Excerpts from wgem.com:
A wrongful death lawsuit is setting a new precedent for emergency agencies all over Illinois. A Joliet woman died after it took
respondersfirefighters 40 minutes to get her care. Her family sued the dispatcher, medics, and the fire department.Do emergency services owe you a certain level of care? That’s the question lawmakers are asking after the Illinois Supreme Court abolished the public duty doctrine, which protected services like 911 dispatchers, police and fire from getting sued.
“Because of the public duty doctrine, they do not owe a duty of care or responsibilty to any single individual,” said Quincy attorney Jim Rapp
Now that rule is out the window, and Rapp says it’s a concern.
“Now what will happen if the courts say there is a duty. Now what we have to do is examine how you responded, what did you do?”
But Rapp says the court has to prove willful and wanton negligence, which can be difficult.
Negligence, like injuring a patient or giving the wrong dose of medicine is different from failing to act, which would fall under not having enough resources available or not arriving fast enough. So what does it mean for local departments?
“It’ll probably limit what fire departments do,” said Chief Don Loos of Liberty Fire Protection District
The department often assists other agencies with on-scene services, like traffic control and clean up.
“With this, now I don’t know if we’ll be doing that. (We) won’t want to expose ourselves to more liability than need be,” Loos said.
Firefighters also try to respond to a call within 10-15 minutes, but that’s not a guarantee especially in volunteer departments. Now that could be an added concern.
“I hope it doesn’t come to a point where you call up 9-1-1 and get a recording first to say, “please realize that while we are going to receive your call, we cannot guarantee any future performance of our department,” Rapp added.
Illinois lawmakers have a bill on the table to reverse the supreme court decision and reinstate the public duty doctrine but there hasn’t been any recent action taken on it.
