Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2020 December 31

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December 31

Amputation that is indirectly necessary in order to save one's life--question about the law

If someone saves someone from a fire that would have otherwise killed them, but has to amputate a part of their body in order to free them so that they could indeed save them and evacuate them, would this person owe anything to the other person later on for amputating a part of their body?

Also, would it depend on whether or not this amputation was consensual--even if this amputation was indirectly necessary in order to save this person's life in any case?

As for owing this other person something, I mean something like owing them financial compensation for amputation them even if this was literally the only way that their life could be saved from this fire.

FWIW, I'm not asking for opinion about this so much as about if there were any relevant legal cases and/or precedents in regards to this. Futurist110 (talk) 08:45, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

A good place to start could be Good Samaritan law. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:17, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

So all of this assuming you're talking about the US - The good samaritan laws themselves are statutory codifications of the typically much weaker common law rule on good samaritans. As described by the California Supreme Court, a person who undertakes to rescue another where no prior duty existed "is under a duty to exercise due care in performance and is liable if (a) his failure to exercise such care increases the risk of such harm, or (b) the harm is suffered because of the other's reliance upon the undertaking." The actual good samaritan statutes vary by state but a typical one will shield from liability both medical and non-medical life-saving measures, while exempting from this shield acts of gross negligence, unnecessary intervention, and other stupidity. In your given hypothetical of a life-threatening situation in which the choices for the victim are A) Death; and B) immediate amputation by this dude who is here now using this particular procedure; there is obvious immunity under the common law rule alone, as the victim's losses were only reduced. However, whether A and B were true may be debated after the fact. For instance the danger facing the victim may be subject to factual dispute, as may be the necessity of the samaritan's particular actions, or the necessity that the samaritan be the one to perform them. If there is room to dispute any of these things you're looking at a state law issue. When emergency amputations have to be performed, for instance to extract a victim of a building collapse, it is almost universally the case that consent is first obtained, and some form of licensed medical provider is present, an EMT at least, to perform the procedure. In that case liability protection would be provided under the conditions of other state laws. Someguy1221 (talk) 11:19, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

To clarify--according to this common-law rule, if you inflict harm on someone (even without their consent) but only do this in order to prevent an even greater harm occurring to them, then you would be immune from prosecution? Also, Yes, I get that the facts of the case might be disputed after the fact, but I'm presuming a scenario where the facts were not disputed. As in, where there was no time to wait for emergency personnel to come save and amputate this person and instead one had to personally amputate this person if one wanted to have any chance of saving this person from a house fire (or at least if this is what a hypothetical "reasonable person" would have believed in those circumstances). In such a scenario, would the non-medical person doing the amputating always be immune from prosecution and/or from being sued for financial damages by this other person, or would it depend on whether or not this other person would have actually consented to this amputation--and what if they wouldn't have, either due to them being unconscious (and incapable of being woken up) at that point in time or due to them being conscious but nevertheless preferring to die in a house fire (or whatever) than to live as an amputated person? Futurist110 (talk) 23:16, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Certainly, if we were to imagine a sort of spherical-cow of a fact pattern, and there is no dispute that the good samaritan's actions produced the best possible outcome for the victim, and the good samaritan was not breaking some other law at the time, and the good samaritan was not told to fuck off, the good samaritan cannot be held liable for the harm that yet lingers. Suing over long-term costs that would not have occurred if the victim had simply died is something that, to my knowledge, is only entertained when a DNR was explicitly ignored. As a matter of public policy a judge might even rule that expressions of nonconsent outside of licensed medical care may be ignored, so as to avoid unnecessary deaths arising from miscommunication, or the confusion/mental-illness of the victim, but that's just me speculating. In terms of actual things that have actually happened, there really are plaintiffs who have sued their rescuers, saying they'd rather have not been rescued. Absent proof that some exception to the good samaritan statute applies, those lawsuits fail. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:15, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

DNR = Do Not Resuscitate? Also, would someone telling their would-be savior that they prefer to die in a house fire than to lose an arm and/or leg but survive also fall under the DNR category? Futurist110 (talk) 23:57, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

DNR does mean “do not resuscitate”. And no, I don’t think telling someone “Don’t save me if you have to cut my hand off” counts as a DNR in the same way that hospitals use advance directives. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 00:20, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah the key to these Good Samaritan immunity provisions is that they usually stop after ordinary negligence. They aren’t likely to protect against gross negligence, and certainly not against recklessness or more. And of course, consent doesn’t enter into that analysis—if you consent you’re already essentially waiving the right to go for negligence. I understand OP’s question was specifically about amputation, but the general field of Good Samaritan law is pretty agnostic as to the nature of the aid or assistance provided, and while amputation sounds impressive, the fact is a good lawyer and doctor team will be able to make less visually impressive things like a permanent limp or chronic pain into successful cases. Put differently, the nature of the injury (whether amputation or muscle weakness) speaks more to the damages phase of litigation than the liability phase. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 17:37, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

But were you actually grossly negligent and/or reckless in my hypothetical scenario above? Futurist110 (talk) 23:16, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

In the hypothetical you pose, it was necessary to save the person’s life. I do not believe you could even argue simple negligence there. This really all comes down to an issue of basic tort law. Indeed, your hypothetical could easily be one you’d see in a first-year torts final. There’s also technically a tortious battery argument buried in there, especially when consent is withheld (and really I’d expect it to be pleaded in addition to negligence if such a lawsuit were pressed). 69.174.144.79 (talk) 00:31, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

The battery charge is unlikely to stick, is it? Futurist110 (talk) 06:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh I don’t know, actually. “An unwanted or offensive touching” is the classical formulation of tort battery as I recall. Also medical battery is a thing. One of the keys would be how damages get calculated; if the “damage prevented” enters into the calculus. Also necessity can be a defense. In property torts, necessity can be invoked to justify, for instance, destroying someone’s property to protect other property from being burned down. I could see that being extended to the protection of human life.

I don’t really practice this stuff so I’m going from memory with a very healthy dose of intuition. I can suggest checking out some general tort law hornbooks and, if you’re feeling daring, the Restatement of Torts (second was current last time I looked, though there might be a third). Don’t get hung up on the facts of your hypothetical though. It’s not likely you’ll find a bit of case law exactly on point, or even if you did, it might not still be good law, or might be anchored in a bygone era of tort law. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 07:17, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

The solution could be to place a large knife within reach of the victim and let the victim make the decision to self-amputate or not. Meanwhile you're trying to call 911. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:35, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

What if the victim is unconscious and can't be woken up, though? Futurist110 (talk) 06:48, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

For a person like me the phantom limb pain may or may not be enough to make me want to sue you, I do not know how bad phantom limb pain is and most amputees only get itches or less bothersome sensations like existence so I can't say. Also amputations have tended to be so painful as to overpower alcohol's anesthetic effects in very drunk wounded soldiers so if your amputation wakes me up for a person like me that amount of pain may be on the level that causes permanent damage which would give me another justification to sue you. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 14:03, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Sounds perfect. And the cyanide capsule or grenade or gun or whatever if you have one. Make sure he knows you're calling 911 before you leave if you can only give explosives. getting into the action movie scenarios now, though some Americans do carry guns Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:51, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

If you amputate me without anesthesia to save my life when you could've shot me I'm suing the shit out of you. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:24, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Why exactly? Futurist110 (talk) 23:16, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm willing to suffer a blood drawing with a regular needle and no pain medication to save a human life but not much more than that. If I had to inject my heart or reset my broken finger to save our lives I'm sorry man but we're gonna die. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:47, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

In the UK, the advice given to first aiders is:

Rule 1: Only treat if you are willing and able to do so.

Rule 2: Only treat in the manner in which you have been trained

Rule 3: Act in the best interest of the casualty.

Details are here. Alansplodge (talk) 18:15, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

I know this doesn't directly address your scenario, but you might find the case of R v Dudley and Stephens to be of interest. The weighty question posed in that famous case was, is necessity a defense to murder? Eliyohub (talk) 14:36, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm a vegetarian, you can have my flesh. No, not today you ghouls! Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:17, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

And there's also this:[1]. 95.145.229.36 (talk) 15:25, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Ah Dudley and Stephens. First day of criminal law my 1L year. Not 100% relevant here, though, since we're more talking about tort law than criminal. But the concept of "necessity" is definitely relevant in both. My caveat would be that in most cases, including Dudley, the necessity was a personal one, not a necessity to the alleged "rescue victim".

There is also a concept of "wrongful life" (and the related "wrongful birth") in tort law that might also be relevant. Usually it has to do with survivors of abortion or children born with disabilities that a doctor should have detected prior to birth and recommended abortion. I've also heard of weird cases involving fertility treatments (e.g., IVF or artificial insemination) where the provider does something like create a viable fetus with the wrong genetic material (either negligently or intentionally), such that the resultant child should never have been conceived. Very niche area of law, and the principles involved are probably not of general applicability, though I wouldn't be surprised if the groundwork for those cases explores precedent more relevant to this question. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 23:17, 2 January 2021 (UTC)