In this thread, a moral question is asked, but I’m more interested in the legal ramifications. While I, like Bricker in that thread, is unaware of any American law prohibiting what I’m about to describe, it just seems like some law is broken.
The situation is this: I’m skiing in the Rockies or somewhere. A sudden avalanche, brought on by a mother of a blizzard, wipes out everyone in my ski resort except for me and a small child, let’s say three years of age. I have never met the child before and we have no blood relation whatsoever. The blizzard prevents help from arriving for a couple of weeks. There is plenty of food and drink, and no real risk to my life.
If I simply do not feed this child and it dies before help arrives, have I broken any American law? If so, what is my crime?
Legally (IANAL), I don’t think there’s any law forcing you to help anyone else, kid or otherwise, unless there was already a binding ‘agreement’ in place (as in, taking care of your own kid or a child you agreed to take care of).
Are you actively holding the kid back though? Wouldn’t a 3 year old be able to eat on it’s own and do it’s own ‘thing’ for a while? I’d guess if you actively prevented the child from eating (by say, taking away their food) you might be breaking a law.
You might want to make your hypothetical child a bit younger – say, 3 months old. In my experience, the average 3-year-old knows how to find food and drink in a kitchen, and would feed itsel;f unless you actively prevented it (e.g., by locking up access, including access to taps in kitchen and bathrooms). So you’d have to take some positive steps to ensure that it starved
Well, all the food is in a big fridge with a heavy door or something. Or maybe the child is younger. The point is that the child cannot make it on its own, and helping the child doesn’t endanger me at all.
I suspect that after a couple of days, the child is going to be snatching food out of your hands unless you eat with a locked door between you and the kid. Barring it from access to all sources of food and drink would probably amount to false imprisonment, and false imprisonment leading to death by starvation would have to be murder.
OK, so it’s an infant and I have access to literally thousands of litres of breast milk and baby food. I also have enormous amounts of experience taking care of infants.
Really, there’s little point beating various tiny aspects of the hypothetical to death. Am I committing a crime or not?
Oh come on. By being the only adult in the cabin you wind up effectively being the child’s guardian. At that point you’re responsible for the minor and so by not feeding or caring for the child you are willfully committing homicide through criminal negligence.
Now I’m not sure how this applies outside of abduction, but if we reasonably extend the definition “in law or fact the custody or control” that might fit.
No, that doesn’t work. Priceguy isn’t a kid’s ‘guardian’ just because the kid happens to be in the same location as him out of chance.
I’m sure the law was specifically designed NOT to ‘extend the definition’ on purpose. It would then become illegal to ignore a crying kid on the street (because, if that kid were to later be harmed it could be YOUR fault).
Not a good example since an adult on the street is not in control of the child through circumstances. A lone adult in an isolated cabin with a child would be.
In this case, if Priceguy did not help the kid in any way (that might legally bind him) then he’s not responsible for the child. If the kid were to walk (by itself) to the cabin where Priceguy is holding up, there still isn’t any legal relationship until Priceguy takes any active roll in caring (or preventing care) for the child. Remember, this started as a skiing trip or something. Priceguy had no reason to think he was in any way responsible for this child.
In this senario as long as Priceguy doesn’t ‘lift a finger’ for the child, he’s not responsible for it. It might not be morally correct but he’s legally in his right to ignore the kid and help himself.
A child crying in the street is not in danger of dying because of an unrelated adult’s neglect: the unrelated adult can assume that a parent or guardian will eventualkly find the child.
A better example might be a child in imminent danger, with no other responsible person present. For example, I see a three-year-old alone on a railway line, and I know that a train is coming. Do I have a duty to save the child (e.g., by moving it off the track or warning the train driver) if I can do so with no danger to myself, and with little inconvenience? I suspect that I don’t have a legal duty to do so, even though I have a moral duty.
I agree. As I said (and I guess what the OP is asking) is strictly about the legal requirements.
And the crying kid CAN be in danger (I added the crying part to add to the image of a kid in some sort of danger). For instance, if you passed a small child on the side of the highway wandering around, legally, do you need to stop and help?
The essential point in this is that there is no other guardian candidate for the child due to circumstances. Thus the adult can reasonably be expected to care for the child to the degree necessary to prevent harm from occurring.
The GD thread linked in the OP does go into the morality of this situation but as Bricker mentioned in the original thread, there is no legal requirement for one to help a stranger in any way.
I doubt even Canadian law would force responsibility of someone else’s care without any action of your own (if this was [Priceguy**'s home, it would be a different situation).
I believe that “Good Samaritan” laws would come into effect here. Although used sparingly or late in the USA, they have been around for quite awhile.
Essentially, the adult would have an obligation to help the child, even if no other connection than circumstance came into play. Not much different than if you happen you happen upon the scene of an accident and render assistance to the injured.
Although these laws were designed to protect people in the above example (accident) from being liable for harm caused by their good intentions, they have been used in the reverse, I believe, although sparingly as I mentioned, to prosecute people who did nothing in said circumstance.
Also, leaping outside the purely legal box for a moment, I woould find it hard for a court, or jury, to ignore your ignoring of the child. Neglect would be very easy to convey, if nothing else from an emotional point of view.
From a legal standpoint, this is far from clear. Just because someone is in need, I don’t believe there is a legal requirement for any person to help even if that person is the only one who can help.