Court Opinion

ID: 9536679
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:05:14.070799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:55:03.029076
License: Public Domain

Schwellenbach, J.
(concurring) — I believe that, having presented to the jury the issue of determining whether an emergency existed and whether there was need for immediate action, the court should instruct that, if such a determination is made, the rescuer, in effecting the rescue, must be guided by the standard of reasonable care under the circumstances. The italicized phrase should be explained to the jury. The standard of reasonable care under the circumstances of a rescue was succinctly stated by Justice Cardozo in Wagner v. International R. Co., 232 N. Y. 176, 133 N. E. 437:
“Danger invites rescue. The cry of distress is the summons to relief. The law does not ignore these reactions of the mind in tracing conduct to its consequences. It recognizes them as normal. It places their effects within the range of the natural and probable. The wrong that imperils life is a wrong to the imperilled victim; it is a wrong also to his rescuer. . . .
“The defendant says that we must stop, in following the chain of causes, when action ceases to be ‘instinctive.’ By this, is meant, it seems, that rescue is at the peril of the rescuer, unless spontaneous and immediate. If there has been' time to deliberate, if impulse has given way to judgment, one cause, it is said, has spent its force, and another has intervened . . . We find no warrant for thus shortening the chain of jural causes . . . The law does not discriminate between the rescuer oblivious of peril and the one who counts the cost. It is enough that the act, whether impulsive or deliberate, is the child of the occasion.”