December 13, 2018 • 46 mins
Good samaritan laws have been around for many years, helping to provide legal protections for people who try to help other people. But do they work? Decide for yourself today!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
And this is Stuff you Should Know, Just a trio
of helpful types who like to go around the world
(00:23):
and escort people through crosswalks and get sued for it
is escorting someone through a busy intersection against the light, right,
and then you get to the other side and hold
out your hand and say, lay some bread on me, sucker.
All these are bad ideas, they really are. They really are.
(00:44):
But I mean we're full of those, aren't we, Chuck,
I mean just brimming with them. That's our log line
to ten plus years of bad ideas? All right? Or
oh god, you've been listening to us this whole time?
Are you crazy? Oh boy? So you're feeling pretty good
about this one, because I gotta tell you I am. Yeah.
(01:06):
I mean, uh, if folks listen to our I think
dare I say it was a good episode on the
very sad Case of Kitty Genovese in New York. That
was a good episode. You can go back and listen
to that and that's a pretty good setup because in
that just to recap very quickly, in the mid sixties,
(01:26):
a young woman was was raped and killed in a
very busy area of New York City, and uh, it
was very famous because many many people um supposedly heard
the attack, watched the attack, perhaps didn't do anything, made
the news, and created something that they study still today
and UH in psychology classes called the bystander effect. Yeah,
(01:48):
this this idea of responsibility diffusion where if you have
a bunch of people standing around no one, everybody just
assumed somebody else will help, and they don't help. Yeah,
Joshua Clark or some help. Sure, leave it up to him.
And I'm sitting there like, well, obviously Chuck's gonna help.
He's a better person than me. And then we're both
just staying there and do nothing. Yeah. In the meantime,
(02:10):
Jerry's just laying there with like a jolly rancher in
her throat, right, But everybody knows she can't talk anyway,
so she can't call for help. It's very hard to
tell sometimes that Jerry's in need of assistance, or if
she's just being Jerry right, or if she even exists. However,
article says that, um, the bystander effect in this case
(02:30):
in particular, led to the first Good Samaritan laws in
our country. Yeah, that is not true, because two years
before that, right here in Georgia, our first laws went
into effect. Yeah. The one I found that was the
earliest was in nineteen fifty nine, five years before Kitty
Geneviz was murdered, and that was in California, and that
protected doctors who were administering aid in emergency situations. Hippie
(02:54):
liberal elitists out there right that the left coast. But
but the it's a weird thing to tie together the
bystander effect and good Samaritan laws because they don't actually
go together. They're not that you like, you want them
to fit together, but when you lay them side by side,
you're like, oh, these are these are two different types
(03:14):
of sea monkeys. I thought they were a husband and wife,
but they're not. Oh I see the correlation. I want to.
My brain just won't quite make the the connection. Like
if someone had raced down to help Kitty Genevise and
render her aid and not been a bystander, then they
could you know, that falls into the Good Samaritan laws
(03:36):
it does, but really it falls more under like the
duty to act laws, like you'll get in trouble if
you if you are just a bystander if you don't
do something, whereas a good Samaritan law basically says, if
you do do something and you help Kitty Genevise or
somebody who's in trouble and you make their situation worse,
(03:58):
you can't be sued for for rendering eight because you
were acting in good faith. So it's kind of there,
but it's not quite. It doesn't click. I got you,
you know what I'm saying. I hear you, all right, Okay,
I just really wanted to get that off of my chest. Well,
uh so, yeah, you just kind of said it like
those those laws are in place now as protections generally,
(04:22):
um for American that they happened all over the world.
We'll talk about a few of the laws here and there,
but uh, all fifty states and Washington, d C. The
the District of Columbia have some sort of laws on
the books, uh that that you can basically be protected
potentially and not held responsible for your actions even if
(04:44):
they cause harm. But because it's state law, if you're
not American, I'm not sure how it works in all countries,
but they the laws and from states to stay it
on the same thing and very wildly. Yeah, and certainly
in this case, it's what they call a patch work
of state laws in need of a federal law for sure. Yeah,
for sure. So because there's so many different laws in
(05:07):
so many different states. Um, you know, if the actions
that you you perform in one state might get you,
you know, you might get your mug on the front
page of the paper being celebrated, and in another state
your mugs on the front page of the paper because
you just got sued, you know. So we'll we'll dive
into that a little more. But first let's talk about
(05:28):
where the name for the laws come from. Chalk. Yeah,
I remember this story from my church going days as
a kid. That really stood out to me back then
because uh, well it's in Luke and the story is
is that a Jewish man was assaulted and robbed on
the road and left for dead basically, and some people
(05:51):
passed by without rendering aid. A Jewish priest and a levite,
which is an assistant priest basically or assistant to the priest.
Do you have the impression that the priest and the
levite were together, or that the priest passed and then
at some point later on the levite passed. You know
what this is going back a lot of years, dude.
But if my memory is telling me that they were
(06:15):
two separate things, Okay, I knew that question would pay
you all. But I might be wrong. But my my
old I still have some old church memories rattling around
in this dusty noggin. You just saw like smoke come
out of my ears. I thought that was a flower.
Oh sure, well, I'm gluten free though, Oh are you? No,
(06:37):
Emily is so by default? I sometimes I am right? Sure, No,
I know what you mean. You know that goes. But finally,
as the story goes, a Samaritan um that is a
person from Samaria who were bitter enemies of the Jews,
came by. And what did he do? He said, Hey, buddy,
you look like you're having a pretty rotten day. Let
(06:58):
me help you out, that's right. And he did. He
not only said here, let me let me pick you
up and get you out of this dusty road. Um,
I'm gonna take you to an inn. And not only
am I gonna do that, I'm gonna pay for your
room at the end, and then I'm gonna say it,
bid you a good day and good health. Audios. Enemy
(07:19):
And he did imagine this chuck this Good Samaritan story.
It's entirely possible that this actually took place, That this
is a real story that happened, right, it's not just
a parable. Imagine if you were that guy, that Samaritan
who did this thing, this act of goodwill, and two
thousand years later, people around the world are still talking
(07:42):
about it. How great would that happy? You know? Yeah,
like twenty minutes after our show ends, no one's going
to talk about it, right, you know, just like all
of this the talk shows we've been on the kiss
of death that we have. Uh. But for sure, I
mean every even if you are like the most atheistic
(08:04):
agnostic human on earth, you've heard of the story of
the Good Samaritan. It's just one of those things that
is is transcended religion into pop culture. Yeah, and I
had never known that at the time. Like you said,
the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other, um And
apparently I looked it up. They really really did not
like each other. It wasn't just like over religious stuff.
It was over political stuff too, and how those things intertwined.
(08:27):
So they really did not get along. So not only
did this guy help somebody in need, he helped an
an enemy in need. So I think he does deserve
to be to be commemorated for eons over that. Sure,
But that's where the name of the law comes from.
Good Samaritan laws are when you stop and help somebody,
whether it's your enemy or your friend, um, in an
(08:48):
emergency situation, typically you are you should not be penalized
if your good intentions cause further harm, right, which seems
very much like a no brainer, But it is complicated.
The more you read into this stuff, the more you're like, man,
there's a lot of nuance to to the variations of
(09:12):
these laws. Yeah. The more you read into it, the
more you're like, I am going to end up second
guessing myself the next time in pace with an emergency situation,
Like I hadn't thought about it before, but it's like, yeah,
you could totally get sued for helping somebody out, depending
on where you are. Yeah, I've never come across this,
not even close what an emergency situation I have I have? Yeah,
(09:36):
it was I was one of many at an accident.
I witnessed the accident. It was like one of those
things where you see it happening, you just see it
in slow motion and you're just like trying to will
it to stop with your body and it doesn't work.
It was a man who got te bowed by another
car that he didn't see coming. Um and uh. I
was one of the people on the scene kind of
(09:56):
helping out. It didn't even occur to me that that
that that man could be like these people hurt me,
you know, in in helping I didn't touch the guy
or anything like that, but I mean other people were
and um, you know, we called for help and all that,
so I think we did it about as good as
you can. But nothing about the situation was like, well
(10:17):
I need to I need to watch out for my
legal exposure here, like something real quick, like where what
state of my end? Let me just check out what's
going on as this like you know, person is bleeding
in the street exactly, but it is nuanced and and
after reading some of these examples, I I you know,
I get both sides of the coin for sure. So
(10:39):
I mean, for example, like there are a couple of
things that all of this patchwork of of um of
the Good Samaritan laws will will have in common. Basically two,
as this article states. One is that you can't be
compensated for helping out. And that's a pretty literal reading
of the law. I think it's meant to exempt emergency workers, paramedics,
(11:03):
doctors like they they've got their their whole own set
of laws governing their actions or inactions, right, so to
keep them from giving preferential treatment. I think it's mostly
to say this is meant to um, this is this
is my interpretation of it um. But from what I've
seen with Good Samaritan laws, it's it's totally in the
eye of the beholder. But the the that's meant to say,
(11:26):
like this covers non medical professionals is who we're talking about.
And to to define that, they're saying this is this
covers somebody who isn't compensated for their assistance, and that's
been transmuted into you can't be compensated for your assistance
or else that that leaves you exposed to legal action later.
So when you were sort of getting around at the
(11:48):
beginning though, but if if you saved let's say perform
the Timli at a restaurant and the persons like, man,
you just say, my life, here's a here's a fins key, right,
don't take that five dollar bill and also throw it
back in their face and say this is what your
life is worth, right exactly? And they say, yeah, I
don't really love myself. Well, then then you introduced them
(12:11):
to a good analyst and go about your day. Analyst?
What is that? Would mind a New Yorker in the seventies.
You sound like Carrie Green. Nobody says analysts anymore. It
was weird. I think that's what Bob Newhart was, was he?
I think? I think yeah, he did consider himself as
an analyst. That seems like an antiquated term though. Yes,
(12:33):
now it's therapist, right or shrink Yeah yeah, shrink head
shrinker I think is the preferred term. Yeah. I don't know.
I would have been in a while. Oh yeah, years.
It's good. It's good. Good to go talk to people,
you know what I mean? Like, yeah, but I got
it all figured out now. Oh well, that's good. You're
cured is what they call that. Yeah, they cured me.
I hope they gave your shrinking award. Yeah, do you
(12:55):
know what the cure is? What is not really thinking
about things too much? Yeah, that's a good that's good advice.
Now I'm just kidding because people have real problems, but
I never have had the real problems. Yeah yeah, yeah,
But I think like even if you don't have like
real problems, if you don't have like, you know, some
sort of chemical imbalance or diagnosable condition, just about anybody
(13:16):
can benefit from time to time to go just talk.
It's not even necessarily the counselor helping you, as just
being in a situation where you're talking out loud and
talking through your problems to find out what you actually think.
It's very helpful. Yeah. I mean I do that at
my doctor and my dentist and they're like, dude, we
don't want to hear this. Go see see an analyst.
(13:37):
You're like, well, I know I'm knocking out two birds
of once time. So uh, all right, let's go over
just a couple of these. I mean, like I said,
they're they're different everywhere, but there was one other thing chucky.
So I said that there were two things in common,
and one of them is you can't be competition. The
other one almost across the board with any any law
(13:58):
you're gonna find is that you can't act recklessly, recklessly negligently. Wow,
let's tough to get out. You would not hold up
in court. I'd be like, give me my five dollars
as your lawyer, or maybe that's your defense, you're like
your honor. I can't even says, um, Yeah, those are
(14:19):
two important uh factors for these laws for sure. Yeah,
Like that's that's what they all have in common generally, Right,
that's right. But from there, like if you go to Oklahoma,
let's say, you're only um given protection uh if you
are untrained, Like you're just a regular person, right, You're
(14:40):
not a a medic, let's say, or a doctor, and
only if you're giving CPR or trying to stop blood loss. Right,
that's weirdly specific. I've seen that, Like, Um, that that's
that's you could say that. That was the third thing
that they all have in common, Like, if you're administering
CPR or something really basic that any person would want
(15:02):
to do or try to do, Um, you're probably protected
by a good Samaritan law. Yeah, and defribrillators are covered
in a lot of these laws since those have really gotten.
I guess, just more common like the you know, the
and I looked into buying one of those. They're expensive, though, Yeah,
you looked into buying one. Yeah, just carry around with you, No,
(15:23):
not to carry around, but to uh to have like
not in my car. I got you, Um, so you could,
I mean you could help somebody stranding on the side
of the road with a jumper cable or get their
ticket going again. The key I've heard is that when
you're um, when you're setting them up to be defibrillated,
you have to shout hot stuff right before you engage it.
(15:46):
I thought they would be like three or four bucks.
How much are they? I don't I mean thousands of dollars.
I can't remember how many thousands, but it was enough
to where I just kind of closed the browser and
went in a cool news or something. Well, you know,
God bless those malls in America and having them every
ten feet and keeping us all safe. Sure, I'm sure
(16:07):
their insurance helps pay for that. I guess you cynic Uh.
Here's another one in Vermont. You can be fined actually
if you are a bystander and don't do anything. I
kind of love this one. Yeah, this is This is
what I think the law should be. You know, get
a penalty and unless you're jumping in there. Yeah, and
(16:28):
I mean obviously not putting your own life in jeopardy.
Like this is not like if you see somebody getting
mugged you have to go wrestle the gun away from
the guy or jumping into the frozen Potomac River. Sure,
but that if you see someone in need and you
just keep walking by, you should you should suffer some
sort of consequence for that. You should act. Um that
(16:50):
I mean, this is a this is a very slippery
slope right here, because compelling people to act, that's that's
a big that's a big infringement on personal liberty. Yeah,
But at the same time, it's kind of like, come on,
you know, if you have to invigorate somebody's humanity with
a little bit of law here there, I'm kind of
in favorite the um. One of my favorite stories that
(17:12):
I can ever see on any news program is when
you see a group of people coming together to like
and saving people is great too, but like to pull
a goat out of a river or something, and there's
like the guy with the truck and another guy's like
I got rope and this lady comes up and it's
like I'm a goat whisperer. Uh, And they all like
(17:33):
you see, like six or eight strangers come together to
to rescue like an animal. But they tied the best
They tied the not too tight and accidentally pull the
goat in two and then the goat SEUs. That's how
it goes uh. And then Michigan just forget about it,
like it is so convoluted and weird. In Michigan, um
(17:54):
they protect people who declined to offer assistance, but then
they also protect like what is it ski patrol? Um?
What else? There's like three very weirdly specific If you're
a block parent, which means that you your house is
designated as a safe place. You know, the safe place
(18:15):
signs that you see on seven elevens and stuff I've
never noticed. It's if you're a little kid and you
some some stranger danger guy in a trench coat is
following you, you can run into a thing that has
a safe place and they will protect you and call
the cops and call your parents. In Michigan, I guess
you can volunteer as a person whose house is a
safe place and you're you're exempted through Good Samaritan laws, right,
(18:40):
but you show up in there like you're in a
house state fan you can't come in uh so potential
as sisters, medical personnel block, parent volunteers and National Ski
Patrol in Michigan, or if you're giving CPR or using
an emergency defibrillator. Again, I think the pretty well that's
(19:01):
like covered almost across the board. That's like the one
area that they just want to make sure that everyone
once you know, we would jump in on. Yeah, I
think so, And I think that's one of the reasons
why they make them so prominent in in public. I mean,
it's not like you have to break glass and there's
like a fire hose that you have to know how
to get off and turn the thing on. Like it's
meant for the public to go grab and use, not
(19:22):
just for emergency personnel, because using a defibrillator in a
in a timely manner has such an impact on on
the survival rate from a heart attack that you want
people walking around knowing how to use one and ready
to use one in an emergency situation. Argentina, this is tricky. Yeah,
you could face jail time for either putting a person
(19:44):
in jeopardy or abandoning a person to their fate. It's
a real fine line, it is, for sure, Like I
think if you yeah, it is a tricky one. I
went back and reread it too, and I'm like, nope,
that's that's a tricky one. But i'd the idea of
abandoning to them to their fate if they need help,
like somebody on a mountain or something like that, and
(20:07):
just being like sorry, chump and walking along. I like
that idea that you you have to do something for them,
you're saying, right, You like the idea of just saying, well,
it's kind of in God's hands. Now, that's Michigan. Michigan
protects that, right. Should we take a break, Yeah, it's
all right. Let's take a break, and we're going to
talk about a very interesting case from California about fifteen
(20:30):
years ago right after this. Alright, dude, we're back and
(20:55):
we're in California and during the ad break, we got
in the way back machine and it's two thous in four. Yeah,
oh wait, I was still living there. Oh yeah, we're
gonna run into you. I've arranged it. I just didn't
know you I'm like, who's that guy? I got in
touch with past Chuck and I said, you're gonna want
to meet somebody special. You're like, just wait for that
beard you're gonna have one day. I'm like, what, I
(21:17):
don't know, I can't grow beard. Yeah, and he'll be like, well,
at least I got all my teeth. That checks out.
Oh the salad days. Um? All right, So this case
is really interesting. Uh. Lisa Torti and Alexandra van Horne
were makeup artists that worked together, um friendly acquaintances as
(21:40):
co workers, but I didn't get the picture that they
were like best buddies or anything. Yeah, I would guess
the lawsuit implies that they weren't. So they went out
as a as a group of not just those two,
but a bunch of people from work went out for
some drinks in the l A area. One of them,
Alexandra van Horn, was headed back and crashed her car.
(22:03):
Pretty bad crash. I think it was like into a
telephone bowl. Yeah really yeah, She's like all the air
bags deployed. Uh. Lisa Torti was I saw this, got
out of her car, saw smoke, saw liquid and was like,
I think this this car might explode. I need to
do something quick and pulled Alexandra Van Horn from the car,
(22:27):
which seems like it had a hand in in paralyzing her. Yeah.
I mean, that's one thing you want to really be
careful doing is moving somebody, and you probably don't want
to move them at all. But again, Lisa Torty thought
that Alexandra Van Horne's car was about to blow up,
so she decided that she was better off trying to
get her out of the car, and in court, Van
(22:49):
Horne said that Torty yanked her from the car like
a rag doll. Yeah. Um, Torty said, the smoke, the smoke,
and and I mean, looking back on it, it's probably
it was Annie Freeze on a hot hot motor. But
even still, she acted in good faith and so California's
Good Samaritan laws. She said, you can't sue me. I
was trying to help you, um, in an emergency situation. Sorry,
(23:13):
the good Samaritan laws cover this. And by the way,
I'm no longer speaking to you. Yeah. Probably so. Uh.
It went all the way to the California Supreme Court,
where they ruled that um she could sue her friend
and co worker because protection at that time, at least
for the Good Samaritan law was only for those administering
medical care, not rescue care. Well, so the law said
(23:37):
that it was emergency care, and the court interpreted that
to mean medical care, which was like what And the
legislature even said, like, no, that's not at all how
we meant it. Interesting. Yeah, in fact, they amended the
law the next year to say specifically medical or non
medical emergency care. But that vagueness got um got least
(24:00):
a torty suited. Yeah, And I was it's hard to
find out sometimes final results of legal cases. We've like
had that problem, I feel like a lot over the years. Yeah.
The media they have a short attention span. Well it's that,
and I think sometimes these things are just still dragging out.
Oh really, you think it's still going on? I think
so because I found an article from like three years ago. Uh,
(24:20):
because I was just trying to find out what happened
with the lawsuit, and apparently, um, the woman who pulled
the woman being sued TORTI had two different insurance companies,
of one of which said I'm not getting involved in this,
the other of which said, you know what, I'm gonna
we're gonna agree to defend you against the lawsuit. It
(24:42):
was settled for four million dollars and then the one
insurance company that agreed to help defender sued. The other
insurance company said you got a pony up half of this,
and um, the last thing I saw was a district
court judge ruled or the defendants insurance company, in other words,
(25:03):
the one that said I don't want any part of this,
you don't have to pay. But then it said, uh,
an appellet panel reversed that decision on Wednesday, and that's
literally the last thing I could find. Wow. Wow, that
is still dragging on. Holy cow, Chuck. Yeah, I mean
I don't I don't know. There may be something newer
out there, but uh, there are probably tricks that legal
scholars know that I don't know about researching this stuff.
(25:26):
I mean, what does that say, Chuck, that that like
an insurance company can just be like where your insurance company,
but we're not We're not touching this one. Well, it
was complicated though, because it was it was insurance. It
wasn't like just insurance for me walking around if I
want to help someone. It was car insurance. So it was.
(25:46):
It all came down to whether or not it was
considered a use of a car by her opening that
door and unbuckling her seatbelt and pulling her out, whether
that was using the car. I got very comple a
little more sense, though, you know how like convoluted that
stuff gets though it does for sure, But that whole
(26:09):
like so the whole legality of this whole thing, um
that that made that whole Lisa Torty in Alexandro van
Horn case, I mean I heard about that when that
was going on. Everybody heard about that case because it
was like, well, wait a minute, she was trying to help,
and now she's getting sued and wire why are friends fighting?
That whole kind of thing. That was two thousand four,
(26:30):
and then two years later China started to rise as
a great power of anti good samaritanism um in a
lot of different cases, and all of it started in
two thousand six in the case of Peg You, who
(26:50):
was a man who got off of a bus in
China and saw that an older woman had fallen and
um broken her hip, and so she had been trying
to get on the bus paying you was coming off
of the bus, and um he went to go help
the lady. Well, the lady later said that he was
the one who caused her to fall and sued him,
(27:11):
and he was like, I'm just an innocent by Sander
who was being a good samaritan helping this lady. Well,
the the court said, note, paying You, we we've decided that, um,
you probably did cause the fall. Otherwise why else would
you have helped the lady? And there's more nuance to it.
There were there were a couple of things. Paying You
said he was the first one off the bus, and
(27:31):
the court said, well, then you were probably the person
to bump into the lady and knock her down. And also,
why did you give her twenty you on um which
is about thirty bucks? Uh if if you didn't feel responsible.
And then thirdly, if you were acting heroically, why didn't
you go apprehend the person who knocked her down? Why
would you go help So there's a little more to
(27:51):
it than just like nobody would possibly help someone out
of the goodness of their hearts. So you're guilty. But
that's kind of how I got played up in the
popular media, both in China and in the rest of
the world, and so paying You became this cautionary tale
like if you see somebody hurt in the street, don't
help them because they will sue you. And people started
to do that, and so people in China until in
(28:14):
a few really big cases, sensational cases, did just that.
They stopped helping people who clearly needed help, and people
were dying as a result. Yeah, I mean they were.
I mean there's just one case I can't even talk about. Uh,
but it was just awful. You know. People not helping
people clearly in need became sort of an epidemic in China. Uh,
(28:39):
until they finally changed some law in what just last year,
I think a National Good Samaritan law in two thousand
seventeen that does offer protections. But he sa in that
one article that, uh, it was like it's out of
hand in China. Now in the other way because this
this one. Uh. Donald Clark, a law professor who actually
(29:01):
specializes in Chinese law at g W, said that in China,
you can like see someone choking in a restaurant and
attempt a tracheotomy with a butter knife with no training
and be covered and you won't can't be sued, which
is I think everyone would agree that's that's a little
too far. Yeah, no matter what you do, you cannot
(29:24):
be held liable for acting as a good samaritan, even
if it's the most reckless, negligent thing you can imagine,
trying something you're not familiar with at all, you can't
be sued. And so some people said, well, not only
does this article on this new law um cover it
goes too far and covering people protecting people, it doesn't
(29:45):
address the problem, which is this culture of distrust that's
been kind of fostered by these judges who are ruling
in favor of people who are accusing the good samaritans
that have helped them of actually causing their injury and
create this chilling effect and helping people, I mean people
literally elderly people getting hit by cars and being left
(30:06):
in the street as people walk around them, and then
being hit by another car and killed later on, like
a half hour later, Like this was happening, This is
going on, and people wouldn't go anywhere near these people
because they were afraid that they were going to get sued.
And and and it was mostly because judges um in
in the court system, we're saying they were siding with
(30:29):
people with zero evidence whatsoever, just basically on a suspicion
of someone's good intentions. Yeah, I mean that original case
when they said, uh, what was the man's name? Again?
Paying you? Paying you? They had no evidence whatsoever. It's
not like it was on uh close caption television or
anything like that. It was just like you said, the
(30:50):
judge going, it seems to me like it's pretty weird
that you would have helped had you not been the
one that actually not dropped to begin with. Exactly. So,
I mean, it's good that kin has this good Samaritan law,
and it's it's a very broad law and it probably
needs to be walked back a little bit. But um,
they also need to go after the judges are the
(31:12):
I guess kind of the sentiment or thought process of
judges that kind of just says, why would you help
somebody out if you weren't, if you weren't the one
that caused the accident. Until they do that, and until
they go after this group um pengshi, which are basically crooks,
people who like lay down in front of cars and
pretend they got hit, um and then sue the people
(31:35):
and are frequently found like they're ruled in favor of
their case. Until that is rooted out, that people are
still going to be distrustful of helping people who are
in need. Yeah, and that even the van Horn case.
I mean, I know she's trying to help, but like
you're not supposed to move people, you know, like everyone
(31:56):
kind of knows that. And this woman ended up paralyzed,
And if it was a act results of that, then
I don't know, it's is that's a tough one. You know.
Well they say that the road to hell is paved
with good intentions. That's kind of like where that that lies. Yeah,
I mean I feel bad for both parties for sure.
For sure, because this the twitty was legitimately trying to help.
(32:19):
She wasn't like, well, let me do something that might
really hurt my coworker further. She thought that car was
going to blow up. Yea, you know, so let's get
her out of there, right exactly. It wasn't like, you know,
she'd always harbored some deep resentment of her, so this
is her chance to paralyze her. Yeah, you know, not
funny at all for the way that you said. So
(32:41):
we should probably take a break. Then we're gonna we're
gonna recover from that and distract you with an ad okay, yes, okay, chuck.
(33:09):
So there's another big push in Good Samaritan laws in
the United States. It's interesting how they're kind of like
refined as as things go on, but there's this thread,
the sentiment that runs through them that's like, Okay, we
need to make sure that people aren't don't hesitate in
helping their fellow their fellow human in need. Yeah, a
lot of these, uh, I mean, it's labeled as special
(33:32):
interest good Samaritan laws, but these these are great, like
it makes a lot of sense, especially well, they all do.
But this one about the food donation um. In the
mid ninety nineties, there was a realization that a lot
of food was going to waste fourteen billion pounds, specifically
of food going to landfills when people in America needed
(33:54):
that food. And uh, you know you've toward stories about
grocery stores or can't be held liabel, so they just
have to throw that stuff away. So they passed the
Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which is to
provide some protections in case you donate food and someone
gets sick from eating that food, right exactly, So I
(34:16):
remember back when when grocery stores did have to throw
that away before that law, and it was just so
wasteful and so just morally wrong. So they passed that
one good year for passing laws, I guess. Uh. And
then there's even newer kind of push of good Samaritan
(34:37):
laws that are protecting college kids who drink too much
even though they're underage. They might be worried, oh man,
I'm gonna get expelled or kicked out of college if
I call for help. And so apparently that some of
them weren't calling for help, and so some universities I
think it's up to thirty universities in thirty five states
now have something called Lifeline or nine one one good
(35:00):
Samaritan law where if you call for help for yourself
or for somebody else who's had too much to drink,
and it's like a medical emergency, you won't get in
trouble for having been drinking under age. But it's laid
the groundwork for UM uh, like a larger law about
opioid abuse that we really kind of need. That's a
good Samaritan law for UM that that protects people who
(35:24):
are calling for somebody who's overdosing on heroin UM where
under normal circumstances they might hesitate because they're on heroin
themselves and they don't want to get busted for it. Yeah,
what's uh. It's called an alex ozone and this is uh.
Basically it comes list like an EpiPen now and it's
(35:44):
something that cops have in their emergency kits. And uh,
just like an EpiPen, is something that a civilian can use.
You don't have to have medical training. If someone is
overdosing on an on heroin or some other kind of opioid,
you just inject this thing and that can save their life.
And so junkies don't want to call the ambulance or
(36:04):
the cops or whatever, just the same as an underage
college kid doesn't want to call the cops. So they're
often described as medical amnesty laws. Uh. And and it
is great, you know, this is exactly and it's making
a difference. There was one study in two thousand two
at Cornell about the alcohol one and they said there
(36:25):
was a rise from to fifty of UM counseling sessions
attended by students in two thousand four because students weren't afraid,
you know, I'm nineteen years old or whatever and I
need help. So they you know, it's it's shown that
it's working, and I think the same as is going
on with this uh uh an alex oon drug. Right. Yeah,
(36:48):
so like the anallexon, it kind of has its own
protection where whether you're somebody who's on heroin or not,
if you administer that, you could be a medical professional.
It's like such a new thing um that that they've
they've realized they need a specific good Samaritan law for
that to cover anybody who's administering um analex oone, like
(37:10):
if they do some damage or whatever, they were still
trying to help. But then also if you're like on
heroin yourself, just calling nine one one, you can have
immunity in some states from getting busted for heroin for
being on it yourself, so like, hey, we're gonna save
you and you're under arrest, right, which I guess is
is still in some states it's still a possibility. And
(37:32):
you don't like, you don't want people worrying about whether
they're going to get pop themselves and then saying well
I can't really call for you know, shorty juju over here,
which is I guess the heroin users name. You know,
so the heroin user who's overdosing, who would otherwise live,
(37:55):
dies because they're the person they're shot up with, Like
is too worried about getting busted themselves. Because the last
thing a heroin addict or drug addict might do in
the throes of that drug is think, let me call
a cop or right, you know what, I need a
police officer. They might help. Uh, they'd say, like as
(38:15):
far as advice goes for good samaritans, Um, this article,
you know, counsels people to think sensibly. Uh. Most states
do have laws to protect people that if you're doing
something reasonable to try and help, which all goes back
to you know, the split second is kind of tough,
but that all goes back to what you're saying, like
(38:37):
reasonable maneuvers to help somebody, you know, Yeah, Like I
mean it's not necessarily like, um, like don't try the tracheotomy,
right right, right? So yeah, so that kind of ties
into a second point, like don't try things you're not
trained to do, and it just kind of ties into
reasonable Like is is trying to administer CPR a reasonable thing?
(38:57):
If you come upon somebody who's not breathing. Yes, totally reasonable.
Um is it? Is it? You know, unreasonable to try
to like get their heart going by by pumping their
arms up and down and accidentally dislocating the shoulder. It's
probably not going to be protected by a good Samaritan law. Yeah,
but how much can you get sued for for a
broken collar bone? Probably a lot, especially if the person
(39:19):
is like a ping pong player or a professional illustrator.
Right exactly. You like ping pong? I love it. We
need to do an episode on ping pong. I love
ping pong too. I'm surprised we never squared out squared off.
I am as well, Chuck, Well, we've never been in
the same room as a ping pong table. That's that's
(39:39):
That's what I was thinking. I was going to make
a camp joke, but you beat me to the truth. Uh,
you got anything else? Oh? Yes, I do. There's one
thing that came up, if you don't mind talking about it,
the Seinfeld thing about it? Do you remember how that
final the Final right right? Yeah, which is like the
(40:01):
least funny episode of Seinfeld ever. But it had like
a weird message when when the gang gets gets put
in jail for watching a guy I think it was
Jonathan Pinnett get carjacked by somebody with a gun and
just sitting there making fun of them while they're videotaping it, right,
And that kind of raised the site this it kind
(40:22):
of ties into good Samaritan laws. A lot of people
are like, can you actually is there any place in
the country where you can get get in trouble for
that kind of thing, And it turns out no, it's
that kind of falls into that duty to act law,
um where you are in some places like Vermont or
I think in California, under some circumstances, you are required
(40:44):
to report a crime, but you're not required to actually intervene.
And that was like kind of that big point I
made earlier at the beginning of the episode. That's a
big distinction, right, And not only are you, um you know,
not required to interview and you're not even required to
report the crime during the commission of their crime. For
most duty to act laws, you just can't walk away
(41:08):
and pretend you never saw anything. That's the key, um,
that's where you will get prosecuted. So the Seinfeld gang
probably would not have gone to jail. And this article
that I read quotes a guy who is an attorney
in San Diego. Um named somebody Lists. Oh man, I
wish I could remember the guy's name. No, not Franz List,
(41:31):
who is a great, great composer, but a l I
s s. Yeah, his name was Peter List. He's a
criminal lawyer from San Diego ended up in this article.
He basically says, not only should they not have gone
to jail, they provided very valuable evidence by recording the
entire crime, So let him off the hook. Has there
(41:52):
ever been a tougher show to end than Seinfeld? I
don't know. Yeah, probably not, but they really chose as
a very specific, unsatisfying way to do it. What about Sopranos?
Everybody hated how that ended? Yeah, I didn't. Uh. I
love the Sopranos, but then moved to l A during
(42:13):
its run and didn't have TV, so I quit watching it.
But I do remember all the hoopla. But sein Felt
just one of those I mean that the last episode stunk,
But it's just a hard show to end because you can't.
It was the most un sentimental show probably in TV history. Sure,
and most shows have a finale that is highly sentimental,
(42:35):
and you just You couldn't do that on Seinfeld. It
would not have been true to the show. So I
don't know what I would have done. It's a tough one.
It is a tough one. Maybe it was a perfect
ending and it just wasn't a great episode. You could
make that case for sure. You know, I'd like to
hear maybe if someone had a better idea. Okay, right,
rewrite the Seinfeld finale. Yeah, in a hundreds and sixty
(42:57):
characters are less two to us or you forty? Now,
what is that? It's weird anyway? Uh, I think that's
the end of this episode. We kind of let this
peter out to huh yep, Okay, if you want to
learn more about good Samaritan laws, that's actually a tip.
Go learn your state and or country's good Samaritan laws
so you know what to do in your ever faced
(43:18):
with an emergency situation. And since I said that, it's
time for listener mail. Uh, this one's great. I'm just
gonna call it great email. Uh, guys, in the spirit
of Thanksgiving, in this glass of wine I'm drinking, I
want to reach out and tell you I'll thankful I
am for you. I've been listening to the show for
a few years, and your comforting voices, light dad, humor,
(43:40):
and interesting topics have become increasingly important to me. My
brother passed away almost two years ago at the age
of us, an incredible soul and would have loved your show.
I had trouble falling asleep for a while and began
playing your podcast when my mind was racing and I
needed the distraction. I fell asleep to many interesting topics
for months, and I greatly appreciate your help through the
sad times. Last year, I sailed from Seattle to San
(44:03):
Diego with my uncle and father. This was the scariest
and most exhilarating trip I've ever taken ever. Uh we
kept a watch system two hours on and four hours off.
During my first two hour night watch alone, I was
scared poop place with no land in sight in my
life that's secured to the boat. I plugged in my
(44:24):
headphones and listened to the Stuff you Should Know Selects
Fecal Transplants episode. Midway through my watch, a pot of
porpoises started following and playing with the boat. I can
only spot their phosphorescence, but I was so darn happy
sitting there in the cold and dark listening to you
both talk about poop while watching the porpoises create tubes
of glitter in the Pacific. Uh, can you imagine that? Dude?
(44:48):
That's amazing, and our voices didn't ruin it. I know. Uh,
this brought me so much comfort in a time of
such great discomfort. Now you've heard it before, and at
the risk of sounding sappy, your podcast brings comfort in
alway to your listeners, and we appreciate you. My brother's
birthdays tomorrow and I have been catching up on your
latest episodes thinking about the time you help me get through,
and I wanted to say thank you. Thanks for being
(45:10):
there for me in a weird way, and thank you
for your friendship and your jokes and your comfort. And
that is Jane from Seattle. Awesome, Jane, thank you so
much for letting us know that story. That's like the
deer on the Tracks story that Will Wheaton hadn't stand
by me. That's right, that's a pretty cool story. Yeah,
it's a good one. If you want to get in
(45:30):
touch with us, like Jane did to let us know
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(45:53):
this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
works dot com
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
And this is Stuff you Should Know, Just a trio
of helpful types who like to go around the world
(00:23):
and escort people through crosswalks and get sued for it
is escorting someone through a busy intersection against the light, right,
and then you get to the other side and hold
out your hand and say, lay some bread on me, sucker.
All these are bad ideas, they really are. They really are.
(00:44):
But I mean we're full of those, aren't we, Chuck,
I mean just brimming with them. That's our log line
to ten plus years of bad ideas? All right? Or
oh god, you've been listening to us this whole time?
Are you crazy? Oh boy? So you're feeling pretty good
about this one, because I gotta tell you I am. Yeah.
(01:06):
I mean, uh, if folks listen to our I think
dare I say it was a good episode on the
very sad Case of Kitty Genovese in New York. That
was a good episode. You can go back and listen
to that and that's a pretty good setup because in
that just to recap very quickly, in the mid sixties,
(01:26):
a young woman was was raped and killed in a
very busy area of New York City, and uh, it
was very famous because many many people um supposedly heard
the attack, watched the attack, perhaps didn't do anything, made
the news, and created something that they study still today
and UH in psychology classes called the bystander effect. Yeah,
(01:48):
this this idea of responsibility diffusion where if you have
a bunch of people standing around no one, everybody just
assumed somebody else will help, and they don't help. Yeah,
Joshua Clark or some help. Sure, leave it up to him.
And I'm sitting there like, well, obviously Chuck's gonna help.
He's a better person than me. And then we're both
just staying there and do nothing. Yeah. In the meantime,
(02:10):
Jerry's just laying there with like a jolly rancher in
her throat, right, But everybody knows she can't talk anyway,
so she can't call for help. It's very hard to
tell sometimes that Jerry's in need of assistance, or if
she's just being Jerry right, or if she even exists. However,
article says that, um, the bystander effect in this case
(02:30):
in particular, led to the first Good Samaritan laws in
our country. Yeah, that is not true, because two years
before that, right here in Georgia, our first laws went
into effect. Yeah. The one I found that was the
earliest was in nineteen fifty nine, five years before Kitty
Geneviz was murdered, and that was in California, and that
protected doctors who were administering aid in emergency situations. Hippie
(02:54):
liberal elitists out there right that the left coast. But
but the it's a weird thing to tie together the
bystander effect and good Samaritan laws because they don't actually
go together. They're not that you like, you want them
to fit together, but when you lay them side by side,
you're like, oh, these are these are two different types
(03:14):
of sea monkeys. I thought they were a husband and wife,
but they're not. Oh I see the correlation. I want to.
My brain just won't quite make the the connection. Like
if someone had raced down to help Kitty Genevise and
render her aid and not been a bystander, then they
could you know, that falls into the Good Samaritan laws
(03:36):
it does, but really it falls more under like the
duty to act laws, like you'll get in trouble if
you if you are just a bystander if you don't
do something, whereas a good Samaritan law basically says, if
you do do something and you help Kitty Genevise or
somebody who's in trouble and you make their situation worse,
(03:58):
you can't be sued for for rendering eight because you
were acting in good faith. So it's kind of there,
but it's not quite. It doesn't click. I got you,
you know what I'm saying. I hear you, all right, Okay,
I just really wanted to get that off of my chest. Well,
uh so, yeah, you just kind of said it like
those those laws are in place now as protections generally,
(04:22):
um for American that they happened all over the world.
We'll talk about a few of the laws here and there,
but uh, all fifty states and Washington, d C. The
the District of Columbia have some sort of laws on
the books, uh that that you can basically be protected
potentially and not held responsible for your actions even if
(04:44):
they cause harm. But because it's state law, if you're
not American, I'm not sure how it works in all countries,
but they the laws and from states to stay it
on the same thing and very wildly. Yeah, and certainly
in this case, it's what they call a patch work
of state laws in need of a federal law for sure. Yeah,
for sure. So because there's so many different laws in
(05:07):
so many different states. Um, you know, if the actions
that you you perform in one state might get you,
you know, you might get your mug on the front
page of the paper being celebrated, and in another state
your mugs on the front page of the paper because
you just got sued, you know. So we'll we'll dive
into that a little more. But first let's talk about
(05:28):
where the name for the laws come from. Chalk. Yeah,
I remember this story from my church going days as
a kid. That really stood out to me back then
because uh, well it's in Luke and the story is
is that a Jewish man was assaulted and robbed on
the road and left for dead basically, and some people
(05:51):
passed by without rendering aid. A Jewish priest and a levite,
which is an assistant priest basically or assistant to the priest.
Do you have the impression that the priest and the
levite were together, or that the priest passed and then
at some point later on the levite passed. You know
what this is going back a lot of years, dude.
But if my memory is telling me that they were
(06:15):
two separate things, Okay, I knew that question would pay
you all. But I might be wrong. But my my
old I still have some old church memories rattling around
in this dusty noggin. You just saw like smoke come
out of my ears. I thought that was a flower.
Oh sure, well, I'm gluten free though, Oh are you? No,
(06:37):
Emily is so by default? I sometimes I am right? Sure, No,
I know what you mean. You know that goes. But finally,
as the story goes, a Samaritan um that is a
person from Samaria who were bitter enemies of the Jews,
came by. And what did he do? He said, Hey, buddy,
you look like you're having a pretty rotten day. Let
(06:58):
me help you out, that's right. And he did. He
not only said here, let me let me pick you
up and get you out of this dusty road. Um,
I'm gonna take you to an inn. And not only
am I gonna do that, I'm gonna pay for your
room at the end, and then I'm gonna say it,
bid you a good day and good health. Audios. Enemy
(07:19):
And he did imagine this chuck this Good Samaritan story.
It's entirely possible that this actually took place, That this
is a real story that happened, right, it's not just
a parable. Imagine if you were that guy, that Samaritan
who did this thing, this act of goodwill, and two
thousand years later, people around the world are still talking
(07:42):
about it. How great would that happy? You know? Yeah,
like twenty minutes after our show ends, no one's going
to talk about it, right, you know, just like all
of this the talk shows we've been on the kiss
of death that we have. Uh. But for sure, I
mean every even if you are like the most atheistic
(08:04):
agnostic human on earth, you've heard of the story of
the Good Samaritan. It's just one of those things that
is is transcended religion into pop culture. Yeah, and I
had never known that at the time. Like you said,
the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other, um And
apparently I looked it up. They really really did not
like each other. It wasn't just like over religious stuff.
It was over political stuff too, and how those things intertwined.
(08:27):
So they really did not get along. So not only
did this guy help somebody in need, he helped an
an enemy in need. So I think he does deserve
to be to be commemorated for eons over that. Sure,
But that's where the name of the law comes from.
Good Samaritan laws are when you stop and help somebody,
whether it's your enemy or your friend, um, in an
(08:48):
emergency situation, typically you are you should not be penalized
if your good intentions cause further harm, right, which seems
very much like a no brainer, But it is complicated.
The more you read into this stuff, the more you're like, man,
there's a lot of nuance to to the variations of
(09:12):
these laws. Yeah. The more you read into it, the
more you're like, I am going to end up second
guessing myself the next time in pace with an emergency situation,
Like I hadn't thought about it before, but it's like, yeah,
you could totally get sued for helping somebody out, depending
on where you are. Yeah, I've never come across this,
not even close what an emergency situation I have I have? Yeah,
(09:36):
it was I was one of many at an accident.
I witnessed the accident. It was like one of those
things where you see it happening, you just see it
in slow motion and you're just like trying to will
it to stop with your body and it doesn't work.
It was a man who got te bowed by another
car that he didn't see coming. Um and uh. I
was one of the people on the scene kind of
(09:56):
helping out. It didn't even occur to me that that
that that man could be like these people hurt me,
you know, in in helping I didn't touch the guy
or anything like that, but I mean other people were
and um, you know, we called for help and all that,
so I think we did it about as good as
you can. But nothing about the situation was like, well
(10:17):
I need to I need to watch out for my
legal exposure here, like something real quick, like where what
state of my end? Let me just check out what's
going on as this like you know, person is bleeding
in the street exactly, but it is nuanced and and
after reading some of these examples, I I you know,
I get both sides of the coin for sure. So
(10:39):
I mean, for example, like there are a couple of
things that all of this patchwork of of um of
the Good Samaritan laws will will have in common. Basically two,
as this article states. One is that you can't be
compensated for helping out. And that's a pretty literal reading
of the law. I think it's meant to exempt emergency workers, paramedics,
(11:03):
doctors like they they've got their their whole own set
of laws governing their actions or inactions, right, so to
keep them from giving preferential treatment. I think it's mostly
to say this is meant to um, this is this
is my interpretation of it um. But from what I've
seen with Good Samaritan laws, it's it's totally in the
eye of the beholder. But the the that's meant to say,
(11:26):
like this covers non medical professionals is who we're talking about.
And to to define that, they're saying this is this
covers somebody who isn't compensated for their assistance, and that's
been transmuted into you can't be compensated for your assistance
or else that that leaves you exposed to legal action later.
So when you were sort of getting around at the
(11:48):
beginning though, but if if you saved let's say perform
the Timli at a restaurant and the persons like, man,
you just say, my life, here's a here's a fins key, right,
don't take that five dollar bill and also throw it
back in their face and say this is what your
life is worth, right exactly? And they say, yeah, I
don't really love myself. Well, then then you introduced them
(12:11):
to a good analyst and go about your day. Analyst?
What is that? Would mind a New Yorker in the seventies.
You sound like Carrie Green. Nobody says analysts anymore. It
was weird. I think that's what Bob Newhart was, was he?
I think? I think yeah, he did consider himself as
an analyst. That seems like an antiquated term though. Yes,
(12:33):
now it's therapist, right or shrink Yeah yeah, shrink head
shrinker I think is the preferred term. Yeah. I don't know.
I would have been in a while. Oh yeah, years.
It's good. It's good. Good to go talk to people,
you know what I mean? Like, yeah, but I got
it all figured out now. Oh well, that's good. You're
cured is what they call that. Yeah, they cured me.
I hope they gave your shrinking award. Yeah, do you
(12:55):
know what the cure is? What is not really thinking
about things too much? Yeah, that's a good that's good advice.
Now I'm just kidding because people have real problems, but
I never have had the real problems. Yeah yeah, yeah,
But I think like even if you don't have like
real problems, if you don't have like, you know, some
sort of chemical imbalance or diagnosable condition, just about anybody
(13:16):
can benefit from time to time to go just talk.
It's not even necessarily the counselor helping you, as just
being in a situation where you're talking out loud and
talking through your problems to find out what you actually think.
It's very helpful. Yeah. I mean I do that at
my doctor and my dentist and they're like, dude, we
don't want to hear this. Go see see an analyst.
(13:37):
You're like, well, I know I'm knocking out two birds
of once time. So uh, all right, let's go over
just a couple of these. I mean, like I said,
they're they're different everywhere, but there was one other thing chucky.
So I said that there were two things in common,
and one of them is you can't be competition. The
other one almost across the board with any any law
(13:58):
you're gonna find is that you can't act recklessly, recklessly negligently. Wow,
let's tough to get out. You would not hold up
in court. I'd be like, give me my five dollars
as your lawyer, or maybe that's your defense, you're like
your honor. I can't even says, um, Yeah, those are
(14:19):
two important uh factors for these laws for sure. Yeah,
Like that's that's what they all have in common generally, Right,
that's right. But from there, like if you go to Oklahoma,
let's say, you're only um given protection uh if you
are untrained, Like you're just a regular person, right, You're
(14:40):
not a a medic, let's say, or a doctor, and
only if you're giving CPR or trying to stop blood loss. Right,
that's weirdly specific. I've seen that, Like, Um, that that's
that's you could say that. That was the third thing
that they all have in common, Like, if you're administering
CPR or something really basic that any person would want
(15:02):
to do or try to do, Um, you're probably protected
by a good Samaritan law. Yeah, and defribrillators are covered
in a lot of these laws since those have really gotten.
I guess, just more common like the you know, the
and I looked into buying one of those. They're expensive, though, Yeah,
you looked into buying one. Yeah, just carry around with you, No,
(15:23):
not to carry around, but to uh to have like
not in my car. I got you, Um, so you could,
I mean you could help somebody stranding on the side
of the road with a jumper cable or get their
ticket going again. The key I've heard is that when
you're um, when you're setting them up to be defibrillated,
you have to shout hot stuff right before you engage it.
(15:46):
I thought they would be like three or four bucks.
How much are they? I don't I mean thousands of dollars.
I can't remember how many thousands, but it was enough
to where I just kind of closed the browser and
went in a cool news or something. Well, you know,
God bless those malls in America and having them every
ten feet and keeping us all safe. Sure, I'm sure
(16:07):
their insurance helps pay for that. I guess you cynic Uh.
Here's another one in Vermont. You can be fined actually
if you are a bystander and don't do anything. I
kind of love this one. Yeah, this is This is
what I think the law should be. You know, get
a penalty and unless you're jumping in there. Yeah, and
(16:28):
I mean obviously not putting your own life in jeopardy.
Like this is not like if you see somebody getting
mugged you have to go wrestle the gun away from
the guy or jumping into the frozen Potomac River. Sure,
but that if you see someone in need and you
just keep walking by, you should you should suffer some
sort of consequence for that. You should act. Um that
(16:50):
I mean, this is a this is a very slippery
slope right here, because compelling people to act, that's that's
a big that's a big infringement on personal liberty. Yeah,
But at the same time, it's kind of like, come on,
you know, if you have to invigorate somebody's humanity with
a little bit of law here there, I'm kind of
in favorite the um. One of my favorite stories that
(17:12):
I can ever see on any news program is when
you see a group of people coming together to like
and saving people is great too, but like to pull
a goat out of a river or something, and there's
like the guy with the truck and another guy's like
I got rope and this lady comes up and it's
like I'm a goat whisperer. Uh, And they all like
(17:33):
you see, like six or eight strangers come together to
to rescue like an animal. But they tied the best
They tied the not too tight and accidentally pull the
goat in two and then the goat SEUs. That's how
it goes uh. And then Michigan just forget about it,
like it is so convoluted and weird. In Michigan, um
(17:54):
they protect people who declined to offer assistance, but then
they also protect like what is it ski patrol? Um?
What else? There's like three very weirdly specific If you're
a block parent, which means that you your house is
designated as a safe place. You know, the safe place
(18:15):
signs that you see on seven elevens and stuff I've
never noticed. It's if you're a little kid and you
some some stranger danger guy in a trench coat is
following you, you can run into a thing that has
a safe place and they will protect you and call
the cops and call your parents. In Michigan, I guess
you can volunteer as a person whose house is a
safe place and you're you're exempted through Good Samaritan laws, right,
(18:40):
but you show up in there like you're in a
house state fan you can't come in uh so potential
as sisters, medical personnel block, parent volunteers and National Ski
Patrol in Michigan, or if you're giving CPR or using
an emergency defibrillator. Again, I think the pretty well that's
(19:01):
like covered almost across the board. That's like the one
area that they just want to make sure that everyone
once you know, we would jump in on. Yeah, I
think so, And I think that's one of the reasons
why they make them so prominent in in public. I mean,
it's not like you have to break glass and there's
like a fire hose that you have to know how
to get off and turn the thing on. Like it's
meant for the public to go grab and use, not
(19:22):
just for emergency personnel, because using a defibrillator in a
in a timely manner has such an impact on on
the survival rate from a heart attack that you want
people walking around knowing how to use one and ready
to use one in an emergency situation. Argentina, this is tricky. Yeah,
you could face jail time for either putting a person
(19:44):
in jeopardy or abandoning a person to their fate. It's
a real fine line, it is, for sure, Like I
think if you yeah, it is a tricky one. I
went back and reread it too, and I'm like, nope,
that's that's a tricky one. But i'd the idea of
abandoning to them to their fate if they need help,
like somebody on a mountain or something like that, and
(20:07):
just being like sorry, chump and walking along. I like
that idea that you you have to do something for them,
you're saying, right, You like the idea of just saying, well,
it's kind of in God's hands. Now, that's Michigan. Michigan
protects that, right. Should we take a break, Yeah, it's
all right. Let's take a break, and we're going to
talk about a very interesting case from California about fifteen
(20:30):
years ago right after this. Alright, dude, we're back and
(20:55):
we're in California and during the ad break, we got
in the way back machine and it's two thous in four. Yeah,
oh wait, I was still living there. Oh yeah, we're
gonna run into you. I've arranged it. I just didn't
know you I'm like, who's that guy? I got in
touch with past Chuck and I said, you're gonna want
to meet somebody special. You're like, just wait for that
beard you're gonna have one day. I'm like, what, I
(21:17):
don't know, I can't grow beard. Yeah, and he'll be like, well,
at least I got all my teeth. That checks out.
Oh the salad days. Um? All right, So this case
is really interesting. Uh. Lisa Torti and Alexandra van Horne
were makeup artists that worked together, um friendly acquaintances as
(21:40):
co workers, but I didn't get the picture that they
were like best buddies or anything. Yeah, I would guess
the lawsuit implies that they weren't. So they went out
as a as a group of not just those two,
but a bunch of people from work went out for
some drinks in the l A area. One of them,
Alexandra van Horn, was headed back and crashed her car.
(22:03):
Pretty bad crash. I think it was like into a
telephone bowl. Yeah really yeah, She's like all the air
bags deployed. Uh. Lisa Torti was I saw this, got
out of her car, saw smoke, saw liquid and was like,
I think this this car might explode. I need to
do something quick and pulled Alexandra Van Horn from the car,
(22:27):
which seems like it had a hand in in paralyzing her. Yeah.
I mean, that's one thing you want to really be
careful doing is moving somebody, and you probably don't want
to move them at all. But again, Lisa Torty thought
that Alexandra Van Horne's car was about to blow up,
so she decided that she was better off trying to
get her out of the car, and in court, Van
(22:49):
Horne said that Torty yanked her from the car like
a rag doll. Yeah. Um, Torty said, the smoke, the smoke,
and and I mean, looking back on it, it's probably
it was Annie Freeze on a hot hot motor. But
even still, she acted in good faith and so California's
Good Samaritan laws. She said, you can't sue me. I
was trying to help you, um, in an emergency situation. Sorry,
(23:13):
the good Samaritan laws cover this. And by the way,
I'm no longer speaking to you. Yeah. Probably so. Uh.
It went all the way to the California Supreme Court,
where they ruled that um she could sue her friend
and co worker because protection at that time, at least
for the Good Samaritan law was only for those administering
medical care, not rescue care. Well, so the law said
(23:37):
that it was emergency care, and the court interpreted that
to mean medical care, which was like what And the
legislature even said, like, no, that's not at all how
we meant it. Interesting. Yeah, in fact, they amended the
law the next year to say specifically medical or non
medical emergency care. But that vagueness got um got least
(24:00):
a torty suited. Yeah, And I was it's hard to
find out sometimes final results of legal cases. We've like
had that problem, I feel like a lot over the years. Yeah.
The media they have a short attention span. Well it's that,
and I think sometimes these things are just still dragging out.
Oh really, you think it's still going on? I think
so because I found an article from like three years ago. Uh,
(24:20):
because I was just trying to find out what happened
with the lawsuit, and apparently, um, the woman who pulled
the woman being sued TORTI had two different insurance companies,
of one of which said I'm not getting involved in this,
the other of which said, you know what, I'm gonna
we're gonna agree to defend you against the lawsuit. It
(24:42):
was settled for four million dollars and then the one
insurance company that agreed to help defender sued. The other
insurance company said you got a pony up half of this,
and um, the last thing I saw was a district
court judge ruled or the defendants insurance company, in other words,
(25:03):
the one that said I don't want any part of this,
you don't have to pay. But then it said, uh,
an appellet panel reversed that decision on Wednesday, and that's
literally the last thing I could find. Wow. Wow, that
is still dragging on. Holy cow, Chuck. Yeah, I mean
I don't I don't know. There may be something newer
out there, but uh, there are probably tricks that legal
scholars know that I don't know about researching this stuff.
(25:26):
I mean, what does that say, Chuck, that that like
an insurance company can just be like where your insurance company,
but we're not We're not touching this one. Well, it
was complicated though, because it was it was insurance. It
wasn't like just insurance for me walking around if I
want to help someone. It was car insurance. So it was.
(25:46):
It all came down to whether or not it was
considered a use of a car by her opening that
door and unbuckling her seatbelt and pulling her out, whether
that was using the car. I got very comple a
little more sense, though, you know how like convoluted that
stuff gets though it does for sure, But that whole
(26:09):
like so the whole legality of this whole thing, um
that that made that whole Lisa Torty in Alexandro van
Horn case, I mean I heard about that when that
was going on. Everybody heard about that case because it
was like, well, wait a minute, she was trying to help,
and now she's getting sued and wire why are friends fighting?
That whole kind of thing. That was two thousand four,
(26:30):
and then two years later China started to rise as
a great power of anti good samaritanism um in a
lot of different cases, and all of it started in
two thousand six in the case of Peg You, who
(26:50):
was a man who got off of a bus in
China and saw that an older woman had fallen and
um broken her hip, and so she had been trying
to get on the bus paying you was coming off
of the bus, and um he went to go help
the lady. Well, the lady later said that he was
the one who caused her to fall and sued him,
(27:11):
and he was like, I'm just an innocent by Sander
who was being a good samaritan helping this lady. Well,
the the court said, note, paying You, we we've decided that, um,
you probably did cause the fall. Otherwise why else would
you have helped the lady? And there's more nuance to it.
There were there were a couple of things. Paying You
said he was the first one off the bus, and
(27:31):
the court said, well, then you were probably the person
to bump into the lady and knock her down. And also,
why did you give her twenty you on um which
is about thirty bucks? Uh if if you didn't feel responsible.
And then thirdly, if you were acting heroically, why didn't
you go apprehend the person who knocked her down? Why
would you go help So there's a little more to
(27:51):
it than just like nobody would possibly help someone out
of the goodness of their hearts. So you're guilty. But
that's kind of how I got played up in the
popular media, both in China and in the rest of
the world, and so paying You became this cautionary tale
like if you see somebody hurt in the street, don't
help them because they will sue you. And people started
to do that, and so people in China until in
(28:14):
a few really big cases, sensational cases, did just that.
They stopped helping people who clearly needed help, and people
were dying as a result. Yeah, I mean they were.
I mean there's just one case I can't even talk about. Uh,
but it was just awful. You know. People not helping
people clearly in need became sort of an epidemic in China. Uh,
(28:39):
until they finally changed some law in what just last year,
I think a National Good Samaritan law in two thousand
seventeen that does offer protections. But he sa in that
one article that, uh, it was like it's out of
hand in China. Now in the other way because this
this one. Uh. Donald Clark, a law professor who actually
(29:01):
specializes in Chinese law at g W, said that in China,
you can like see someone choking in a restaurant and
attempt a tracheotomy with a butter knife with no training
and be covered and you won't can't be sued, which
is I think everyone would agree that's that's a little
too far. Yeah, no matter what you do, you cannot
(29:24):
be held liable for acting as a good samaritan, even
if it's the most reckless, negligent thing you can imagine,
trying something you're not familiar with at all, you can't
be sued. And so some people said, well, not only
does this article on this new law um cover it
goes too far and covering people protecting people, it doesn't
(29:45):
address the problem, which is this culture of distrust that's
been kind of fostered by these judges who are ruling
in favor of people who are accusing the good samaritans
that have helped them of actually causing their injury and
create this chilling effect and helping people, I mean people
literally elderly people getting hit by cars and being left
(30:06):
in the street as people walk around them, and then
being hit by another car and killed later on, like
a half hour later, Like this was happening, This is
going on, and people wouldn't go anywhere near these people
because they were afraid that they were going to get sued.
And and and it was mostly because judges um in
in the court system, we're saying they were siding with
(30:29):
people with zero evidence whatsoever, just basically on a suspicion
of someone's good intentions. Yeah, I mean that original case
when they said, uh, what was the man's name? Again?
Paying you? Paying you? They had no evidence whatsoever. It's
not like it was on uh close caption television or
anything like that. It was just like you said, the
(30:50):
judge going, it seems to me like it's pretty weird
that you would have helped had you not been the
one that actually not dropped to begin with. Exactly. So,
I mean, it's good that kin has this good Samaritan law,
and it's it's a very broad law and it probably
needs to be walked back a little bit. But um,
they also need to go after the judges are the
(31:12):
I guess kind of the sentiment or thought process of
judges that kind of just says, why would you help
somebody out if you weren't, if you weren't the one
that caused the accident. Until they do that, and until
they go after this group um pengshi, which are basically crooks,
people who like lay down in front of cars and
pretend they got hit, um and then sue the people
(31:35):
and are frequently found like they're ruled in favor of
their case. Until that is rooted out, that people are
still going to be distrustful of helping people who are
in need. Yeah, and that even the van Horn case.
I mean, I know she's trying to help, but like
you're not supposed to move people, you know, like everyone
(31:56):
kind of knows that. And this woman ended up paralyzed,
And if it was a act results of that, then
I don't know, it's is that's a tough one. You know.
Well they say that the road to hell is paved
with good intentions. That's kind of like where that that lies. Yeah,
I mean I feel bad for both parties for sure.
For sure, because this the twitty was legitimately trying to help.
(32:19):
She wasn't like, well, let me do something that might
really hurt my coworker further. She thought that car was
going to blow up. Yea, you know, so let's get
her out of there, right exactly. It wasn't like, you know,
she'd always harbored some deep resentment of her, so this
is her chance to paralyze her. Yeah, you know, not
funny at all for the way that you said. So
(32:41):
we should probably take a break. Then we're gonna we're
gonna recover from that and distract you with an ad okay, yes, okay, chuck.
(33:09):
So there's another big push in Good Samaritan laws in
the United States. It's interesting how they're kind of like
refined as as things go on, but there's this thread,
the sentiment that runs through them that's like, Okay, we
need to make sure that people aren't don't hesitate in
helping their fellow their fellow human in need. Yeah, a
lot of these, uh, I mean, it's labeled as special
(33:32):
interest good Samaritan laws, but these these are great, like
it makes a lot of sense, especially well, they all do.
But this one about the food donation um. In the
mid ninety nineties, there was a realization that a lot
of food was going to waste fourteen billion pounds, specifically
of food going to landfills when people in America needed
(33:54):
that food. And uh, you know you've toward stories about
grocery stores or can't be held liabel, so they just
have to throw that stuff away. So they passed the
Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which is to
provide some protections in case you donate food and someone
gets sick from eating that food, right exactly, So I
(34:16):
remember back when when grocery stores did have to throw
that away before that law, and it was just so
wasteful and so just morally wrong. So they passed that
one good year for passing laws, I guess. Uh. And
then there's even newer kind of push of good Samaritan
(34:37):
laws that are protecting college kids who drink too much
even though they're underage. They might be worried, oh man,
I'm gonna get expelled or kicked out of college if
I call for help. And so apparently that some of
them weren't calling for help, and so some universities I
think it's up to thirty universities in thirty five states
now have something called Lifeline or nine one one good
(35:00):
Samaritan law where if you call for help for yourself
or for somebody else who's had too much to drink,
and it's like a medical emergency, you won't get in
trouble for having been drinking under age. But it's laid
the groundwork for UM uh, like a larger law about
opioid abuse that we really kind of need. That's a
good Samaritan law for UM that that protects people who
(35:24):
are calling for somebody who's overdosing on heroin UM where
under normal circumstances they might hesitate because they're on heroin
themselves and they don't want to get busted for it. Yeah,
what's uh. It's called an alex ozone and this is uh.
Basically it comes list like an EpiPen now and it's
(35:44):
something that cops have in their emergency kits. And uh,
just like an EpiPen, is something that a civilian can use.
You don't have to have medical training. If someone is
overdosing on an on heroin or some other kind of opioid,
you just inject this thing and that can save their life.
And so junkies don't want to call the ambulance or
(36:04):
the cops or whatever, just the same as an underage
college kid doesn't want to call the cops. So they're
often described as medical amnesty laws. Uh. And and it
is great, you know, this is exactly and it's making
a difference. There was one study in two thousand two
at Cornell about the alcohol one and they said there
(36:25):
was a rise from to fifty of UM counseling sessions
attended by students in two thousand four because students weren't afraid,
you know, I'm nineteen years old or whatever and I
need help. So they you know, it's it's shown that
it's working, and I think the same as is going
on with this uh uh an alex oon drug. Right. Yeah,
(36:48):
so like the anallexon, it kind of has its own
protection where whether you're somebody who's on heroin or not,
if you administer that, you could be a medical professional.
It's like such a new thing um that that they've
they've realized they need a specific good Samaritan law for
that to cover anybody who's administering um analex oone, like
(37:10):
if they do some damage or whatever, they were still
trying to help. But then also if you're like on
heroin yourself, just calling nine one one, you can have
immunity in some states from getting busted for heroin for
being on it yourself, so like, hey, we're gonna save
you and you're under arrest, right, which I guess is
is still in some states it's still a possibility. And
(37:32):
you don't like, you don't want people worrying about whether
they're going to get pop themselves and then saying well
I can't really call for you know, shorty juju over here,
which is I guess the heroin users name. You know,
so the heroin user who's overdosing, who would otherwise live,
(37:55):
dies because they're the person they're shot up with, Like
is too worried about getting busted themselves. Because the last
thing a heroin addict or drug addict might do in
the throes of that drug is think, let me call
a cop or right, you know what, I need a
police officer. They might help. Uh, they'd say, like as
(38:15):
far as advice goes for good samaritans, Um, this article,
you know, counsels people to think sensibly. Uh. Most states
do have laws to protect people that if you're doing
something reasonable to try and help, which all goes back
to you know, the split second is kind of tough,
but that all goes back to what you're saying, like
(38:37):
reasonable maneuvers to help somebody, you know, Yeah, Like I
mean it's not necessarily like, um, like don't try the tracheotomy,
right right, right? So yeah, so that kind of ties
into a second point, like don't try things you're not
trained to do, and it just kind of ties into
reasonable Like is is trying to administer CPR a reasonable thing?
(38:57):
If you come upon somebody who's not breathing. Yes, totally reasonable.
Um is it? Is it? You know, unreasonable to try
to like get their heart going by by pumping their
arms up and down and accidentally dislocating the shoulder. It's
probably not going to be protected by a good Samaritan law. Yeah,
but how much can you get sued for for a
broken collar bone? Probably a lot, especially if the person
(39:19):
is like a ping pong player or a professional illustrator.
Right exactly. You like ping pong? I love it. We
need to do an episode on ping pong. I love
ping pong too. I'm surprised we never squared out squared off.
I am as well, Chuck, Well, we've never been in
the same room as a ping pong table. That's that's
(39:39):
That's what I was thinking. I was going to make
a camp joke, but you beat me to the truth. Uh,
you got anything else? Oh? Yes, I do. There's one
thing that came up, if you don't mind talking about it,
the Seinfeld thing about it? Do you remember how that
final the Final right right? Yeah, which is like the
(40:01):
least funny episode of Seinfeld ever. But it had like
a weird message when when the gang gets gets put
in jail for watching a guy I think it was
Jonathan Pinnett get carjacked by somebody with a gun and
just sitting there making fun of them while they're videotaping it, right,
And that kind of raised the site this it kind
(40:22):
of ties into good Samaritan laws. A lot of people
are like, can you actually is there any place in
the country where you can get get in trouble for
that kind of thing, And it turns out no, it's
that kind of falls into that duty to act law,
um where you are in some places like Vermont or
I think in California, under some circumstances, you are required
(40:44):
to report a crime, but you're not required to actually intervene.
And that was like kind of that big point I
made earlier at the beginning of the episode. That's a
big distinction, right, And not only are you, um you know,
not required to interview and you're not even required to
report the crime during the commission of their crime. For
most duty to act laws, you just can't walk away
(41:08):
and pretend you never saw anything. That's the key, um,
that's where you will get prosecuted. So the Seinfeld gang
probably would not have gone to jail. And this article
that I read quotes a guy who is an attorney
in San Diego. Um named somebody Lists. Oh man, I
wish I could remember the guy's name. No, not Franz List,
(41:31):
who is a great, great composer, but a l I
s s. Yeah, his name was Peter List. He's a
criminal lawyer from San Diego ended up in this article.
He basically says, not only should they not have gone
to jail, they provided very valuable evidence by recording the
entire crime, So let him off the hook. Has there
(41:52):
ever been a tougher show to end than Seinfeld? I
don't know. Yeah, probably not, but they really chose as
a very specific, unsatisfying way to do it. What about Sopranos?
Everybody hated how that ended? Yeah, I didn't. Uh. I
love the Sopranos, but then moved to l A during
(42:13):
its run and didn't have TV, so I quit watching it.
But I do remember all the hoopla. But sein Felt
just one of those I mean that the last episode stunk,
But it's just a hard show to end because you can't.
It was the most un sentimental show probably in TV history. Sure,
and most shows have a finale that is highly sentimental,
(42:35):
and you just You couldn't do that on Seinfeld. It
would not have been true to the show. So I
don't know what I would have done. It's a tough one.
It is a tough one. Maybe it was a perfect
ending and it just wasn't a great episode. You could
make that case for sure. You know, I'd like to
hear maybe if someone had a better idea. Okay, right,
rewrite the Seinfeld finale. Yeah, in a hundreds and sixty
(42:57):
characters are less two to us or you forty? Now,
what is that? It's weird anyway? Uh, I think that's
the end of this episode. We kind of let this
peter out to huh yep, Okay, if you want to
learn more about good Samaritan laws, that's actually a tip.
Go learn your state and or country's good Samaritan laws
so you know what to do in your ever faced
(43:18):
with an emergency situation. And since I said that, it's
time for listener mail. Uh, this one's great. I'm just
gonna call it great email. Uh, guys, in the spirit
of Thanksgiving, in this glass of wine I'm drinking, I
want to reach out and tell you I'll thankful I
am for you. I've been listening to the show for
a few years, and your comforting voices, light dad, humor,
(43:40):
and interesting topics have become increasingly important to me. My
brother passed away almost two years ago at the age
of us, an incredible soul and would have loved your show.
I had trouble falling asleep for a while and began
playing your podcast when my mind was racing and I
needed the distraction. I fell asleep to many interesting topics
for months, and I greatly appreciate your help through the
sad times. Last year, I sailed from Seattle to San
(44:03):
Diego with my uncle and father. This was the scariest
and most exhilarating trip I've ever taken ever. Uh we
kept a watch system two hours on and four hours off.
During my first two hour night watch alone, I was
scared poop place with no land in sight in my
life that's secured to the boat. I plugged in my
(44:24):
headphones and listened to the Stuff you Should Know Selects
Fecal Transplants episode. Midway through my watch, a pot of
porpoises started following and playing with the boat. I can
only spot their phosphorescence, but I was so darn happy
sitting there in the cold and dark listening to you
both talk about poop while watching the porpoises create tubes
of glitter in the Pacific. Uh, can you imagine that? Dude?
(44:48):
That's amazing, and our voices didn't ruin it. I know. Uh,
this brought me so much comfort in a time of
such great discomfort. Now you've heard it before, and at
the risk of sounding sappy, your podcast brings comfort in
alway to your listeners, and we appreciate you. My brother's
birthdays tomorrow and I have been catching up on your
latest episodes thinking about the time you help me get through,
and I wanted to say thank you. Thanks for being
(45:10):
there for me in a weird way, and thank you
for your friendship and your jokes and your comfort. And
that is Jane from Seattle. Awesome, Jane, thank you so
much for letting us know that story. That's like the
deer on the Tracks story that Will Wheaton hadn't stand
by me. That's right, that's a pretty cool story. Yeah,
it's a good one. If you want to get in
(45:30):
touch with us, like Jane did to let us know
one of your coolest stories, you can tweet to us.
You can join us on Instagram, you can hang out
with us on Facebook. You can find links to that
on our site Stuffy should Know dot com, and you
can send us a good old fashioned email to stuff
podcasts at how stuff works dot com. For more on
(45:53):
this and thousands of other topics, is it how stuff
works dot com
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