Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and there's Jerry over there.
Speaker 1: And this is Stuff you Should Know, Just a trio
Speaker 1: of helpful types who like to go around the world
Speaker 1: and escort people through crosswalks and get sued for it
Speaker 1: is escorting someone through a busy intersection against the light, right,
Speaker 1: and then you get to the other side and hold
Speaker 1: out your hand and say, lay some bread on me, sucker.
Speaker 1: All these are bad ideas, they really are. They really are.
Speaker 1: But I mean we're full of those, aren't we, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I mean just brimming with them. That's our log line
Speaker 1: to ten plus years of bad ideas? All right? Or
Speaker 1: oh god, you've been listening to us this whole time?
Speaker 1: Are you crazy? Oh boy? So you're feeling pretty good
Speaker 1: about this one, because I gotta tell you I am. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, uh, if folks listen to our I think
Speaker 1: dare I say it was a good episode on the
Speaker 1: very sad Case of Kitty Genovese in New York. That
Speaker 1: was a good episode. You can go back and listen
Speaker 1: to that and that's a pretty good setup because in
Speaker 1: that just to recap very quickly, in the mid sixties,
Speaker 1: a young woman was was raped and killed in a
Speaker 1: very busy area of New York City, and uh, it
Speaker 1: was very famous because many many people um supposedly heard
Speaker 1: the attack, watched the attack, perhaps didn't do anything, made
Speaker 1: the news, and created something that they study still today
Speaker 1: and UH in psychology classes called the bystander effect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this idea of responsibility diffusion where if you have
Speaker 1: a bunch of people standing around no one, everybody just
Speaker 1: assumed somebody else will help, and they don't help. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Joshua Clark or some help. Sure, leave it up to him.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting there like, well, obviously Chuck's gonna help.
Speaker 1: He's a better person than me. And then we're both
Speaker 1: just staying there and do nothing. Yeah. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: Jerry's just laying there with like a jolly rancher in
Speaker 1: her throat, right, But everybody knows she can't talk anyway,
Speaker 1: so she can't call for help. It's very hard to
Speaker 1: tell sometimes that Jerry's in need of assistance, or if
Speaker 1: she's just being Jerry right, or if she even exists. However,
Speaker 1: article says that, um, the bystander effect in this case
Speaker 1: in particular, led to the first Good Samaritan laws in
Speaker 1: our country. Yeah, that is not true, because two years
Speaker 1: before that, right here in Georgia, our first laws went
Speaker 1: into effect. Yeah. The one I found that was the
Speaker 1: earliest was in nineteen fifty nine, five years before Kitty
Speaker 1: Geneviz was murdered, and that was in California, and that
Speaker 1: protected doctors who were administering aid in emergency situations. Hippie
Speaker 1: liberal elitists out there right that the left coast. But
Speaker 1: but the it's a weird thing to tie together the
Speaker 1: bystander effect and good Samaritan laws because they don't actually
Speaker 1: go together. They're not that you like, you want them
Speaker 1: to fit together, but when you lay them side by side,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, these are these are two different types
Speaker 1: of sea monkeys. I thought they were a husband and wife,
Speaker 1: but they're not. Oh I see the correlation. I want to.
Speaker 1: My brain just won't quite make the the connection. Like
Speaker 1: if someone had raced down to help Kitty Genevise and
Speaker 1: render her aid and not been a bystander, then they
Speaker 1: could you know, that falls into the Good Samaritan laws
Speaker 1: it does, but really it falls more under like the
Speaker 1: duty to act laws, like you'll get in trouble if
Speaker 1: you if you are just a bystander if you don't
Speaker 1: do something, whereas a good Samaritan law basically says, if
Speaker 1: you do do something and you help Kitty Genevise or
Speaker 1: somebody who's in trouble and you make their situation worse,
Speaker 1: you can't be sued for for rendering eight because you
Speaker 1: were acting in good faith. So it's kind of there,
Speaker 1: but it's not quite. It doesn't click. I got you,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. I hear you, all right, Okay,
Speaker 1: I just really wanted to get that off of my chest. Well,
Speaker 1: uh so, yeah, you just kind of said it like
Speaker 1: those those laws are in place now as protections generally,
Speaker 1: um for American that they happened all over the world.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about a few of the laws here and there,
Speaker 1: but uh, all fifty states and Washington, d C. The
Speaker 1: the District of Columbia have some sort of laws on
Speaker 1: the books, uh that that you can basically be protected
Speaker 1: potentially and not held responsible for your actions even if
Speaker 1: they cause harm. But because it's state law, if you're
Speaker 1: not American, I'm not sure how it works in all countries,
Speaker 1: but they the laws and from states to stay it
Speaker 1: on the same thing and very wildly. Yeah, and certainly
Speaker 1: in this case, it's what they call a patch work
Speaker 1: of state laws in need of a federal law for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. So because there's so many different laws in
Speaker 1: so many different states. Um, you know, if the actions
Speaker 1: that you you perform in one state might get you,
Speaker 1: you know, you might get your mug on the front
Speaker 1: page of the paper being celebrated, and in another state
Speaker 1: your mugs on the front page of the paper because
Speaker 1: you just got sued, you know. So we'll we'll dive
Speaker 1: into that a little more. But first let's talk about
Speaker 1: where the name for the laws come from. Chalk. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember this story from my church going days as
Speaker 1: a kid. That really stood out to me back then
Speaker 1: because uh, well it's in Luke and the story is
Speaker 1: is that a Jewish man was assaulted and robbed on
Speaker 1: the road and left for dead basically, and some people
Speaker 1: passed by without rendering aid. A Jewish priest and a levite,
Speaker 1: which is an assistant priest basically or assistant to the priest.
Speaker 1: Do you have the impression that the priest and the
Speaker 1: levite were together, or that the priest passed and then
Speaker 1: at some point later on the levite passed. You know
Speaker 1: what this is going back a lot of years, dude.
Speaker 1: But if my memory is telling me that they were
Speaker 1: two separate things, Okay, I knew that question would pay
Speaker 1: you all. But I might be wrong. But my my
Speaker 1: old I still have some old church memories rattling around
Speaker 1: in this dusty noggin. You just saw like smoke come
Speaker 1: out of my ears. I thought that was a flower.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, well, I'm gluten free though, Oh are you? No,
Speaker 1: Emily is so by default? I sometimes I am right? Sure, No,
Speaker 1: I know what you mean. You know that goes. But finally,
Speaker 1: as the story goes, a Samaritan um that is a
Speaker 1: person from Samaria who were bitter enemies of the Jews,
Speaker 1: came by. And what did he do? He said, Hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: you look like you're having a pretty rotten day. Let
Speaker 1: me help you out, that's right. And he did. He
Speaker 1: not only said here, let me let me pick you
Speaker 1: up and get you out of this dusty road. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you to an inn. And not only
Speaker 1: am I gonna do that, I'm gonna pay for your
Speaker 1: room at the end, and then I'm gonna say it,
Speaker 1: bid you a good day and good health. Audios. Enemy
Speaker 1: And he did imagine this chuck this Good Samaritan story.
Speaker 1: It's entirely possible that this actually took place, That this
Speaker 1: is a real story that happened, right, it's not just
Speaker 1: a parable. Imagine if you were that guy, that Samaritan
Speaker 1: who did this thing, this act of goodwill, and two
Speaker 1: thousand years later, people around the world are still talking
Speaker 1: about it. How great would that happy? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes after our show ends, no one's going
Speaker 1: to talk about it, right, you know, just like all
Speaker 1: of this the talk shows we've been on the kiss
Speaker 1: of death that we have. Uh. But for sure, I
Speaker 1: mean every even if you are like the most atheistic
Speaker 1: agnostic human on earth, you've heard of the story of
Speaker 1: the Good Samaritan. It's just one of those things that
Speaker 1: is is transcended religion into pop culture. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: had never known that at the time. Like you said,
Speaker 1: the Jews and the Samaritans hated each other, um And
Speaker 1: apparently I looked it up. They really really did not
Speaker 1: like each other. It wasn't just like over religious stuff.
Speaker 1: It was over political stuff too, and how those things intertwined.
Speaker 1: So they really did not get along. So not only
Speaker 1: did this guy help somebody in need, he helped an
Speaker 1: an enemy in need. So I think he does deserve
Speaker 1: to be to be commemorated for eons over that. Sure,
Speaker 1: But that's where the name of the law comes from.
Speaker 1: Good Samaritan laws are when you stop and help somebody,
Speaker 1: whether it's your enemy or your friend, um, in an
Speaker 1: emergency situation, typically you are you should not be penalized
Speaker 1: if your good intentions cause further harm, right, which seems
Speaker 1: very much like a no brainer, But it is complicated.
Speaker 1: The more you read into this stuff, the more you're like, man,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of nuance to to the variations of
Speaker 1: these laws. Yeah. The more you read into it, the
Speaker 1: more you're like, I am going to end up second
Speaker 1: guessing myself the next time in pace with an emergency situation,
Speaker 1: Like I hadn't thought about it before, but it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could totally get sued for helping somebody out, depending
Speaker 1: on where you are. Yeah, I've never come across this,
Speaker 1: not even close what an emergency situation I have I have? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was I was one of many at an accident.
Speaker 1: I witnessed the accident. It was like one of those
Speaker 1: things where you see it happening, you just see it
Speaker 1: in slow motion and you're just like trying to will
Speaker 1: it to stop with your body and it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: It was a man who got te bowed by another
Speaker 1: car that he didn't see coming. Um and uh. I
Speaker 1: was one of the people on the scene kind of
Speaker 1: helping out. It didn't even occur to me that that
Speaker 1: that that man could be like these people hurt me,
Speaker 1: you know, in in helping I didn't touch the guy
Speaker 1: or anything like that, but I mean other people were
Speaker 1: and um, you know, we called for help and all that,
Speaker 1: so I think we did it about as good as
Speaker 1: you can. But nothing about the situation was like, well
Speaker 1: I need to I need to watch out for my
Speaker 1: legal exposure here, like something real quick, like where what
Speaker 1: state of my end? Let me just check out what's
Speaker 1: going on as this like you know, person is bleeding
Speaker 1: in the street exactly, but it is nuanced and and
Speaker 1: after reading some of these examples, I I you know,
Speaker 1: I get both sides of the coin for sure. So
Speaker 1: I mean, for example, like there are a couple of
Speaker 1: things that all of this patchwork of of um of
Speaker 1: the Good Samaritan laws will will have in common. Basically two,
Speaker 1: as this article states. One is that you can't be
Speaker 1: compensated for helping out. And that's a pretty literal reading
Speaker 1: of the law. I think it's meant to exempt emergency workers, paramedics,
Speaker 1: doctors like they they've got their their whole own set
Speaker 1: of laws governing their actions or inactions, right, so to
Speaker 1: keep them from giving preferential treatment. I think it's mostly
Speaker 1: to say this is meant to um, this is this
Speaker 1: is my interpretation of it um. But from what I've
Speaker 1: seen with Good Samaritan laws, it's it's totally in the
Speaker 1: eye of the beholder. But the the that's meant to say,
Speaker 1: like this covers non medical professionals is who we're talking about.
Speaker 1: And to to define that, they're saying this is this
Speaker 1: covers somebody who isn't compensated for their assistance, and that's
Speaker 1: been transmuted into you can't be compensated for your assistance
Speaker 1: or else that that leaves you exposed to legal action later.
Speaker 1: So when you were sort of getting around at the
Speaker 1: beginning though, but if if you saved let's say perform
Speaker 1: the Timli at a restaurant and the persons like, man,
Speaker 1: you just say, my life, here's a here's a fins key, right,
Speaker 1: don't take that five dollar bill and also throw it
Speaker 1: back in their face and say this is what your
Speaker 1: life is worth, right exactly? And they say, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't really love myself. Well, then then you introduced them
Speaker 1: to a good analyst and go about your day. Analyst?
Speaker 1: What is that? Would mind a New Yorker in the seventies.
Speaker 1: You sound like Carrie Green. Nobody says analysts anymore. It
Speaker 1: was weird. I think that's what Bob Newhart was, was he?
Speaker 1: I think? I think yeah, he did consider himself as
Speaker 1: an analyst. That seems like an antiquated term though. Yes,
Speaker 1: now it's therapist, right or shrink Yeah yeah, shrink head
Speaker 1: shrinker I think is the preferred term. Yeah. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I would have been in a while. Oh yeah, years.
Speaker 1: It's good. It's good. Good to go talk to people,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like, yeah, but I got
Speaker 1: it all figured out now. Oh well, that's good. You're
Speaker 1: cured is what they call that. Yeah, they cured me.
Speaker 1: I hope they gave your shrinking award. Yeah, do you
Speaker 1: know what the cure is? What is not really thinking
Speaker 1: about things too much? Yeah, that's a good that's good advice.
Speaker 1: Now I'm just kidding because people have real problems, but
Speaker 1: I never have had the real problems. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: But I think like even if you don't have like
Speaker 1: real problems, if you don't have like, you know, some
Speaker 1: sort of chemical imbalance or diagnosable condition, just about anybody
Speaker 1: can benefit from time to time to go just talk.
Speaker 1: It's not even necessarily the counselor helping you, as just
Speaker 1: being in a situation where you're talking out loud and
Speaker 1: talking through your problems to find out what you actually think.
Speaker 1: It's very helpful. Yeah. I mean I do that at
Speaker 1: my doctor and my dentist and they're like, dude, we
Speaker 1: don't want to hear this. Go see see an analyst.
Speaker 1: You're like, well, I know I'm knocking out two birds
Speaker 1: of once time. So uh, all right, let's go over
Speaker 1: just a couple of these. I mean, like I said,
Speaker 1: they're they're different everywhere, but there was one other thing chucky.
Speaker 1: So I said that there were two things in common,
Speaker 1: and one of them is you can't be competition. The
Speaker 1: other one almost across the board with any any law
Speaker 1: you're gonna find is that you can't act recklessly, recklessly negligently. Wow,
Speaker 1: let's tough to get out. You would not hold up
Speaker 1: in court. I'd be like, give me my five dollars
Speaker 1: as your lawyer, or maybe that's your defense, you're like
Speaker 1: your honor. I can't even says, um, Yeah, those are
Speaker 1: two important uh factors for these laws for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like that's that's what they all have in common generally, Right,
Speaker 1: that's right. But from there, like if you go to Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: let's say, you're only um given protection uh if you
Speaker 1: are untrained, Like you're just a regular person, right, You're
Speaker 1: not a a medic, let's say, or a doctor, and
Speaker 1: only if you're giving CPR or trying to stop blood loss. Right,
Speaker 1: that's weirdly specific. I've seen that, Like, Um, that that's
Speaker 1: that's you could say that. That was the third thing
Speaker 1: that they all have in common, Like, if you're administering
Speaker 1: CPR or something really basic that any person would want
Speaker 1: to do or try to do, Um, you're probably protected
Speaker 1: by a good Samaritan law. Yeah, and defribrillators are covered
Speaker 1: in a lot of these laws since those have really gotten.
Speaker 1: I guess, just more common like the you know, the
Speaker 1: and I looked into buying one of those. They're expensive, though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you looked into buying one. Yeah, just carry around with you, No,
Speaker 1: not to carry around, but to uh to have like
Speaker 1: not in my car. I got you, Um, so you could,
Speaker 1: I mean you could help somebody stranding on the side
Speaker 1: of the road with a jumper cable or get their
Speaker 1: ticket going again. The key I've heard is that when
Speaker 1: you're um, when you're setting them up to be defibrillated,
Speaker 1: you have to shout hot stuff right before you engage it.
Speaker 1: I thought they would be like three or four bucks.
Speaker 1: How much are they? I don't I mean thousands of dollars.
Speaker 1: I can't remember how many thousands, but it was enough
Speaker 1: to where I just kind of closed the browser and
Speaker 1: went in a cool news or something. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: God bless those malls in America and having them every
Speaker 1: ten feet and keeping us all safe. Sure, I'm sure
Speaker 1: their insurance helps pay for that. I guess you cynic Uh.
Speaker 1: Here's another one in Vermont. You can be fined actually
Speaker 1: if you are a bystander and don't do anything. I
Speaker 1: kind of love this one. Yeah, this is This is
Speaker 1: what I think the law should be. You know, get
Speaker 1: a penalty and unless you're jumping in there. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I mean obviously not putting your own life in jeopardy.
Speaker 1: Like this is not like if you see somebody getting
Speaker 1: mugged you have to go wrestle the gun away from
Speaker 1: the guy or jumping into the frozen Potomac River. Sure,
Speaker 1: but that if you see someone in need and you
Speaker 1: just keep walking by, you should you should suffer some
Speaker 1: sort of consequence for that. You should act. Um that
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a this is a very slippery
Speaker 1: slope right here, because compelling people to act, that's that's
Speaker 1: a big that's a big infringement on personal liberty. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's kind of like, come on,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have to invigorate somebody's humanity with
Speaker 1: a little bit of law here there, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: in favorite the um. One of my favorite stories that
Speaker 1: I can ever see on any news program is when
Speaker 1: you see a group of people coming together to like
Speaker 1: and saving people is great too, but like to pull
Speaker 1: a goat out of a river or something, and there's
Speaker 1: like the guy with the truck and another guy's like
Speaker 1: I got rope and this lady comes up and it's
Speaker 1: like I'm a goat whisperer. Uh, And they all like
Speaker 1: you see, like six or eight strangers come together to
Speaker 1: to rescue like an animal. But they tied the best
Speaker 1: They tied the not too tight and accidentally pull the
Speaker 1: goat in two and then the goat SEUs. That's how
Speaker 1: it goes uh. And then Michigan just forget about it,
Speaker 1: like it is so convoluted and weird. In Michigan, um
Speaker 1: they protect people who declined to offer assistance, but then
Speaker 1: they also protect like what is it ski patrol? Um?
Speaker 1: What else? There's like three very weirdly specific If you're
Speaker 1: a block parent, which means that you your house is
Speaker 1: designated as a safe place. You know, the safe place
Speaker 1: signs that you see on seven elevens and stuff I've
Speaker 1: never noticed. It's if you're a little kid and you
Speaker 1: some some stranger danger guy in a trench coat is
Speaker 1: following you, you can run into a thing that has
Speaker 1: a safe place and they will protect you and call
Speaker 1: the cops and call your parents. In Michigan, I guess
Speaker 1: you can volunteer as a person whose house is a
Speaker 1: safe place and you're you're exempted through Good Samaritan laws, right,
Speaker 1: but you show up in there like you're in a
Speaker 1: house state fan you can't come in uh so potential
Speaker 1: as sisters, medical personnel block, parent volunteers and National Ski
Speaker 1: Patrol in Michigan, or if you're giving CPR or using
Speaker 1: an emergency defibrillator. Again, I think the pretty well that's
Speaker 1: like covered almost across the board. That's like the one
Speaker 1: area that they just want to make sure that everyone
Speaker 1: once you know, we would jump in on. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think so, And I think that's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: why they make them so prominent in in public. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not like you have to break glass and there's
Speaker 1: like a fire hose that you have to know how
Speaker 1: to get off and turn the thing on. Like it's
Speaker 1: meant for the public to go grab and use, not
Speaker 1: just for emergency personnel, because using a defibrillator in a
Speaker 1: in a timely manner has such an impact on on
Speaker 1: the survival rate from a heart attack that you want
Speaker 1: people walking around knowing how to use one and ready
Speaker 1: to use one in an emergency situation. Argentina, this is tricky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could face jail time for either putting a person
Speaker 1: in jeopardy or abandoning a person to their fate. It's
Speaker 1: a real fine line, it is, for sure, Like I
Speaker 1: think if you yeah, it is a tricky one. I
Speaker 1: went back and reread it too, and I'm like, nope,
Speaker 1: that's that's a tricky one. But i'd the idea of
Speaker 1: abandoning to them to their fate if they need help,
Speaker 1: like somebody on a mountain or something like that, and
Speaker 1: just being like sorry, chump and walking along. I like
Speaker 1: that idea that you you have to do something for them,
Speaker 1: you're saying, right, You like the idea of just saying, well,
Speaker 1: it's kind of in God's hands. Now, that's Michigan. Michigan
Speaker 1: protects that, right. Should we take a break, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: all right. Let's take a break, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about a very interesting case from California about fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago right after this. Alright, dude, we're back and
Speaker 1: we're in California and during the ad break, we got
Speaker 1: in the way back machine and it's two thous in four. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh wait, I was still living there. Oh yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna run into you. I've arranged it. I just didn't
Speaker 1: know you I'm like, who's that guy? I got in
Speaker 1: touch with past Chuck and I said, you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to meet somebody special. You're like, just wait for that
Speaker 1: beard you're gonna have one day. I'm like, what, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I can't grow beard. Yeah, and he'll be like, well,
Speaker 1: at least I got all my teeth. That checks out.
Speaker 1: Oh the salad days. Um? All right, So this case
Speaker 1: is really interesting. Uh. Lisa Torti and Alexandra van Horne
Speaker 1: were makeup artists that worked together, um friendly acquaintances as
Speaker 1: co workers, but I didn't get the picture that they
Speaker 1: were like best buddies or anything. Yeah, I would guess
Speaker 1: the lawsuit implies that they weren't. So they went out
Speaker 1: as a as a group of not just those two,
Speaker 1: but a bunch of people from work went out for
Speaker 1: some drinks in the l A area. One of them,
Speaker 1: Alexandra van Horn, was headed back and crashed her car.
Speaker 1: Pretty bad crash. I think it was like into a
Speaker 1: telephone bowl. Yeah really yeah, She's like all the air
Speaker 1: bags deployed. Uh. Lisa Torti was I saw this, got
Speaker 1: out of her car, saw smoke, saw liquid and was like,
Speaker 1: I think this this car might explode. I need to
Speaker 1: do something quick and pulled Alexandra Van Horn from the car,
Speaker 1: which seems like it had a hand in in paralyzing her. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's one thing you want to really be
Speaker 1: careful doing is moving somebody, and you probably don't want
Speaker 1: to move them at all. But again, Lisa Torty thought
Speaker 1: that Alexandra Van Horne's car was about to blow up,
Speaker 1: so she decided that she was better off trying to
Speaker 1: get her out of the car, and in court, Van
Speaker 1: Horne said that Torty yanked her from the car like
Speaker 1: a rag doll. Yeah. Um, Torty said, the smoke, the smoke,
Speaker 1: and and I mean, looking back on it, it's probably
Speaker 1: it was Annie Freeze on a hot hot motor. But
Speaker 1: even still, she acted in good faith and so California's
Speaker 1: Good Samaritan laws. She said, you can't sue me. I
Speaker 1: was trying to help you, um, in an emergency situation. Sorry,
Speaker 1: the good Samaritan laws cover this. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm no longer speaking to you. Yeah. Probably so. Uh.
Speaker 1: It went all the way to the California Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: where they ruled that um she could sue her friend
Speaker 1: and co worker because protection at that time, at least
Speaker 1: for the Good Samaritan law was only for those administering
Speaker 1: medical care, not rescue care. Well, so the law said
Speaker 1: that it was emergency care, and the court interpreted that
Speaker 1: to mean medical care, which was like what And the
Speaker 1: legislature even said, like, no, that's not at all how
Speaker 1: we meant it. Interesting. Yeah, in fact, they amended the
Speaker 1: law the next year to say specifically medical or non
Speaker 1: medical emergency care. But that vagueness got um got least
Speaker 1: a torty suited. Yeah, And I was it's hard to
Speaker 1: find out sometimes final results of legal cases. We've like
Speaker 1: had that problem, I feel like a lot over the years. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The media they have a short attention span. Well it's that,
Speaker 1: and I think sometimes these things are just still dragging out.
Speaker 1: Oh really, you think it's still going on? I think
Speaker 1: so because I found an article from like three years ago. Uh,
Speaker 1: because I was just trying to find out what happened
Speaker 1: with the lawsuit, and apparently, um, the woman who pulled
Speaker 1: the woman being sued TORTI had two different insurance companies,
Speaker 1: of one of which said I'm not getting involved in this,
Speaker 1: the other of which said, you know what, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna agree to defend you against the lawsuit. It
Speaker 1: was settled for four million dollars and then the one
Speaker 1: insurance company that agreed to help defender sued. The other
Speaker 1: insurance company said you got a pony up half of this,
Speaker 1: and um, the last thing I saw was a district
Speaker 1: court judge ruled or the defendants insurance company, in other words,
Speaker 1: the one that said I don't want any part of this,
Speaker 1: you don't have to pay. But then it said, uh,
Speaker 1: an appellet panel reversed that decision on Wednesday, and that's
Speaker 1: literally the last thing I could find. Wow. Wow, that
Speaker 1: is still dragging on. Holy cow, Chuck. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know. There may be something newer
Speaker 1: out there, but uh, there are probably tricks that legal
Speaker 1: scholars know that I don't know about researching this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, what does that say, Chuck, that that like
Speaker 1: an insurance company can just be like where your insurance company,
Speaker 1: but we're not We're not touching this one. Well, it
Speaker 1: was complicated though, because it was it was insurance. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like just insurance for me walking around if I
Speaker 1: want to help someone. It was car insurance. So it was.
Speaker 1: It all came down to whether or not it was
Speaker 1: considered a use of a car by her opening that
Speaker 1: door and unbuckling her seatbelt and pulling her out, whether
Speaker 1: that was using the car. I got very comple a
Speaker 1: little more sense, though, you know how like convoluted that
Speaker 1: stuff gets though it does for sure, But that whole
Speaker 1: like so the whole legality of this whole thing, um
Speaker 1: that that made that whole Lisa Torty in Alexandro van
Speaker 1: Horn case, I mean I heard about that when that
Speaker 1: was going on. Everybody heard about that case because it
Speaker 1: was like, well, wait a minute, she was trying to help,
Speaker 1: and now she's getting sued and wire why are friends fighting?
Speaker 1: That whole kind of thing. That was two thousand four,
Speaker 1: and then two years later China started to rise as
Speaker 1: a great power of anti good samaritanism um in a
Speaker 1: lot of different cases, and all of it started in
Speaker 1: two thousand six in the case of Peg You, who
Speaker 1: was a man who got off of a bus in
Speaker 1: China and saw that an older woman had fallen and
Speaker 1: um broken her hip, and so she had been trying
Speaker 1: to get on the bus paying you was coming off
Speaker 1: of the bus, and um he went to go help
Speaker 1: the lady. Well, the lady later said that he was
Speaker 1: the one who caused her to fall and sued him,
Speaker 1: and he was like, I'm just an innocent by Sander
Speaker 1: who was being a good samaritan helping this lady. Well,
Speaker 1: the the court said, note, paying You, we we've decided that, um,
Speaker 1: you probably did cause the fall. Otherwise why else would
Speaker 1: you have helped the lady? And there's more nuance to it.
Speaker 1: There were there were a couple of things. Paying You
Speaker 1: said he was the first one off the bus, and
Speaker 1: the court said, well, then you were probably the person
Speaker 1: to bump into the lady and knock her down. And also,
Speaker 1: why did you give her twenty you on um which
Speaker 1: is about thirty bucks? Uh if if you didn't feel responsible.
Speaker 1: And then thirdly, if you were acting heroically, why didn't
Speaker 1: you go apprehend the person who knocked her down? Why
Speaker 1: would you go help So there's a little more to
Speaker 1: it than just like nobody would possibly help someone out
Speaker 1: of the goodness of their hearts. So you're guilty. But
Speaker 1: that's kind of how I got played up in the
Speaker 1: popular media, both in China and in the rest of
Speaker 1: the world, and so paying You became this cautionary tale
Speaker 1: like if you see somebody hurt in the street, don't
Speaker 1: help them because they will sue you. And people started
Speaker 1: to do that, and so people in China until in
Speaker 1: a few really big cases, sensational cases, did just that.
Speaker 1: They stopped helping people who clearly needed help, and people
Speaker 1: were dying as a result. Yeah, I mean they were.
Speaker 1: I mean there's just one case I can't even talk about. Uh,
Speaker 1: but it was just awful. You know. People not helping
Speaker 1: people clearly in need became sort of an epidemic in China. Uh,
Speaker 1: until they finally changed some law in what just last year,
Speaker 1: I think a National Good Samaritan law in two thousand
Speaker 1: seventeen that does offer protections. But he sa in that
Speaker 1: one article that, uh, it was like it's out of
Speaker 1: hand in China. Now in the other way because this
Speaker 1: this one. Uh. Donald Clark, a law professor who actually
Speaker 1: specializes in Chinese law at g W, said that in China,
Speaker 1: you can like see someone choking in a restaurant and
Speaker 1: attempt a tracheotomy with a butter knife with no training
Speaker 1: and be covered and you won't can't be sued, which
Speaker 1: is I think everyone would agree that's that's a little
Speaker 1: too far. Yeah, no matter what you do, you cannot
Speaker 1: be held liable for acting as a good samaritan, even
Speaker 1: if it's the most reckless, negligent thing you can imagine,
Speaker 1: trying something you're not familiar with at all, you can't
Speaker 1: be sued. And so some people said, well, not only
Speaker 1: does this article on this new law um cover it
Speaker 1: goes too far and covering people protecting people, it doesn't
Speaker 1: address the problem, which is this culture of distrust that's
Speaker 1: been kind of fostered by these judges who are ruling
Speaker 1: in favor of people who are accusing the good samaritans
Speaker 1: that have helped them of actually causing their injury and
Speaker 1: create this chilling effect and helping people, I mean people
Speaker 1: literally elderly people getting hit by cars and being left
Speaker 1: in the street as people walk around them, and then
Speaker 1: being hit by another car and killed later on, like
Speaker 1: a half hour later, Like this was happening, This is
Speaker 1: going on, and people wouldn't go anywhere near these people
Speaker 1: because they were afraid that they were going to get sued.
Speaker 1: And and and it was mostly because judges um in
Speaker 1: in the court system, we're saying they were siding with
Speaker 1: people with zero evidence whatsoever, just basically on a suspicion
Speaker 1: of someone's good intentions. Yeah, I mean that original case
Speaker 1: when they said, uh, what was the man's name? Again?
Speaker 1: Paying you? Paying you? They had no evidence whatsoever. It's
Speaker 1: not like it was on uh close caption television or
Speaker 1: anything like that. It was just like you said, the
Speaker 1: judge going, it seems to me like it's pretty weird
Speaker 1: that you would have helped had you not been the
Speaker 1: one that actually not dropped to begin with. Exactly. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's good that kin has this good Samaritan law,
Speaker 1: and it's it's a very broad law and it probably
Speaker 1: needs to be walked back a little bit. But um,
Speaker 1: they also need to go after the judges are the
Speaker 1: I guess kind of the sentiment or thought process of
Speaker 1: judges that kind of just says, why would you help
Speaker 1: somebody out if you weren't, if you weren't the one
Speaker 1: that caused the accident. Until they do that, and until
Speaker 1: they go after this group um pengshi, which are basically crooks,
Speaker 1: people who like lay down in front of cars and
Speaker 1: pretend they got hit, um and then sue the people
Speaker 1: and are frequently found like they're ruled in favor of
Speaker 1: their case. Until that is rooted out, that people are
Speaker 1: still going to be distrustful of helping people who are
Speaker 1: in need. Yeah, and that even the van Horn case.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know she's trying to help, but like
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to move people, you know, like everyone
Speaker 1: kind of knows that. And this woman ended up paralyzed,
Speaker 1: And if it was a act results of that, then
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's is that's a tough one. You know.
Speaker 1: Well they say that the road to hell is paved
Speaker 1: with good intentions. That's kind of like where that that lies. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I feel bad for both parties for sure.
Speaker 1: For sure, because this the twitty was legitimately trying to help.
Speaker 1: She wasn't like, well, let me do something that might
Speaker 1: really hurt my coworker further. She thought that car was
Speaker 1: going to blow up. Yea, you know, so let's get
Speaker 1: her out of there, right exactly. It wasn't like, you know,
Speaker 1: she'd always harbored some deep resentment of her, so this
Speaker 1: is her chance to paralyze her. Yeah, you know, not
Speaker 1: funny at all for the way that you said. So
Speaker 1: we should probably take a break. Then we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna recover from that and distract you with an ad okay, yes, okay, chuck.
Speaker 1: So there's another big push in Good Samaritan laws in
Speaker 1: the United States. It's interesting how they're kind of like
Speaker 1: refined as as things go on, but there's this thread,
Speaker 1: the sentiment that runs through them that's like, Okay, we
Speaker 1: need to make sure that people aren't don't hesitate in
Speaker 1: helping their fellow their fellow human in need. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of these, uh, I mean, it's labeled as special
Speaker 1: interest good Samaritan laws, but these these are great, like
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense, especially well, they all do.
Speaker 1: But this one about the food donation um. In the
Speaker 1: mid ninety nineties, there was a realization that a lot
Speaker 1: of food was going to waste fourteen billion pounds, specifically
Speaker 1: of food going to landfills when people in America needed
Speaker 1: that food. And uh, you know you've toward stories about
Speaker 1: grocery stores or can't be held liabel, so they just
Speaker 1: have to throw that stuff away. So they passed the
Speaker 1: Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, which is to
Speaker 1: provide some protections in case you donate food and someone
Speaker 1: gets sick from eating that food, right exactly, So I
Speaker 1: remember back when when grocery stores did have to throw
Speaker 1: that away before that law, and it was just so
Speaker 1: wasteful and so just morally wrong. So they passed that
Speaker 1: one good year for passing laws, I guess. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then there's even newer kind of push of good Samaritan
Speaker 1: laws that are protecting college kids who drink too much
Speaker 1: even though they're underage. They might be worried, oh man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get expelled or kicked out of college if
Speaker 1: I call for help. And so apparently that some of
Speaker 1: them weren't calling for help, and so some universities I
Speaker 1: think it's up to thirty universities in thirty five states
Speaker 1: now have something called Lifeline or nine one one good
Speaker 1: Samaritan law where if you call for help for yourself
Speaker 1: or for somebody else who's had too much to drink,
Speaker 1: and it's like a medical emergency, you won't get in
Speaker 1: trouble for having been drinking under age. But it's laid
Speaker 1: the groundwork for UM uh, like a larger law about
Speaker 1: opioid abuse that we really kind of need. That's a
Speaker 1: good Samaritan law for UM that that protects people who
Speaker 1: are calling for somebody who's overdosing on heroin UM where
Speaker 1: under normal circumstances they might hesitate because they're on heroin
Speaker 1: themselves and they don't want to get busted for it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's uh. It's called an alex ozone and this is uh.
Speaker 1: Basically it comes list like an EpiPen now and it's
Speaker 1: something that cops have in their emergency kits. And uh,
Speaker 1: just like an EpiPen, is something that a civilian can use.
Speaker 1: You don't have to have medical training. If someone is
Speaker 1: overdosing on an on heroin or some other kind of opioid,
Speaker 1: you just inject this thing and that can save their life.
Speaker 1: And so junkies don't want to call the ambulance or
Speaker 1: the cops or whatever, just the same as an underage
Speaker 1: college kid doesn't want to call the cops. So they're
Speaker 1: often described as medical amnesty laws. Uh. And and it
Speaker 1: is great, you know, this is exactly and it's making
Speaker 1: a difference. There was one study in two thousand two
Speaker 1: at Cornell about the alcohol one and they said there
Speaker 1: was a rise from to fifty of UM counseling sessions
Speaker 1: attended by students in two thousand four because students weren't afraid,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm nineteen years old or whatever and I
Speaker 1: need help. So they you know, it's it's shown that
Speaker 1: it's working, and I think the same as is going
Speaker 1: on with this uh uh an alex oon drug. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so like the anallexon, it kind of has its own
Speaker 1: protection where whether you're somebody who's on heroin or not,
Speaker 1: if you administer that, you could be a medical professional.
Speaker 1: It's like such a new thing um that that they've
Speaker 1: they've realized they need a specific good Samaritan law for
Speaker 1: that to cover anybody who's administering um analex oone, like
Speaker 1: if they do some damage or whatever, they were still
Speaker 1: trying to help. But then also if you're like on
Speaker 1: heroin yourself, just calling nine one one, you can have
Speaker 1: immunity in some states from getting busted for heroin for
Speaker 1: being on it yourself, so like, hey, we're gonna save
Speaker 1: you and you're under arrest, right, which I guess is
Speaker 1: is still in some states it's still a possibility. And
Speaker 1: you don't like, you don't want people worrying about whether
Speaker 1: they're going to get pop themselves and then saying well
Speaker 1: I can't really call for you know, shorty juju over here,
Speaker 1: which is I guess the heroin users name. You know,
Speaker 1: so the heroin user who's overdosing, who would otherwise live,
Speaker 1: dies because they're the person they're shot up with, Like
Speaker 1: is too worried about getting busted themselves. Because the last
Speaker 1: thing a heroin addict or drug addict might do in
Speaker 1: the throes of that drug is think, let me call
Speaker 1: a cop or right, you know what, I need a
Speaker 1: police officer. They might help. Uh, they'd say, like as
Speaker 1: far as advice goes for good samaritans, Um, this article,
Speaker 1: you know, counsels people to think sensibly. Uh. Most states
Speaker 1: do have laws to protect people that if you're doing
Speaker 1: something reasonable to try and help, which all goes back
Speaker 1: to you know, the split second is kind of tough,
Speaker 1: but that all goes back to what you're saying, like
Speaker 1: reasonable maneuvers to help somebody, you know, Yeah, Like I
Speaker 1: mean it's not necessarily like, um, like don't try the tracheotomy,
Speaker 1: right right, right? So yeah, so that kind of ties
Speaker 1: into a second point, like don't try things you're not
Speaker 1: trained to do, and it just kind of ties into
Speaker 1: reasonable Like is is trying to administer CPR a reasonable thing?
Speaker 1: If you come upon somebody who's not breathing. Yes, totally reasonable.
Speaker 1: Um is it? Is it? You know, unreasonable to try
Speaker 1: to like get their heart going by by pumping their
Speaker 1: arms up and down and accidentally dislocating the shoulder. It's
Speaker 1: probably not going to be protected by a good Samaritan law. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but how much can you get sued for for a
Speaker 1: broken collar bone? Probably a lot, especially if the person
Speaker 1: is like a ping pong player or a professional illustrator.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. You like ping pong? I love it. We
Speaker 1: need to do an episode on ping pong. I love
Speaker 1: ping pong too. I'm surprised we never squared out squared off.
Speaker 1: I am as well, Chuck, Well, we've never been in
Speaker 1: the same room as a ping pong table. That's that's
Speaker 1: That's what I was thinking. I was going to make
Speaker 1: a camp joke, but you beat me to the truth. Uh,
Speaker 1: you got anything else? Oh? Yes, I do. There's one
Speaker 1: thing that came up, if you don't mind talking about it,
Speaker 1: the Seinfeld thing about it? Do you remember how that
Speaker 1: final the Final right right? Yeah, which is like the
Speaker 1: least funny episode of Seinfeld ever. But it had like
Speaker 1: a weird message when when the gang gets gets put
Speaker 1: in jail for watching a guy I think it was
Speaker 1: Jonathan Pinnett get carjacked by somebody with a gun and
Speaker 1: just sitting there making fun of them while they're videotaping it, right,
Speaker 1: And that kind of raised the site this it kind
Speaker 1: of ties into good Samaritan laws. A lot of people
Speaker 1: are like, can you actually is there any place in
Speaker 1: the country where you can get get in trouble for
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, And it turns out no, it's
Speaker 1: that kind of falls into that duty to act law,
Speaker 1: um where you are in some places like Vermont or
Speaker 1: I think in California, under some circumstances, you are required
Speaker 1: to report a crime, but you're not required to actually intervene.
Speaker 1: And that was like kind of that big point I
Speaker 1: made earlier at the beginning of the episode. That's a
Speaker 1: big distinction, right, And not only are you, um you know,
Speaker 1: not required to interview and you're not even required to
Speaker 1: report the crime during the commission of their crime. For
Speaker 1: most duty to act laws, you just can't walk away
Speaker 1: and pretend you never saw anything. That's the key, um,
Speaker 1: that's where you will get prosecuted. So the Seinfeld gang
Speaker 1: probably would not have gone to jail. And this article
Speaker 1: that I read quotes a guy who is an attorney
Speaker 1: in San Diego. Um named somebody Lists. Oh man, I
Speaker 1: wish I could remember the guy's name. No, not Franz List,
Speaker 1: who is a great, great composer, but a l I
Speaker 1: s s. Yeah, his name was Peter List. He's a
Speaker 1: criminal lawyer from San Diego ended up in this article.
Speaker 1: He basically says, not only should they not have gone
Speaker 1: to jail, they provided very valuable evidence by recording the
Speaker 1: entire crime, So let him off the hook. Has there
Speaker 1: ever been a tougher show to end than Seinfeld? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Yeah, probably not, but they really chose as
Speaker 1: a very specific, unsatisfying way to do it. What about Sopranos?
Speaker 1: Everybody hated how that ended? Yeah, I didn't. Uh. I
Speaker 1: love the Sopranos, but then moved to l A during
Speaker 1: its run and didn't have TV, so I quit watching it.
Speaker 1: But I do remember all the hoopla. But sein Felt
Speaker 1: just one of those I mean that the last episode stunk,
Speaker 1: But it's just a hard show to end because you can't.
Speaker 1: It was the most un sentimental show probably in TV history. Sure,
Speaker 1: and most shows have a finale that is highly sentimental,
Speaker 1: and you just You couldn't do that on Seinfeld. It
Speaker 1: would not have been true to the show. So I
Speaker 1: don't know what I would have done. It's a tough one.
Speaker 1: It is a tough one. Maybe it was a perfect
Speaker 1: ending and it just wasn't a great episode. You could
Speaker 1: make that case for sure. You know, I'd like to
Speaker 1: hear maybe if someone had a better idea. Okay, right,
Speaker 1: rewrite the Seinfeld finale. Yeah, in a hundreds and sixty
Speaker 1: characters are less two to us or you forty? Now,
Speaker 1: what is that? It's weird anyway? Uh, I think that's
Speaker 1: the end of this episode. We kind of let this
Speaker 1: peter out to huh yep, Okay, if you want to
Speaker 1: learn more about good Samaritan laws, that's actually a tip.
Speaker 1: Go learn your state and or country's good Samaritan laws
Speaker 1: so you know what to do in your ever faced
Speaker 1: with an emergency situation. And since I said that, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. Uh, this one's great. I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna call it great email. Uh, guys, in the spirit
Speaker 1: of Thanksgiving, in this glass of wine I'm drinking, I
Speaker 1: want to reach out and tell you I'll thankful I
Speaker 1: am for you. I've been listening to the show for
Speaker 1: a few years, and your comforting voices, light dad, humor,
Speaker 1: and interesting topics have become increasingly important to me. My
Speaker 1: brother passed away almost two years ago at the age
Speaker 1: of us, an incredible soul and would have loved your show.
Speaker 1: I had trouble falling asleep for a while and began
Speaker 1: playing your podcast when my mind was racing and I
Speaker 1: needed the distraction. I fell asleep to many interesting topics
Speaker 1: for months, and I greatly appreciate your help through the
Speaker 1: sad times. Last year, I sailed from Seattle to San
Speaker 1: Diego with my uncle and father. This was the scariest
Speaker 1: and most exhilarating trip I've ever taken ever. Uh we
Speaker 1: kept a watch system two hours on and four hours off.
Speaker 1: During my first two hour night watch alone, I was
Speaker 1: scared poop place with no land in sight in my
Speaker 1: life that's secured to the boat. I plugged in my
Speaker 1: headphones and listened to the Stuff you Should Know Selects
Speaker 1: Fecal Transplants episode. Midway through my watch, a pot of
Speaker 1: porpoises started following and playing with the boat. I can
Speaker 1: only spot their phosphorescence, but I was so darn happy
Speaker 1: sitting there in the cold and dark listening to you
Speaker 1: both talk about poop while watching the porpoises create tubes
Speaker 1: of glitter in the Pacific. Uh, can you imagine that? Dude?
Speaker 1: That's amazing, and our voices didn't ruin it. I know. Uh,
Speaker 1: this brought me so much comfort in a time of
Speaker 1: such great discomfort. Now you've heard it before, and at
Speaker 1: the risk of sounding sappy, your podcast brings comfort in
Speaker 1: alway to your listeners, and we appreciate you. My brother's
Speaker 1: birthdays tomorrow and I have been catching up on your
Speaker 1: latest episodes thinking about the time you help me get through,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to say thank you. Thanks for being
Speaker 1: there for me in a weird way, and thank you
Speaker 1: for your friendship and your jokes and your comfort. And
Speaker 1: that is Jane from Seattle. Awesome, Jane, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for letting us know that story. That's like the
Speaker 1: deer on the Tracks story that Will Wheaton hadn't stand
Speaker 1: by me. That's right, that's a pretty cool story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good one. If you want to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us, like Jane did to let us know
Speaker 1: one of your coolest stories, you can tweet to us.
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