t the characters in Seinfeld judged with criminal neglect (or something like that) because they wouldn’t help someone in need in the last episode of the show? I don’t remember the details, but the idea was that they didn’t help somoene.
As a person who has taken a First Aid class (more like 5 First Aid classes), the instructors always say that if you are trained in First Aid, and see someone in need, that you have to help them until a better source of help comes along. For instance, if I encounter someone who needs CPR, I should provide CPR until a paramedic team arrives.
I’ve always felt slightly uncomfortable about that (the legal requirement that they mention). I mean, as a person, I’m very liable to help someone who needs First Aid or CPR, because I don’t like to let other people suffer if I can help it. I just feel uncomfortable about a law (which may or may not exist - I have only heard about it from the instructors).
First, I hadn’t meant to imply that I would ever take anything that happens on a television show as a statement of fact. Certainly not something in a comedy like Seinfeld.
Second, it’s not based on a fictional law, it’s based on a real law(as Telemark posted a link to it) - but (as you stated) they wouldn’t go to jail for it, just pay a fine.
Third, in the link referenced by Telemark, there’s a point about a law which says that once you start helping someone, you have to keep helping them. That’s the law I was thinking about when I typed my post - maybe someone here can give a better link regarding that particular law.
It might not be in the U.S. that someone trained in First Aid has to offer it until someone with higher training comes along - I know I heard that somewhere.
I just renewed my CPR and 1st Aid certs the other week and the instructor said the same thing that all of my previous instructors have said (this is in California) - per your 3rd point, just because you are trained in FA/CPR you are not required to stop and give assistance, however if you choose to do so, you cannot stop until you are relieved by someone else or the victim is dead. There are a couple of other circumstances (staying and continuing to render aid will put your own life at risk, for example) but those first two were the big ones.
Getting a little off-topic all my instructors have also said that the good samaritan laws protect you when you stop to render aid so long as you stay within the limits of your training (my knowing CPR doesn’t qualify me to attempt open-heart surgery in the field) and don’t do something “grossly negligent”.
What’s with all the defensiveness, SeanArenas? I never implied you “would ever take anything that happens on a television show as a statement of fact”.
You said you heard it from your instructors during First Aid class. Were those classes in the U.S.?
