Source: https://emergencylaw.wordpress.com/2016/12/15/who-pays-for-damage-done-by-the-rescue-squad-in-nsw/
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Who pays for damage done by the rescue squad in NSW? – Australian Emergency Law
Fire, Legislation and plans, Rescue
Date: December 15, 2016Author: M. Eburn 14 Comments
Agencies, like NSWF&R and NSW SES do not have to be accredited to perform their statutory functions (s 50(3); State Rescue Board, New South Wales State Rescue Policy (3rd Edition Version 3.5), [3.41] so the SES does not need accreditation to do flood rescue (State Rescue Board, Flood Rescue Policy (August 2009), [12]). Equally NSWF&R do not need accreditation to rescue people from danger caused by fire or a hazardous materials incident.
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14 thoughts on “Who pays for damage done by the rescue squad in NSW?”
Is there any relevance to s38 of the Fire Brigades Act where it mentions:
Any damage to property caused by […] any member of a fire brigade […] in the exercise in good faith of functions under this or any other Act is to be considered to be damage by fire for the purposes of any policy of insurance against fire covering the property.
Specifically where it states “or any other Act”, does that mean if a firefighter is exercising their functions under the SERM act it could still possibly be regarded as damage by “fire”?
I discuss s 38(1) and (2) in detail in this post. Why the action is not deemed to be caused by fire is because of s 38(2) which says: “This section applies only in respect of damage to property caused in the exercise of a function to protect persons from injury or death or property from damage if those persons are or the property is endangered by fire or endangered by the escape or likely escape of hazardous material.”
Of course – I missed that important bit. Thanks for the clarification.
Interestingly the NSW RFS has no such limitation under the RF Act. s22 says “22 General powers of rural fire brigade officers and others
(2) The officer may exercise such a function or take such an action with such persons as the officer considers necessary for the purpose.
(2A) Any function that may be exercised, or action that may be taken, by an officer of a rural fire brigade or group of rural fire brigades because of this section may be exercised or taken by the Commissioner.
(3) The following provisions of this Division are intended to be particular examples of the way in which functions referred to in this section can be exercised and are not intended to limit the generality of this section.”
And s28 says:
“28 Damage to property and the environment
(1) Any damage to property that is caused by any person exercising any function conferred by or under this Division in good faith and any remedial work necessary to rectify damage to the environment is to be taken to be damage by fire within the meaning of any policy of insurance against fire covering the property so damaged.
(2) Any provision, stipulation, covenant or condition in any agreement that negates, limits or modifies or purports to negate, limit or modify the operation of this section is void and of no effect.”
which would appear to cover any damage (or the insurance liability) that might eventuate if the RFS assists NSWA in gaining access to a patient.
The Rural Fire Service don’t operate accredited rescue units but that doesn’t matter. If they do assist NSW Ambulance they would be performing one of their functions (see s 9(1)(b)) – it is a function of the RFS to ‘assist other emergency services organisations at incidents and at emergencies under the control of those organisations’. So it may be that damage done by the RFS in those circumstances would be damage done by fire. Again, that’s only relevant if the property owner has insurance against damage done by fire.
In fact the NSW does have a SRB accredited rescue unit, Mungindi Rural Fire Brigade. See https://www.emergency.nsw.gov.au/media/301/1156/_/w45cux15889h4wgkok/State+Rescue+Board+Communique+-+Meeting+122+-+8+September+2016.pdf
In addition from my experience as both a career FRNSW firefighter and RFS volunteer, assistance to NSWA in gaining ‘patient access’ is sometimes done as a non rescue ‘assist ambulance’ call with non SRB accredited stations or brigades dispatched, or with those non accredited units in conjunction with a SRB accredited unit who arrive after ‘access’ work has commenced.
We’ll there you go, I didn’t know that about the RFS and they’re not on the list I linked to from the State Rescue Board. Certainly, as I’ve noted, RFS can assist ambulance and that need not be a ‘rescue’ just a few extra hands – see again s 9(1)(b) of the RFS Act.
Thanks for a prompt and detailed answer to my question
I received this further information by email:
One minor aside that I doubt would change your interpretation of who pays for damage done by the rescue squad.
Within the NSWPF at each Radio Operations Unit (or VKG centre) there is a Sergeant rostered for each shift, part of their duties is to oversee the deployment of certified rescue units within their span of control. During meal breaks this is covered by one of the other centres (Sydney, Penrith, Newcastle, Tamworth, and Oak Flats).
At Sydney being the major centre this role is a dedicated position (The Rescue Coordinator or RCO), in the smaller centres a Sergeant is the Radio Room Supervisor and performs the rescue co-ordinator role. The main reason why this is tasked to one person is that way a complete image of what is going on within the span of control can be maintained – if each radio operator did their own rescues resources could potentially be poorly utilised across the centre. The reason why a Sergeant of Police has the role and not say a civilian (like most of the radio operators are) is because of the SERM Act this way it is guaranteed that for each and every State Rescue Board approved land based rescue where a SRB Rescue number is generated the resources have been deployed by a Sergeant and hence the section 60KA requirement of ‘a senior police officer (that is ‘a police officer of or above the rank of sergeant’ (s 60KA))’ is met every time.
Just thought you might be interested, clearly this doesn’t detract at all from your previous conclusion.
Section 60KA of the State Emergency and Rescue Management Act 1989 (NSW) is a definition section and provides the definitions for Part 4 ‘Miscellaneous’. Issues of rescue are dealt with in Part 3 ‘State Rescue Management’. Section 50(1) says ‘The NSW Police Force is responsible for co-ordinating rescue operations and for determining the priorities of action to be taken in rescue operations’. Having a dedicated Rescue Coordinator or ‘a Sergeant rostered for each shift, part of their duties is to oversee the deployment of certified rescue units within their span of control’ is to ensure that police can perform that role. Not only is that more efficient than leaving it to each radio operator it is also more efficient than leaving it to each ‘officer in charge’ at each accident.
However, s 60KA is not a ‘requirement’, it is merely a definition so having the sergeant in the control room is not meeting any s 60KA requirement. Section 60KA is relevant to s 61. Section 61 says, in full:
(1) A senior police officer may, if satisfied that there are reasonable grounds for doing so for the purpose of protecting persons or animals from injury or death or protecting property threatened by an actual or imminent emergency, direct, or authorise another police officer to direct, the doing of any one or more of the following:
(2) The cost of taking action under subsection (1) (c) is to be borne by the owner of the wall or premises and is to be paid to, and may be recovered in a court of competent jurisdiction by, the Commissioner of Police.
(3) For the purposes of the exercise of a function under subsection (1) (d), a senior police officer may require the person who controls or supplies the substance concerned to immediately send some competent person to the scene for the purpose of shutting it off or disconnecting it in accordance with the reasonable directions of the officer.
(4) A person must comply with a requirement, or directions, under subsection (3).
(5) A person who supplies a substance referred to in subsection (1) (d) or (e) is not liable for any damages because of any interruption of that supply under this section if the supply is shut off or disconnected in accordance with the directions of the senior police officer.
In my view s 61 is directed to police officers at the scene of any emergency and allows them to take control of the scene. The senior police officer anticipated by s 61 is the officer on scene. Section 62A is the section that says damage done by a police officer, or someone acting under the officers’ direction is deemed to be damage done by the hazard for the purposes of insurance. It is my experience, and would be my expectation, that at a rescue a police officer is not going to ‘direct’ the rescue squad “I want you to take possession of that building or car and destroy the roof in order to access the patient” (s 61(1)(f)). Really what’s going to happen is that the police are going to leave it to the rescue squad, in collaboration with the ambulance service, to determine how they are going to access and remove the patient. So I don’t really think, at a rescue, anyone is having regard to s 61.
BUT my argument was that in the right circumstances something could be implied. A request for rescue is made, the Rescue Coordinator dispatches the relevant accredited rescue unit and one could imply some sort of direction to take ‘possession of, and remov[e] or destr[oy] any material or thing in the danger area or any part of the danger area that may be dangerous to life or property or that may interfere with the response of emergency services to the emergency’. As I say I think that’s a pretty tenuous argument, but the role of lawyers (at least sometimes) is to give a judge a path to the result the judge wants to deliver. In that case, going back to the original scenario, assume the building owner had insurance, the fire brigade have cut the roof open to rescue the workmen and the insurer is resisting the claim on the basis, say, that the rescue squad were on the premises at the invitation of the owner and did the damage with the owner’s consent. A judge may think this is pretty unreasonable so one might make this argument – that this was an implied direction under s 61(1) – in the hope that the judge will seize on that to compel the insurer to pay up. It’s a bit of a fiction but it’s not a completely untenable argument.
Certainly the fact that the Rescue or Call centre coordinator is a police officer of or above the rank of sergeant makes the argument easier (without that you would have to hope there was a sergeant on scene otherwise you can’t get an implied direction from a ‘senior police officer’), but I can’t imagine that anyone had that argument in mind when they determined that a sergeant was to be the relevant coordinator.
With respect to my correspondent however, I can’t imagine that argument is the ‘reason why a Sergeant of Police has the role …’ I would suggest that the reason the police nominate an officer of the rank of sergeant to the role is that is considered an appropriate rank in the management system to exercise the police responsibilities. Part 3 of the SERM Act, dealing with Rescue, doesn’t require that a police officer of a particular rank make the decisions. And s 61 is not about the police officer at the coord centre, though it could be. A constable on scene could make a call to his or her supervising sergeant, describe the situation and ask for authority to take action under s 61(1). I’m sure that’s consistent with s 61 but again, s 61 isn’t really directed at rescue. The argument that ss 50, 61 and 62A could be applied was never, I’m sure, in the mind of the legislative drafters or the police when putting their roster together.
I would be circumspect about associating the Part 3 State Rescue Management of the SERM Act with the Part 2 State Emergency Management. The requirements for the rank of, or above Sergeant under Sec 60KA and the executable powers under 60L and 61 refer to ’emergencies’, which may or may not include rescue from accidents.
Such ‘Accidents’ to require 60KA, 60L and 61 style authorities would need to require a significant and coordinated response for them to be an emergency. There is often much discussion around ‘Significant and Coordinated’ (and it has to be both. not significant on one hand or coordinated on the other).
It would a fairly long stretch to call a single or dual extraction an emergency. A train wreck or major bus accident you say! Well, then maybe. Even a light aircraft accident is just a smallish vehicle falling from the sky (as long as there are no other complicating factors).
For 60KA, it needs to be a senior police officer (meaning ‘a police officer of or above the rank of sergeant’) to direct or authorise another police officer to direct (eg our teaching is a senior police officer doesn’t have to be at the scene of an emergency). 60KA defines ‘a’ senior police officer (meaning a class of person) not ‘the’ senior police officer (at the scene). Two different things.
The requirement of senior police officer under the Rescue Management Part of the SERM Act differs in that it says ‘the’ senior police officer at the scene – which in fact can be any constable. If there are two or more at the scene then it is the more senior officer. While we could have a whole discussion about what constitutes rank, we can’t about a police officer’s station as a police officer and their seniority status within their organisation.
The bits about VKG’s (Police Radio) initial coordination role actually come for the State Rescue Policy not the legislation. Hence, the sergeant at VKG controlling the rescue if there are police on scene doesn’t wash. It just all falls under the banner of The NSW Police Force is responsible for co-ordinating rescue operations vide Section 50(1). – subject to the rest of that section. While you are in that section, please note it does subtly make a distinct between a rescue operation resulting from an emergency. So, there is an attempt to make a distinction between the two.
There are other areas of the SERM Act referring to exculpation from liabilities but please note that Section 62 (personal liability) specifically mentions rescue management, where Section 62A (damage covered by insurance) does not.
It would be good if things were clearer but regrettably they are not.
Danny, I do agree hence the comment in the original post that the argument ‘is somewhat of a ‘long bow’ …’ I do agree that the s 61 and the provisions regarding ‘rescue’ are not necessarily related, but equally they are not unrelated. At an emergency scene, that involves rescue, police could still choose to exercise their powers under s 61 if required to render a scene safe. As you say the authority of a senior police officer (of or above the rank of sergeant) to act under ss 60L [‘Power of police to evacuate or to take other steps concerning persons’] and 61 [‘Power of police to take other safety measures’] relates “to ’emergencies’, which may or may not include rescue from accidents.”
As for the definition of ‘emergency’ in the SERM Act and the need for a ‘significant and coordinated response’ that is indeed a problematic definition. On one hand, an ambulance responding to a cardiac arrest is a significant response (think of the money involved in training the paramedics and equipping the ambulance) and coordinated (there is a coord centre that is managing that response and the entire ambulance availability and no doubt thinking about what backup may be required etc) and in most peoples’ minds it would constitute an ‘emergency’. I think a light aircraft accident would clearly be an emergency because there will be police, ambulance and fire services responding along with the ATSB, roads authorities (if it’s on a road), WorkSafe etc. The size of the aircraft isn’t going to stop that being an emergency. The problem is that the terms ‘significant’ and ‘coordinated’ aren’t defined and on one view it covers any response by the emergency services including what is for them, business as usual. On another view it’s meant to mean more than that.
Section 50(3) says:
This section does not apply to a rescue operation if the control of the rescue operation is vested by law in another agency, such as:
I don’t think that is making a distinction between a rescue where there is an emergency and one where there isn’t. An emergency ‘which is subject to the control of another agency in accordance with Part 2’ is calling up the Part on State Emergency Management which in turn brings in the State Emergency Management Plan and the concept of combat agencies. Paragraph 705 of the New South Wales State Emergency Management Plan (December 2012) says:
Individual agencies are identified in relation to specific hazards (known as a Combat Agency) and are responsible for controlling the response operations. Controlling the response involves the overall direction of activities being undertaken by participating agencies and individuals.
I would read s 50(3)(b) as saying where there is a ‘combat agency controlled’ emergency (such as a fire (NSWF&R or NSW RFS) or flood (NSW SES)) then the rescue provisions don’t apply. But where the emergency is not one of those, eg a car accident or an electrocuted workman in a roof space, then they do. I do not think this is drawing any distinction between an ‘emergency’ (as defined in s 4) and something else.
In short, I don’t agree that it would be a ‘fairly long stretch to call a single or dual extraction an emergency’ given the definition in s 4 of the State Emergency and Rescue Management Act 1989 (NSW) (though it would not be an emergency that would warrant a declaration of a ‘state of emergency’ (s 33)). I would suggest a single vehicle accident requiring rescue would fit the common perception of emergency and the definition and is exactly what it’s intended to cover. What I find harder to fit in the definition is the single response – my ambulance to a heart attack example – but once you get at least two services attending that seems to me to be both significant and ideally, coordinated.
But what’s going to turn on it? If police are on scene with ambulance or fire or anyone else then I think that’s going to be a significant response and hopefully they’re all coordinated, and I can’t imagine that a court is going to rule that some action under ss 60L or 61 was unlawful, even if the officer involved was ‘satisfied that there [were] reasonable grounds for doing so for the purpose of protecting persons or animals from injury or death or protecting property’ but because it was just a single car (or aircraft) accident, that it was not an emergency. (Let me be careful here, because in the discussion of the conviction of the RFS firefighter for negligently making a u-turn the court found that there was no emergency and did refer to this definition, but the issue there was that at the time of the accident there was no threat to lives or property, not that it wasn’t a ‘significant and coordinated’ response).
As for ss 60KA, 60L and 61. First, remember that s 60KA is merely a definition section. Second I do agree that neither ss 60L or 61A require the ‘senior police officer’ to be ‘on scene’. In an earlier comment I did write, with respect to s 61 “A constable on scene could make a call to his or her supervising sergeant, describe the situation and ask for authority to take action under s 61(1).”
With respect to ‘The Senior Police Officer present at the scene of a rescue operation …’, the NSW State Rescue Policy (3rd ed, 2015) says at paragraph [3.03]:
Section 50 of the Act, states “The Senior Police Officer present at the scene of a rescue operation is responsible for coordinating and determining the priorities of action of the agencies engaged in the rescue operation.”
But the Policy is wrong. Section 50 does not say that. Section 50 says:
It doesn’t say anything about which police officer is to do that or that it has to be the ‘Senior Police Officer present at the scene …” And section 50 hasn’t been changed since 2013 so it didn’t have the words quoted in the State Rescue Policy even when the Policy was written.
Now remember this post isn’t really talking about rescue but about whether or not the provisions of s 62A [‘Certain damage to be covered by insurance’] can be brought into play. It’s my argument (albeit tenuous) that one could argue that the dispatch by VKG of the rescue service gives rise to an implied direction to the rescue squad to ‘tak[e] possession of, and remov[e] or destr[oy] of any material or thing in the danger area or any part of the danger area that may be dangerous to life or property or that may interfere with the response of emergency services to the emergency’. I think one could make that argument if there’s a sergeant on scene or, if there isn’t, because the rescue coordinator at VKG is a sergeant.
I don’t think it’s a strong argument or one that was intended by the legislatures. I also don’t think any rescue squad thinks it’s working under that direction – but if I was acting for a property owner (car or building) and their insurer was trying to avoid paying out because the damage was done by the rescue squad and not the car accident or whatever caused the injury to the workman I’d give it a run. And a judge who thought the insurers were being particularly obnoxious may find it an attractive path to allow a verdict in favour of the insured.
… the role of lawyers (at least sometimes) is to give a judge a path to the result the judge wants to deliver. In that case, going back to the original scenario, assume the building owner had insurance, the fire brigade have cut the roof open to rescue the workmen and the insurer is resisting the claim on the basis, say, that the rescue squad were on the premises at the invitation of the owner and did the damage with the owner’s consent. A judge may think this is pretty unreasonable so one might make this argument – that this was an implied direction under s 61(1) – in the hope that the judge will seize on that to compel the insurer to pay up. It’s a bit of a fiction but it’s not a completely untenable argument.
That’s why I’ve tried to construct an argument. An argument that I’d be willing to run to try and force a recalcitrant insurer to pay up if they were refusing to cover damage done by a rescue squad if it’s the type of damage that they would cover if done by someone else.
No problems. These are the sort of discussions we have amongst ourselves all the time. In a lot of ways, I personally would like to define what our intent for the current word ’emergency’ being called a disaster and have three categories (Incident, Emergency and Disaster). Just in our short discussion, it is easy to see an emergency in the popularly accepted context is different to the scale and coordination requirements for event I would take to be an emergency. But that sort of change to past thinking is not going to happen any time soon.
It is important also to keep in mind why our legislation is so broad in that an incident might become an emergency because the traditional response resources available locally do not have capacity to deal the event and thus require a whole of community response with its need for enhanced coordination.
The NSW legislation has to deal with the whole State and it abundance of resources in one area and lack of resources in others. Hence, the need to it to be somewhat ‘flexible’.
With the senior police officer at the scene of rescue, I’ll have to check but I may have mistakenly referred to either an old wording of the SERM Act. Things stick in your mind when they are drummed into you for years and then they change a word or phrase and the change doesn’t stick as it should on whether it was in this document or that.
One would have to check with each individual VKG Control Room on whether the VKG Rescue Coordinators were in fact all Sergeants of Police.
If FRNSW were activated in a GLR (General Land Rescue) capacity instead of a firefighting capacity, would that change the situation at all? I would assume FRNSW were activated in a GLR capacity in the situation detailed in this article.
Yes it does make a difference, which I’ve tried to explain in the post. Section 38(1) says that any “damage to property caused by … [NSWF&R] is to be considered to be damage by fire …” but s 38(2) says that rule “applies only in respect of damage to property caused … if those persons are or the property is endangered by fire or endangered by the escape or likely escape of hazardous material.”
If NSWF&R are responding as the accredited rescue unit – and there’s no fire or hazmat incident, then s 38(1) doesn’t apply. The point of the rest of the post was to consider whether I could make an argument to bring the result under a similar provision in the SERM Act.