http://www.latimes.com/features/health/medicine/la-me-good-samaritan19-2008dec19,0,6547898.story

"The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn't immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn't medical.

The divided high 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.

Lisa Torti of Northridge allegedly worsened the injuries suffered by Alexandra Van Horn by yanking her "like a rag doll" from the wrecked car on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.


Now CA is like NYC for me. I won't do anything there if I see a wreck.

Link ...

From an objective standpoint, that is very sad and unfortunate, however if she really yanked her like a rag doll, appears to me she did act beyond her training/skills. I'll leave it at that, wonder what others are going to say.

sorry do my links not work?

Your link wasn't active for me, but the link OBG posted was to Doug's thread about this subject started a couple of days ago.

I'd suggest reading a bit more before anyone decides to not act.

All the court decided was that if a person acted negligently they can held liable.

In the case cited, it would appear that the "friend" acted negligently by yanking the victim out of the car for no good reason, she, the negligent one, claimed that the car was on fire, a claim disputed by everyone else on the scene.

JohnE

A lot of the problem is people see films and think every crash causes a car to become a fireball. Think about it; how many burning cars have you ever seen in reality?
And negligence is what it says: you decide to 'save' someone from by spraying bullets wildly in theirs and a muggers direction, or yanking a spinally injured person from a car for no reason; well you are being negligent.
The Sock

My sister's neck was broken in a car accident when she was a teenager and she was slumped over the front seats when the car stopped (not wearing a seatbelt). A car full of her friends was behind her.

A truck driver had stopped and thankfully stopped her friends from moving my sister. He may have saved her life, he very likely did save her from being quadraplegic. As did the paramedics and surgeons. The vertebrae shattered were C-5, C-6 and C-7.

She had a remarkable recovery. That's when she developed a deep belief in God.

As has been noted, we don't know enough about the case to fairly judge it.

But I can't imagine we would have sued my sister's friends.

Because of my sister's injuries, I know not to move an accident victim unless they are about to be engulfed by fire. But others not so sensitized may react on other instincts. Well-meaning, but damaging.

Must have been a tough case to judge.

Perhaps your family would not have sued her friends, but when the insurance company goes to recoup their money they go after whomever they can find. In a perfect world, greed is never the motive for a lawsuit. It is only to recoup expenses caused by negligence or malice. (IANAL)

I was involved in a wreck once where two bystanders proceeded to help the kid who hit me out of his car. I was kinda busy with 911 at that moment (and kinda dazed), or I'd have told them to leave him the hell alone. Punk later tried to get my insurance to pay for his pain and suffering. Fortunately in my state they tend to hold you alone responsible when you choose to rear-end someone.

. . .and as long as it's a California court deciding what is and what is not negligent, I'll take Martin's advice. From what I read, a better course of action for the girl who did the negligent rescuing would have been to do nothing, so that is what I intend to do.