Reference no: EM131800297
Case Analysis
Michael Mairs, a college student, was driving drunk one night when his car hit a motorcyclist. The next case deals with this question: Do his friends who were pas sengers in his car have a legal responsibility to call for help? :Notice how the New Jersey judge handles the no duty-to-rescue rule. He mentions it, and goes on to point out that the "exceptions are as longstanding as the rule." He reviews those exceptions, and then decides whether the boys riding m Mairs's car should face possible liability.
Podias v. Mairs
N.J. Superior Court, 2007 926 A.2d 859
The opinion of the court was delivered by Judge Parillo.
... In the evening of September 27, 2002, and early morning hours of September 28, eighteen-year-old Michael Mairs was drinking beer at the home of a friend Thomas Chomka. He eventually left with two other friends, defendants Swanson and Newell, both also eighteen years of age, to return to Monmouth University where all three were students. Mairs was driving. Swanson was in the front pas senger seat and Newell was seated in the rear of the vehicle where he apparently fell asleep. It was raining and the road was wet.
At approximately 2:00 a.m., while traveling southbound in the center lane of the Garden State Parkway, Mairs lost control of the car, struck a motorcycle driven by Antonios Podias, and went over the guardrail. All three exited the vehi cle and "huddled" around the car. Swanson saw Podias lying in the roadway and because he saw no movement and heard no sound, told Mairs and Newell that he thought Mairs had killed the cyclist. At that time, there were no other cars on the road, or witnesses for that matter.
Even though all three had cell phones, no one called for assistance. Instead they argued about whether the car had collided with the motorcycle. And, within minutes of the accident, Mairs called his girlfriend on Newell's cell phone since his was lost when he got out of the car. Swanson also used his cell phone, plac ing seventeen calls in the next one-and-one-half hours. Twenty-six additional calls were made from Newell's cell phone in the two-and-one-half hours after the accident, the first just three minutes post-accident. ... None of these, however, were emergency assistance calls. As Swanson later explained: "I didn't feel responsible to call the police." And Newell just "didn't want to get in trouble."
After about five or ten minutes, the trio all decided to get back in the car and ' leave the scene. Swanson directed, "we have to get to an exit." Upon their return to the car,Swanson instructed Mairs "not to bring up his name or involve him in what occurred" and "don't get us [Swanson and Newell] involved, we weren't there." The three then drove south on the parkway for a short distance until Mairs' car broke down. Mairs pulled over and waited in the bushes for his girl friend to arrive, while Swanson and Newell ran off into the woods, where Newell eventually lost sight of Swanson. Before they deserted him, Swanson again reminded Mairs that "there was no need to get [Swanson and Newell] in trouble
..." Meanwhile, a motor vehicle operated by Patricia Uribe ran over Podias, who died as a result of injuries sustained in these accidents.
In the ensuing investigation, when State Police located Mairs hours after the accident, Mairs claimed that he was alone in the car. He also denied striking the motorcycle, seemingly unaware of any impact despite being told otherwise by Swanson. At the time, the police officers observed that Mairs "manifested symp toms of alcohol consumption and intoxication." Indeed, when blood was drawn at 5:12 a.m., more than three hours after the accident and well after his last drink at Chomko's house, Mairs' blood alcohol level was .085....
[The survivors of the motorcyclist who was killed, Podias, sued Mairs, Swanson, and Newell. On a motion for summary judgment, the trial court dis missed the case against the passengers. Podias appealed, and the court must decide whether those passengers owed a due to Podias.]
Traditional tort theory emphasizes individual liability. Each particular defen dant who is to be charged with responsibility must have been negligent. Ordinarily, then, mere presence at the commission of a wrong is not enough to charge one with responsibility since there is no duty to take affirmative steps to interfere. Because of this reluctance to make "inaction" a basis of liability, the common law "has persistently refused to impose on a stranger the moral obligation of com mon humanity to go to the aid of another human being who is in danger, even if the other is in danger of losing his life." ...The underlying rationale for what has come to be known as the "innocent bystander rule" seems to be that by "passive inaction," defendant has made the injured party's situation no worse, and has merely failed to benefit him by interfering in his affairs.
Of course, exceptions are as longstanding as the rule. For instance, if one already has a pre-existing legal duty to render assistance, then it is that duty which impels him to act, for which omission he may be liable. So too, at common law, those under no pre-existing duty may nevertheless be liable if they choose to volunteer emergency assistance for another but do so negligently.
Over the years, liability for inaction has been gradually extended still further to a limited group of relationships, in which custom, public sentiment, and views of social policy have led courts to find a duty of affirmative action. In New Jersey, courts have recognized that the existence of a contractual relationship between the victim and one in a position to provide aid may create a duty to render assis tance. In Szabo v. Pennsylvania R.R., for instance, the Court held that if the employee, while engaged in the work of his or her employer, sustains an injury rendering him or her helpless to provide for his or her own care, the employer must secure medical care for the employee....
To establish liability, however, such relationships need not be limited to those where a pre-existing duty exists, or involving economic ties. Rather, it may
only be necessary "to find some definite relation between the parties of such a character that social policy justifies the imposition of a duty to act." So, for instance, the general duty wh ich arises in many relations to take reasonable pre cautions for the safety of others may include the obligation to exercise control over the conduct of third persons with dangerous propensities. In J.S. v. R.T.H. • (NJ 1998), the Court held that when a spouse has actual knowledge or special reason to know of the likelihood of her spouse engaging in sexually abusive behavior against a particular person,the spouse has a duty of care to take rea- , sonable steps to prevent or warn of the harm.
So too, even though the defendant may be under no obligation to render 1 assistance himself, he is at least required to take reasonable care that he does not prevent others from giving it. Soldano v. O'Daniels (Cal. 1983). In other words, there may be liability for interfering with the plaintiff's opportunity of obtaining assistance.6
Whether or not there is a duty to act in a judicial determination, and involves a complex analysis that weighs and balances several related factors, including: (1)the nature of the underlying risk of harm, that is, its foreseeability and sever ity; (2) the opportunity and ability to prevent the harm; (3) the comparative inter ests of, and the relationships between or among the parties; and,(4) ultimately, based on considerations of public policy and fairness, the societal interest in the proposed solution ...
Governed by these principles, we are satisfied that the summary judgment record admits of sufficient facts from which a reasonable jury could find that defendants' failure to act proximately caused the victim's death. In the first place, the risk of harm, even death,to the injured victim lying helpless in the mid-die of a roadway, from the failure of defendants to summon help or take other precautionary measures was readily and clea rly foreseeable. Not only were defendants aware of the risk of harm created by their own inaction, but were in a unique position to know of the risk of harm posed by Mairs' own omission....
Juxtaposed against the obvious foreseeability of harm is the relative ease with which it could have been prevented. All three individuals had cell phones and in fact used them immediately before and after the accident for their own pur poses, rather than to call for emergency assistance for another in need. The ulti mate consequence wrought by the harm in this case, death, came at the expense of failing to take simple precautions at little if any cost or inconvenience to defen dants. Indeed, in contrast to Mairs' questionable ability to appreciate the seriousness of the situation, defendants appeared lucid enough to comprehend the severity of the risk and sufficiently in control to help avoid further harm to the vic tim. In other words, defendants had both the opportunity and ability to help pre vent an obviously foreseeable risk of severe and potentially fatal consequence.
As to the relationships among the parties, simply and obviously, defendants here were far more than innocent bystanders or strangers to the event. On the contrary, the instrumentality of injury in this case was operated for a common, purpose and the mutual benefit of defendants, and driven by someone they knew to be exhibiting signs of intoxication. Although Mairs clearly created the ini tial risk, at the very least the evidence reasonably suggests defendants acqui esced in the conditions that may have helped create it and subsequently in those conditions that further endangered the victim's safety.
Defendants therefore bear some relationship not only to the primary wrong doer but to the incident itself. It is this nexus which distinguishes this case from those defined by mere presence on the scene without more....
In our view, the imposition of a duty upon defendants is in accord with public policy. As evidenced by the grant of legislative immunity to volunteers afforded by [New Jersey's] Good Samaritan Act, public policy encourages gratuitous assistance by those who have no legal obligation to render it.
Of course, it still remains a question of fact whether the primary wrongdoer was able to exercise reasonable care to summon emergency assistance or was prevented from doing so by defendants; whether, on the other hand, defendants knew or had reason to know that Mairs was unable or unwilling to do so, and thereafter were in a position to have influenced the outcome; whether the deci sion to abandon the victim was otherwise Mairs' alone or the result of encourage ment, cooperation or interference from defendants; and finally, if the latter, whether the assistance was substantial enough to support a finding of liability. [That is for a jury to determine.]
Reversed and remanded.
After read the case I have to answer this question:
How would Podias v Mairs be examined under each ethical lens? Which ethical lens would you agree with most? Why?