Does a purely accidental act preclude civil liability for its resulting damages? A recent answer by Dale M. States that: A pure accident without any negligence on your part does not expose you to liability. Is this the general rule? What is the basis for that being so if it is? If you weren’t negligent then sure you didn’t do anything wrong, but it’s definitely more your fault than the person whose property you damaged, so why should they have to suffer rather than you? All jurisdictions welcome, but please specify a particular jurisdiction for which your answer applies when answering.
In Common Law Countries In common law countries, Dale M. is right (the vast majority of the time). Without negligence there is usually no liability for damage to property in an accident. The general rule in the common law rule is that &quot;shit happens&quot; and no one is responsible for the damage, when no one was negligent and everyone defendant acted reasonably under the circumstances. The &quot;shit happens&quot; defense is generally a valid defense to a claim for property damages or personal injury in common law countries. &quot;No negligence despite causation&quot; findings are rare in auto accident or plane crash cases (absent truly extraordinary weather conditions or freak intervening causes like meteors falling from the sky that cause car accidents), but are common, for example, in professional malpractice cases. For example, suppose a reasonably competent surgeon does surgery on you in a fairly high risk case. The best surgeon in the hospital could have saved you. You didn't get that surgeon and died. There is no basis for a suit for medical malpractice against the surgeon since the surgeon was not negligent, even though the surgeon was not perfect. Also, sometimes the victim is the person primarily or totally at fault. For example, suppose a drunk driver T-bones your WellsFargo armored cash delivery car, which is built like a tank, in violation of a red light, with their SmartCar, and the SmartCar is totaled, while your armored car doesn't even have a scratch. Your car was a cause of the damage to the drunk driver's vehicle, but you have no liability for the drunk driver's losses, because you weren't negligent. Strict Liability Exceptions To Negligence Based Liability There are some exceptions if you have provided a warranty, guarantee, or insurance that the property won't be damaged (since contractual liability is generally strict liability unless otherwise provided by agreement). For example, you might be liable under a lease for any damage in excess of reasonable wear and tear from any cause other than the landlord's negligence. Sometimes there can be negligence by someone your are responsible for even if you aren't personally negligent (which is called &quot;vicarious liability&quot;). There is strict liability for accidents caused by defective products even in the absence of negligence, and for accidents caused by ultra-hazardous activities (e.g. explosives). U.S. states are divided about liability for animals that roam free with the main divide being between fence in states (mostly in the eastern U.S. and other more urbanized places) and fence out states (mostly in the west and more wild frontiers). There are a few other exceptions, but they are rare and somewhat inconsistent between jurisdictions. Comparative Fault Also, the modern trend in common law countries is to allocate liability for accidents based upon comparative fault or modified comparative fault. So, everyone who was negligent (including the victim), or would otherwise have had strict liability for the damage, is assigned a percentage of fault (adding up to 100%) that is their share of responsibility for the overall loss. If no one is negligent at all, there is no recovery. In modified comparative fault, if the victim is at least either 50% or 50%+ at fault (depending upon the state), there is no recovery. Some systems of comparative fault make negligent people who owe money jointly and severally liable with a right to contribution if you pay more than your fair share of the loss. Other systems limit each person's liability to their percentage of fault with no implicit guarantee of other negligent parties who are judgment proof. Who Determines Liability And Damages? In the U.S., and a small number of other jurisdictions, liability and damages are frequently decided by juries (and there is a right to a jury the vast majority of the time even if it isn't always elected). In most common law jurisdictions, liability and damages are always or almost always decided by judges (exceptions apply in perhaps 1% or less of cases). In Civil Law Countries In civil law countries (continental Europe, Quebec), the standard of liability for accidents in the absence of special cases like the ones discussed in the common law is that you are liable for damage that is your &quot;fault.&quot; See, e.g. this article discussing civil law tort liability under Central American civil codes. It states: Much like in Europe (think of art. 1382 of the Napoleonic Code), in the Central American civil codes, the concept of tort ordinarily rests on a general clause imposing fault-based liability, though it is possible to identify among these civil codes some interesting variations. For example, only in Honduras (art. 2236) and Panama (art. 1644) tort liability is characterized using elements such as: action or omission, fault or negligence, and obligation to compensate. Whereas, Costa Rica (art.1045) and Nicaragua (art. 2509) add other elements to the characterization, such as fault and imprudence, and in the Nicaraguan text, the notion of malicious acts is also included. The Salvadoran Civil Code (arts. 2065 and 2080) is rooted in the classic construction of delict, quasi-delict or fault, although it also adds features such as malice and negligence. The exception to this trend will be the Guatemalan Civil Code (art. 1645). Although it uses terms such as intention, carelessness or recklessness as defining criteria, this provision is not really describing a fault based liability model, because it contains a rebuttable presumption of fault or negligence. The civil law concept of tortious fault is not spelled out in great detail in civil codes, although there are a few specific situations that are covered (e.g. bailments when your property is in the possession of another person and collapsing buildings). Civil law countries have instead been developed in legal doctrine in those countries that is not apparent from the civil code text. Basically, civil law tortious fault involves some culpability greater than mere &quot;but for&quot; causation of an accident, but involves a lower threshold of wrongfulness than the concept of &quot;negligence&quot; in the common law, which is a failure to act as reasonable person would have to prevent harm to others under the circumstances. You can have civil law tortious fault even if you were acting as a reasonable person, but you still have to have at least done something slightly wrong. So, there is still a &quot;shit happens&quot; defense in civil law countries, but it tends to be much harder to establish. Who Determines Liability And Damages? In civil law countries, the call is always made by judges (or by panels of judges in cases involving larger damages).
Can I sue? (Shall I sue? Is up to you) Yes, anyone can sue anybody but that doesn't mean it will be successful. The likely candidate for making a claim seems to be under the tort of Emotional Distress, however, note that... Since the definition of offensive conduct is subjective by its very nature, the courts have set high standards to make out a claim for intentional infliction of emotional harm. To be successful, the plaintiff must show that the defendant intentionally or recklessly engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct which caused severe emotional distress to another person. Source ...but according to the OP and comments, this criteria does not appear to be have been met.
I'm not sure there would be any need - or any ability to bring - any civil action. Forgery would appear to count as a Category D felony under Section 205.090 and, "In addition to any other penalty, the court shall order the person to pay restitution.", so person "a"'s damages should have been met under the process of the criminal prosecution of person "b" for forgery, with nothing further to claim. Person "c" will have stolen a car. Whether that car was legitimately owned by person "a" may only be relevant if person "c" is using their belief that it belonged to person "b" as mitigation (for example recovery of a debt - though it won't help much as this should have been done through proper channels), which again would be a criminal proceeding.
Kansas evaluates these kinds of cases, known as premises liability cases, under the general law of negligence (which is a common law claim governed by case law in Kansas, rather than a statute, except as modified by specific statutes in some respect or other). When you own or control a piece of property, you are responsible for making reasonable efforts to ensure that visitors are safe. If you fail to identify safety risks that you should have reasonably known about, or if you fail to correct potentially hazardous conditions, you could be held liable for any injuries that result. The law is just that vague and is interpreted by judges and juries on a case by case basis. When that happens Kansas uses a comparative negligence system that evaluates the percentage of the fault attributable to everyone who is alleged to have been negligent including the person injured. Damages are allocated based upon those percentages (unless the person injured is more than 50% at fault, in which case the person injured recovers nothing in the lawsuit). Kansas is not among the states that make a formalistic distinction between the duties owed to &quot;invitees&quot;, &quot;licensees&quot; and &quot;trespassers&quot; as the common law historically did. If a risk is foreseeable and you could have taken affordable precautions (relative to the value of the activity the not taking the precaution made possible) to address it, and you didn't, you could be held liable. Trespassing is just one of an infinite number of factors that the jury considers in assigning comparative fault. The main pro-active actions that you can take are to purchase homeowner's insurance with reasonable liability policy limits and ideally umbrella insurance as well (which increases your policy limits at a modest additional cost), and to communicate in writing to the neighbor (in a way that you can prove if anything happens later) warning your neighbor of the risks that you foresee and urging your neighbor to take care to avoid those risks. The statute of limitations in these cases in Kansas is usually two years although exceptions apply.
I'm not sure what jurisdiction you're referring to, but here are the state involuntary manslaughter laws. Broad brush, the elements tend to be: Someone was killed as a result of act by the defendant. The act either was inherently dangerous to others or done with reckless disregard for human life. The defendant knew or should have known his or her conduct was a threat to the lives of others. However, you're really backwards planning from a jail vs. army decision, so you might actually be after something like felony hit and run, which can most certainly result in incarceration. The elements of felony hit and run generally include leaving the scene of an accident regardless of fault (hit and run typically becomes a felony when someone was injured in the accident). Since the elements vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, it makes sense to look them up wherever the accident will take place in the book. If it takes place in the U.S. this is a state-by-state compendium. Then you can tweak the story to satisfy the applicable elements and induce the jail vs. army decision (even if army policy prohibits it, it's still pretty common fiction!).
The fact that the employer has vicarious liability for acts of its employees "within the scope of employment" does not mean the employees are not also liable for their own acts. In reality, however, the employer is more likely to have insurance for such "acts or omissions" of employees. The plaintiffs can "sue everyone in sight" and let them figure out who actually pays when they are found liable. That way, when the employee's actions are (for instance) ruled a "personal frolic" or otherwise outside the scope of the employer's liability (in tort or contract), the case doesn't get dismissed for failure to name all the proper parties. One policy goal is to place financial liability as close as possible to the person most likely to have been able to avoid the harm, thus discouraging such risks, without placing the entire burden on individuals employed in hazardous occupations and without artificially limiting potential sources of compensation.
Given that Bob has no obligation to pay anything to Charles, who has no legal duty to do anything, I don't see how Charles could have liability to Bob. If Charles wants to, he can decline to pay a reward to Bob or can pay an amount smaller than Charles hoped for as a reflection of Charles' delay.
Maybe, but probably not, although this would be a question of fact to resolve on a case by case basis under broad legal standards by a jury, and would also depend upon the state where it took place, and upon the nature of the employer of the paramedic. The hypothetical facts in this case are rich enough and ambiguous enough that the case could go either way depending upon how it was presented and what could be proven at trial. This is a case it would be good to take to a medical malpractice/personal injury lawyer in the jurisdiction where it happened to be evaluated. Usually a PI lawyer would not charge you for doing so or would ask for only a nominal fee. Additional factual investigation would probably also be necessary regarding some of the key facts identified below. It's complicated and there are multiple issues presented in this case where the law is not uniform from state to state. The general rule is that a medical professional has to carry out the delivery of medical care to a patient with the reasonable care that would be taken by a medical professional of that type. If the medical professional fails to take reasonable care, and that negligence failure to do so causes injury, then there is civil liability for medical malpractice. A threshold issue would be whether a medical professional-patient relationship was established. This would be a question of fact for a jury and would be a question upon which various potentially applicable state and federal laws would often not be uniform. On these facts, it could easily go either way. In federal court and in a majority of state courts (although there is variation from state to state) you need to know the name of the paramedic you dealt with who provided the bad advice to bring a successful lawsuit before suing. In a minority of states, you could sue first and get the name of the paramedic in discovery through the court process from the hospital after the lawsuit was commenced. The standard of reasonable care liability in this case would be judged by the standard of a reasonable paramedic, not a reasonable doctor. But, often states would have statutes that would limit the liability of paramedics in these situations to liability for gross negligence (which the facts in the question would probably not suffice to show), but not for ordinary negligence (which a jury could come out either way upon and which would hinge heavily on expert testimony). These tort reform type laws differ considerably from state to state. Whether or not particular conduct was negligent or grossly negligent, is a question ultimately decided by a jury under very broad and general legal standards after the fact in a trial, based largely upon expert testimony, on a case by case basis, unless the facts are unequivocally clear one way or the other, which is rarely the case. With my layman's level of knowledge about what a reasonable paramedic should be able to diagnose, I could see this determination going either way. Two cases with identical facts in front of the same judge in separate trials, in which juries are presented with exactly the same evidence could come out differently. The resolution of one case of the question of whether a particular act constituted negligence giving rise to liability is not binding as precedent and is not admissible as evidence in another case (subject to a narrow exception called &quot;collateral estoppel&quot; which applies when the same individual is sued by multiple people for the same conduct in different lawsuits that have resulted in final orders resolving key questions of fact that the lawsuits have in common). Many states would require that someone suing the paramedic have a medical professional certify that the paramedic's actions constituted legal negligence before the suit could go forward in a court. If there is a medical professional-patient relationship, and if the medical professional was found to have negligently caused injury, the medical professional's employer would have vicarious liability in some (but not all) states under a respondiat superior doctrine. Usually, the paramedic at an ER would be an employee of a private EMS ambulance company or a municipal fire department, and not of the hospital that runs the ER. But, some hospitals have their own in house paramedics. Also, some hospitals are run by for profit or nonprofit private companies, some are state or local governmental agencies, and some a federal government agencies. Usually only a small minority of the medical professionals in a hospital are employed by that hospital, and most of them merely have &quot;privileges&quot; to provide medical services for which they bill patients separately while working for their own professional corporation through which they are self-employed. Legally, the hospital itself is more like a hotel or a WeWork office space than to being a firm that directly provides medical services, although it isn't quite that black and white. Holding the ER directly responsible for failing to have good triage policies, as opposed to holding the paramedic responsible and assigning vicarious liability to the employer of the paramedic, would be very difficult, although not necessarily impossible if the ER had official policies that fell far below the standard of care for emergency room triage. It would be very uncommon for an ER to have bad policies of this type. Typically, ERs are only held directly liable for bad triage policies when, for example, they have a policy of not evaluating at all someone who does not have health insurance, which is a practice expressly prohibited by federal law. If the paramedic's employer was a government entity such as a fire department or a government owned hospital, the paramedic would be entitled to absolute immunity from civil liability under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, unless an exception applied. Usually there is an express exception to absolute immunity for medical malpractice liability by a medical doctor who has established a doctor-patient relationship with a patient, when the medical doctor is employed by a state or local government, usually there isn't when the doctor is employed by the federal government. But these laws differ from state to state in fine details that matter in a case like this one regarding whether the exception to immunity from liability is limited to medical doctors or applies also to paramedics. Causation would also be an important factual issue for trial. There is liability only to the extent that taking a non-negligent action could have prevented the harm. If you are infected with COVID, one common consequence is a stroke, and if someone had a stroke while infected with COVID, the case that taking them to the ER would have prevented the stroke from doing serious damage in the long run is weaker. On the other hand, guessing that a stroke was really something else, might or might not be reasonable. The injured person would also have to prove that the EMS response occurred at a time within the roughly 1-2 hours after the start of a stroke when it is possible to take medical action that could do something about a stroke. If the stroke had already happened an hour and a half later and it was rush hour and would have taken half an hour to get to the nearest hospital, causation might be absent and there would be no liability. There would be a legitimate question of fact over whether there was an actual diagnosis and treatment, or whether there was a refusal to get treatment. The reasonable care test is a balancing test. It takes into consideration not just the potential benefits of taking action, but also the cost that would be incurred if action was taken, and the downside risks of a proposed action. The paramedic's concerns about getting a COVID infection at the ER when the person responded to didn't appear to have it at the time would make the cost of a false positive diagnosis higher and would thus influence what would constitute reasonable care in this situation as the jury applies the relevant legal test. Liability would be evaluated based upon what the paramedic reasonable understood he was being told. This would be a question of fact for the jury. It is likely that different people who were present understood what was being said differently. Even if bystanders understood what was being said and meant, what matters is what the paramedic reasonably understood was being said and meant. Given the communication difficulties involved, that question could go either way.