One of my gifts (or vices as some might say) is to avidly devour a number of news feeds and newsletters to which I subscribe.  At the Ethics Centre we’re charged with the responsibility to keep up to date on issues of moral and social import, and that gives me the opportunity to scan a wide variety of sources on a regular basis.  On my ‘must read’ list

is a weekly newsletter from the Institute for Global Ethics , and it rarely disappoints with a pithy column by its editor Rushworth Kidder or some interesting tidbit or headline with an ethics spin.  A recent issue shared a story from the Los Angeles Times that really troubled me.  Here’s the excerpt:

“One who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim. Here, the result is that defendant Torti has no immunity for her bravery in pulling her injured friend from a crashed vehicle, even if she reasonably believed it might be about to explode.”

California Supreme Court justice Marvin Baxter, writing in dissent after his colleagues ruled last week that a California woman could be sued for pulling a coworker from a car wreck in 2004, possibly injuring her. A majority of the state’s Supreme Court “appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued,” reports the Los Angeles Times. The paper is among those noting that last week’s ruling could chill so-called Good Samaritan acts, with Lisa Torti now facing possible liability for injuries sustained by her former colleague, who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident.

What’s up with that?  I must admit that the Canadian in me immediately went “Well, that’s in the US, of course.  Everything is resolved through litigation there.”  But the sober second thought wasn’t quite as smug.  I’m not sure a Canadian system would resolve it differently, and perhaps more importantly, I’m not confident that a Canadian wouldn’t take it to court.  Beyond the issue of national differences, this situation leaves me trying to determine what it is that troubles me most about this scenario.  Is it that there can be legal ramifications to being a Good Samaritan?  Or that our modern social and legal systems are so skewed that the courts are the only way to resolve a situation? 

I can’t help but flash to the three survivors of the Sparwood, BC snowmobile tragedy.  They were placed in a situation that we can all pray we never encounter, making the decision to walk away from their eight friends who were buried under the avalanche snow.  Some of those who perished were themselves buried in the process of trying to dig out their friends.  How tragic.  I pray that none of the survivors find themselves in the position having to legally defend their actions. 

Have I found an answer to what troubled me with the California case?  No, and maybe that’s the thorn itself.  In many ways I can as easily relate to the plaintiff as I can the defendant.  We all have the capacity to need help as well as to be able to give help.  And we need to feel that our social support systems honor us when we are compromised.  Both perspectives in this case make me steamed about the real commentary on community.  When the parable of the Good Samaritan was first told over two thousand years ago the Samaritan was a pariah before his rescue efforts … now he might be one afterwards as well.