NH Law About ...: Good Samaritans: Read About The Law ...

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Introduction

New Hampshire's general Good Samaritan law is RSA 508:12, I, Aid at Scene of Emergency or to Victim of Crime. Good Samaritan laws exist in most states and are meant to encourage people who witness emergency situations or crimes to help injured parties or victims. The laws do this by giving immunity from suit for liability that might otherwise be imposed on those bystanders who voluntarily provide help. Good Samaritan laws are part of what the law calls “negligence,” a very large area of the civil law of torts having to do with who has a duty, who may be liable, and who is immune from liability when there is a personal injury or some other civil wrong. There are several other statutes in New Hampshire that provide similar limited immunity from liability specifically for physicians, medical practitioners, emergency personnel, volunteers and others who, in good faith and without charge, provide emergency services.

RSA 318-B:28-b, Immunity from Liability is the "Overdose" Good Samaritan Law. This law permits a witness or victim of a drug overdose to request medical assistance in order to save the life of an overdose victim by protecting the witness or victim from arrest, prosecution, and conviction. The law also provides immunity from arrest, prosecution, or conviction for a person who, in good faith and in a timely manner, requests medical assistance for someone who is experiencing a drug overdose or for themselves if they are experiencing a drug overdose.

New Hampshire. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Bureau of Drug & Alcohol Services. New Hampshire's Good Samaritan Law (Drug Overdoses) Fact Sheet
"New Hampshire’s Good Samaritan Law (RSA 318-B:28-b) allows people to call 911 without fear of arrest if they are having a drug overdose that requires emergency medical care or if they witness someone overdosing."
68 A.L.R.4th 294. Construction and application of "good samaritan" statutes
'Good Samaritan statutes are generally designed to protect individuals from civil liability for any negligent acts or omissions committed while voluntarily providing emergency care. After the first Good Samaritan statute was passed in 1959, all states have enacted some form of the legislation. The primary purpose of the statutes is to encourage prompt emergency care by granting immunity from civil damages and removing the fear of liability.'
45 Rutgers L. Rec. 105. (2017-2018) Should Emergency Good Deeds Go Unpunished? An Analysis of the Good Samaritan Statutes of the United States
'Every state today has adopted a Good Samaritan statute. The federal government has also adopted the Federal Volunteer Protection Act applying certain protections to volunteers employed by nonprofit organizations and governmental agencies. These laws vary widely in their application and contain explicit or implicit definitions of the types of individuals who qualify for protection, the extent of such protection, and the circumstances under which the shield against negligent harm caused by an attempt to rescue applies.'
Negligence, Responsibility, and the Clumsy Samaritan: Is there a Fairness Rationale for the Good Samaritan Immunity? 29 Ga. St. U. L. Rev. (2013)
"At common law, a duty to assist an imperiled person arises only in specific circumstances: where one has a special relationship with that person (e.g., employer-employee, common carrier-passenger, innkeeper--guest) or where one is responsible, innocently or tortiously, for creating the peril. Absent these circumstances, one violates no legal duty if one stands idly by and watches another person succumb to the danger they are facing.
Once one undertakes to assist and takes charge of a helpless and imperiled person, however, the common law imposes a duty to use reasonable care in the undertaking, even if one had no duty to assist as an initial matter. This requirement, which I refer to as the “volunteer rescuer doctrine,” is a species of the general common law rule that one who undertakes to perform any act, whether gratuitously or for consideration, is bound to exercise reasonable care in doing so. According to the general rule, a person's failure to use reasonable care in performing a voluntary undertaking is actionable only if it leaves the victim in a worse position than she would have been in absent the undertaking. As we will see shortly, the leading authorities appear to disagree about whether and to what extent such a position-worsening requirement applies in the case of the volunteer rescuer doctrine."

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Local Government Law by Peter J. Loughlin
Call Number: KFN1280 .N48
ISBN: 9780327010180
Publication Date: 2011
'Any person who, in good faith, renders emergency care at the place of an emergency or to a victim of a crime … to a person who is in urgent need of care as a result of the emergency or crime, shall not be liable in civil damages for his or her acts or omissions in rendering the care so long as he or she receives no direct compensation for the care from or on behalf of the person cared for and so long as the person does not act in a willfully or wantonly negligent manner.' See section 1036: Good Samaritan Immunity.
New Hampshire Civil Jury Instructions by Daniel C. Pope
Call Number: KFN1742.6.A65 M874
'Negligence is the failure to use reasonable care. Reasonable care is the degree of care which an ordinary, prudent person would use under the same or similar circumstances. ... A sudden emergency is an event that calls for action without time for the deliberate and thoughtful exercise of judgment. If [the jury finds] from the evidence that a party was confronted with a sudden emergency not created by him/her and that he/she acted as a reasonably careful person under those circumstances, that party has not violated the standard of due care.'
Personal Injury, Tort, and Insurance Practice by Richard B. McNamara
Call Number: KFN1280 .N48 v.8-9. 2015
Publication Date: 2015
'A claim in negligence has four elements. There must be (1) duty owed, (2) breach of the duty, (3) foreseeable harm, and (4) a causal connection between the breach and the foreseeable harm.'
Restatement of the Law Third, Torts, Liability for Physical and Emotional Harm by American Law Institute
Call Number: KF395.T6413 A7 2010
ISBN: 9780314917904
Publication Date: 2010
'What is an emergency? Emergency can be defined functionally—as the kind of event that prevents reasonable persons from exercising the kind of good judgment that such persons ordinarily exercise. An emergency is an event that requires a decision within an extremely short duration and that is sufficiently unusual so that the actor cannot draw on a ready body of personal experience or general community knowledge as to which choice of conduct is best. If an actor's own safety is threatened by the emergency, the fright the actor may experience can contribute to the explanation of why the actor's judgment may have been less sound than usual.'

Please remember that this guide is for information purposes only and is not comprehensive.
It is intended as a starting point for research, to illustrate the various sources of the law, and to provide guidance in their use.
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