If the newspaper article is at all accurate, the decision will certainly make me think twice before I offer assistance. Prior experience will support my decision.

Forty years ago, I was named in a lawsuit for going to the assistance of a young man who had slid over 1000' down a steep snow slope into a pile of avalanche debris. He was jammed and contorted into a hole in a mess of broken trees and snow, head down and bleeding. I sent his hysterical girl friend to get help with a note describing the situation. I chose to move him, carefully and with her help, because in my opinion he was near death where he was. When Mountain Rescue arrived, the guy was still alive though badly injured. He survived his injuries though he suffered permanent mobility loss and had a long slow recovery from brain damage.

Five months later, an attorney brought suit, proposing that my moving him was reckless and that my action worsened his injuries. Of course, the attorney was not there so his opinion was considerably strengthened by his ignorance. At any rate, I gave a deposition about what I had done and described the emergency medical training I had received as a medic with the 6th SF when I was in the Army. A judge dismissed the suit as having no merit and also cited the Washington State Good Samaritan law. It still cost me over $500 in attorneys fees at a time when I was a poor graduate student and $500 was a lot more than it is now. It also soured me considerably on lawyers even though my brother was one.

Now, knowing of the decision recently rendered in California, if I encountered a similar situation I would have just gone for help myself. Of course, if the situation was like the one in the example above, the guy would likely have died before help arrived but we'll just chalk that up to legal progress.