NationStates Jolt Archive

I submitted this a while ago and fell out of the game for a bit. So I'm giving it another go. Total draft, not anywhere near ready... crucify it as you may.

Kindness of Strangers Act

SEEKING to protect any person who, acting in good faith, renders emergency medical care or assistance while not being compensated for their time, from lawsuit.

UNDERSTANDING that in emergency medical situations seconds can mean the difference between life and death.

UNDERSTANDING that in some instances professional emergency medical personnel are non-existent or unable to respond in a timely manner.

UNDERSTANDING that in those instances the life of the person may depend on the kindness of strangers.

UNDERSTANDING that the administration of emergency medical care holds challenges that can directly affect the responder’s ability to work.

UNDERSTANDING that at times these situations may cause actions or omissions in care that may be detrimental to the victim’s heath.

CONCERNED that those actions or omissions may lead to litigation, causing others to think twice about rendering care in the future.

DEFINING “Negligence” as the failure to administer a level of care equivalent to the caregivers training level. Performing an action which a reasonable and prudent person of equal medical training would not do, or failure to perform an action a reasonable and prudent person of equal training would do.

STRONGLY URGES each nation to establish a national review board for the review of potential negligence cases, and to rule which cases are able to be litigated.

STRONGLY DISCOURAGES civil litigations against any person who, in good faith, renders emergency medical care or assistance to an injured person outside of a medical facility, without the expectation or intention of receiving compensations for such services, for any act or omission not constituting negligence, according to national law, in the course of such care.

We are shocked that such a legislation needs to be presented. We support the proposal, but we are shocked that one needs this to be proposed in this day and age.

"No, you know what, we would oppose this if it hits quorom.

For one thing, this resolution does nothing. It merely 'encourages' or 'urges', tiptoeing around NatSovists when you really have to deal with this issue heads-on. Try 'mandates'.

Secondly, what cateogry is it? Human Rights, I presume?

Thirdly, we would oppose Operative Clause 3, so take that out. If a person has given treatment the same level of care as a "caregiver's training level" for free, and if he still ends up getting sued for it...then shouldn't we let the lawsuit progrses? You assume that such a person shouldn't get sued, but in the case when he, of course, having all the necessary training that a person with a "caregiver's training level" would have, accidently, you know, kill someone in the act, he should get sued out of his pants! Good faith and kindessness means nothing if you caused pain! He should have just called the doctor and let the professional handle it.

And what if he violated a law that isn't negligence, but still worthy of a lawsuit? If Person A is dying, and Person B gave Person A alcoholic medication in order to help Person A (and thereby violate our drug laws), Person A has the right to sue Person B for trying to get him to break the law. What if Person A wanted to die? If Person B saved Person A's life, Person A has the full right to sue Person B for interfering with his 'right to die'.

Litigation serves a purpose, to defend the right of the plantiff. And if the defendant manage to win his case, he can easily counter-sue the plantiff and receive damages too, so I see no reason why a 'litigation' could pose any problems. Of course, since it only applies to civil lawsuits, I guess you can argue that we can very well punish that person via the criminal court, and the fact that it is all 'encourages' and 'urges' mean we could ignore the whole draft, but I rather that we go against this resolution right now. Why bother having a weak resolution on the book that we don't like?"
---Dr. Bob

"No, you know what, we would oppose this if it hits quorom.

For one thing, this resolution does nothing. It merely 'encourages' or 'urges', tiptoeing around NatSovists when you really have to deal with this issue heads-on. Try 'mandates'.

I can hardly say mandates and then be a part of the NatSovists can't I. It's not for the UN to create govermental bodies in countries. There are several very good standing resolutions that don't MANDATE anything.

Secondly, what cateogry is it? Human Rights, I presume?

Good question, I was never good at picking category. Human rights maybe, Tort Reform possibly but it doesn't have anything to do with corporate law. So idontknow.

Thirdly, we would oppose Operative Clause 3, so take that out. If a person has given treatment the same level of care as a "caregiver's training level" for free, and if he still ends up getting sued for it...then shouldn't we let the lawsuit progrses? You assume that such a person shouldn't get sued, but in the case when he, of course, having all the necessary training that a person with a "caregiver's training level" would have, accidently, you know, kill someone in the act, he should get sued out of his pants! Good faith and kindessness means nothing if you caused pain! He should have just called the doctor and let the professional handle it.

Wait so your premise is that if a person renders good care and patient still dies that he should be sued? People die, it happens and if the caregiver gave the correct amount of care and did nothing wrong then where is the lawsuit?

The caregivers training level verbiage is in there so people wont sue a first responder for failing to give the level of care that a doctor would give. Now if that first responder fails to give the correct level of care than sue him.

And what if he violated a law that isn't negligence, but still worthy of a lawsuit? If Person A is dying, and Person B gave Person A alcoholic medication in order to help Person A (and thereby violate our drug laws), Person A has the right to sue Person B for trying to get him to break the law. What if Person A wanted to die? If Person B saved Person A's life, Person A has the full right to sue Person B for interfering with his 'right to die'.


If Person B broke the law in your nation than Person B has bigger problems than Person A suing him. Plus if he's trained not to give meds with alcohol in them and does... he's negligent... so you can sue him.

In a right to die case, sure Person A can sue him for interfering with his right to die, which is a different type of rights infringement, but he can't sue him for negligent care.

Litigation serves a purpose, to defend the right of the plantiff. And if the defendant manage to win his case, he can easily counter-sue the plantiff and receive damages too, so I see no reason why a 'litigation' could pose any problems.

Well we differ there, litigation for my people is conflict resolution. Plaintiff and defendant are both treated equally in terms of rights preservation. This could possibly be why I put language in the act allowing the nations to decide for themselves. Possibly...

For one thing, this resolution does nothing. It merely 'encourages' or 'urges', tiptoeing around NatSovists when you really have to deal with this issue heads-on. Try 'mandates'.That's what the "Mild" strength is for.

And what if he violated a law that isn't negligence, but still worthy of a lawsuit? If Person A is dying, and Person B gave Person A alcoholic medication in order to help Person A (and thereby violate our drug laws),Do your drug laws ban cough syrup?

What if Person A wanted to die? If Person B saved Person A's life, Person A has the full right to sue Person B for interfering with his 'right to die'.This is patently ridiculous. I hardly think a trauma victim or even someone who's attempted suicide and failed would be qualified to invoke a "right to die."

Good question, I was never good at picking category. Human rights maybe, Tort Reform possibly but it doesn't have anything to do with corporate law. So idontknow.Your previous thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=532570) discussed the Tort Reform possibility, but the mods scuffled it. One or two suggested Moral Decency as an alternative. Another possible fit would be Political Stability: Mild, since you are attempting to limit people's right to sue, which is a democratic freedom. Although you really should write to the category.

Side note: you can bump old threads if they're yours, you know. You don't always have to create a new thread to avoid "gravedigging."

STRONGLY URGES each nation to establish a national review board for the review of potential negligence cases.To what purpose? To mitigate the lawsuits described? If so, state it.

STRONGLY DISCOURAGES civil litigations against any person who, in good faith, renders emergency medical care or assistance to an injured person outside of a medical facility, without the expectation or intention of receiving compensations for such services, for any act or omission not constituting negligence, according to national law, in the course of such care.Fris objected to this language, stating that volunteer firefighters and EMT officers should not be protected from litigation. The language is mild anyway, but I would suggest switching it to: "... any person who, in good faith, renders emergency medical care or assistance to an injured person outside of a medical facility, and who is neither employed nor given compensation for such services, for any act or omission ..."

Your previous thread (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=532570) discussed the Tort Reform possibility, but the mods scuffled it. One or two suggested Moral Decency as an alternative. Another possible fit would be Political Stability: Mild, since you are attempting to limit people's right to sue, which is a democratic freedom. Although you really should write to the category.

Side note: you can bump old threads if they're yours, you know. You don't always have to create a new thread to avoid "gravedigging."

Yea I know, I was thinking I wanted a clean slate for it.

To what purpose? To mitigate the lawsuits described? If so, state it.

Noted

Fris objected to this language, stating that volunteer firefighters and EMT officers should not be protected from litigation. The language is mild anyway, but I would suggest switching it to: "... any person who, in good faith, renders emergency medical care or assistance to an injured person outside of a medical facility, and who is neither employed nor given compensation for such services, for any act or omission ..."

Also noted.

Agregorn strongly supports this notion. Why limit it to volunteers though? We would go one step further, and prevent lawsuits for any person rendering aid (paid or stranger) that failed to, for example, save a life when performing their duties to the best of their ability, even if they were also being paid. I'm not disagreeing with you really. I'm just wondering why you chose this particular limit.

Agregorn strongly supports this notion. Why limit it to volunteers though? We would go one step further, and prevent lawsuits for any person rendering aid (paid or stranger) that failed to, for example, save a life when performing their duties to the best of their ability, even if they were also being paid. I'm not disagreeing with you really. I'm just wondering why you chose this particular limit.

Thanks.


If you are working at the job you SHOULD (and maybe this should be added) the county, nation, company you are working for is liable. The KSA is designed to help you out when your not covered. Does that make sense.

I can hardly say mandates and then be a part of the NatSovists can't I. It's not for the UN to create govermental bodies in countries. There are several very good standing resolutions that don't MANDATE anything.

This is true, but it leads to the question of why bother legalisting in the area? Merely giving a nudge to one side or another doesn't sound useful at all, and we believe the UN should focus on more important affairs rather than just be a poster child for the latest cause. The UN can urge stuff, but it should also make definite statements actually calling for stuff to be done.

But, I guess I do thank you for that. If it was in fact forcing us to change our laws rather than just merely keeping the status quo and being a rather useless piece of paper, we would have been a bit more angry.

Wait so your premise is that if a person renders good care and patient still dies that he should be sued? People die, it happens and if the caregiver gave the correct amount of care and did nothing wrong then where is the lawsuit?

He did something wrong. The person died.

Surely, that doesn't mean he is automatically guilty. But the fact that somebody died under his care may mean that he might have done something wrong. We are not going to give him carte blance because he 'tried'.

The caregivers training level verbiage is in there so people wont sue a first responder for failing to give the level of care that a doctor would give. Now if that first responder fails to give the correct level of care than sue him.

Hm. By that point, we disagree. The first responder, if he does not grant correct treatment, should receive some sort of punishment.

If Person B broke the law in your nation than Person B has bigger problems than Person A suing him. Plus if he's trained not to give meds with alcohol in them and does... he's negligent... so you can sue him.

In a right to die case, sure Person A can sue him for interfering with his right to die, which is a different type of rights infringement, but he can't sue him for negligent care.

Uh, considering the fact that it is all 'urges' and 'discourages', it should be obivous that we would ignore the resolution anyway, but...

Person A has also broken the law too by drinking alcohol. We would excuse him for that, but Person A has also been influenced by all the harmful effects of alcohol as well, he therefore should be able to be sued for those harmful effects. However, since we do not train Person B to use alcohol, we may very well call that "negligent" behavior, so we will accept your view on this.

As for the 'right to die' case, I believe you might be wrong on that.

STRONGLY DISCOURAGES civil litigations against any person who, in good faith, renders emergency medical care or assistance to an injured person outside of a medical facility, without the expectation or intention of receiving compensations for such services, for any act or omission not constituting negligence, according to national law, in the course of such care.

This means, if I read correctly, that as long as Person B is not committing negligence during the treatement, I am 'strongly discouraged' not to sue the guy, no matter what he does. He, in good faith, rendered medical aid to an injured person, without any expecation of payment, and it's not negligence.

Well we differ there, litigation for my people is conflict resolution. Plaintiff and defendant are both treated equally in terms of rights preservation. This could possibly be why I put language in the act allowing the nations to decide for themselves. Possibly...

Yeah. It's rather unlikely we'll reach consesus, so be it. Good luck on this.

Do your drug laws ban cough syrup?

Yes. Zero tolerance.

---Dr. Bob

We are shocked as well as the first responder was.

It makes sense why the average citizen would need coverage. Agregorn would rather companies be protected from opportunists as well, however this is something we will endeavor to enforce within our own borders, and realize it is not a view shared by all.

You have our full support on this as it stands today.

DEFINING “Negligence” as the failure to administer a level of care equivalent to the caregiver's training level[Delete:. Performing], the performance of an action which a reasonable and prudent person of equal medical training would not do, or the failure to perform an action a reasonable and prudent person of equal training would do.

STRONGLY URGES each nation to establish a national review board for the review of potential negligence cases, and to rule which cases are able to be litigated.

STRONGLY DISCOURAGES civil litigations against any person who, in good faith, renders emergency medical care or assistance to an injured person outside of a medical facility, without the expectation or intention of receiving compensations for such services, for any act or omission not constituting negligence, according to national law, in the course of such care.
We offer some small corrections to the language of the definition, which seems to have suffered from repeated amendment drift.

We note that this act is attempting to do two separate things, and as the esteemed Dr Bob has noted, it does both of them in a distinctly luke-warm and half-hearted manner. First, it legislates on professional medical negligence and how such should be handled. Frankly, while the UN's approach to medical care in general is in such a nebulous state, we do not see how the author believes that we have any right to meddle in that business. Even if the author believes that we have such a right, the language of the relevant clause needs considerable sharpening before we would be comfortable in our understanding of what it does and, more importantly, doesn't entail.

The second element is the one most apt to the title of the proposal, but we consider the one that least achieves it. By merely 'strongly discouraging' the civil litigation path of selfish vengence for an accident we achieve precisely nothing more than saying "but it's OK to do so if you really want to." Worse, by specifically excluding emergency services while retaining the language concerning negligence, we officially tell such paramedics that we don't care about them enough to offer them even a fig-leaf of protection.

We offer some small corrections to the language of the definition, which seems to have suffered from repeated amendment drift.

We note that this act is attempting to do two separate things, and as the esteemed Dr Bob has noted, it does both of them in a distinctly luke-warm and half-hearted manner. First, it legislates on professional medical negligence and how such should be handled. Frankly, while the UN's approach to medical care in general is in such a nebulous state, we do not see how the author believes that we have any right to meddle in that business. Even if the author believes that we have such a right, the language of the relevant clause needs considerable sharpening before we would be comfortable in our understanding of what it does and, more importantly, doesn't entail.

The second element is the one most apt to the title of the proposal, but we consider the one that least achieves it. By merely 'strongly discouraging' the civil litigation path of selfish vengence for an accident we achieve precisely nothing more than saying "but it's OK to do so if you really want to." Worse, by specifically excluding emergency services while retaining the language concerning negligence, we officially tell such paramedics that we don't care about them enough to offer them even a fig-leaf of protection.

As always interesting food for thought. It's late for me I'll attack again in the morning. Perhaps an overhaul is needed.

The second element is the one most apt to the title of the proposal, but we consider the one that least achieves it. By merely 'strongly discouraging' the civil litigation path of selfish vengence for an accident we achieve precisely nothing more than saying "but it's OK to do so if you really want to."

I agree, if we are to do anything about this issue than we need to make them do it rather than just suggest it. This Act is effectively just a paper tiger due to weak lanuage.

Seeing as its basically a Good Samaritan law, the Holy Empire of Imota supports this proposal.

Seeing as its basically a Good Samaritan law, the Holy Empire of Imota supports this proposal.

Pretty ironic that we already have a Good Samaritan Law (http://www.safalra.com/other/nationstates/un-resolution-browser/?resolution=76), though.

Actually, pro-NatSov friendly, more convincing arguments, and rather useful (in that, unlike the other resolution, it has a section that talks about such proposed immunity being granted be allowed to be stripped away if someone acts with "reckless or intentional disregard of known dangers").