The state Supreme Court has created a new three-part test to determine whether a person qualifies as a rescuer, broadening the Court of Appeals’ ruling that the “rescue doctrine” requires the person to physically intervene to save someone.

“The doctrine seeks to encourage the instinct to help,” wrote Justice Brian D. Boatright for the high court. “Requiring physical intervention does not further that goal and may, in fact, increase the risk of harm.”

A Colorado Cab Company driver picked up Curt Glinton and a friend in Denver, both of whom were intoxicated. The passengers did not provide an address, instead directing the driver where to turn. When they arrived at the Northwest Denver location, Glinton became upset at the fare and physically attacked the driver.

Jose Garcia, who was in the vicinity and thought that this was the taxi he previously called, approached the vehicle and reportedly heard the driver yell, “Help me, help me; they’re hurting me; they’re trying to kill me.” Garcia put his head inside and told Glinton to leave the driver alone, to which Glinton profanely told Garcia to mind his own business. When the driver and Glinton got out of the car and continued to argue, someone hit Garcia on the head from behind.

Glinton got in the driver’s seat and swung the taxi around, running over Garcia and dragging him down the street. He suffered multiple traumatic injuries as a result. Garcia subsequently sued the cab company, alleging that they knew of 44 passenger attacks on drivers in recent years but failed to install cameras or protective partitions.

In his suit, he cited the rescue doctrine, which allows a person trying to rescue an individual to sue if a third party negligently endangers the rescuer, resulting in injury. In a 1921 case in New York involving a man who was injured on a railroad bridge while trying to save his cousin who was thrown from the train, a trial judge ruled that the railroad was not liable for the man’s injuries. 

The appellate court, in reversing the decision, introduced the rescue doctrine. By way of example, wrote Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo, “The railroad company whose train approaches without signal is a wrongdoer toward the traveler surprised between the rails, but a wrongdoer also to the bystander who drags him from the path.”

In Garcia’s case, he argued that Colorado Cab Company had a duty to protect him against attack, which a trial court agreed with. A jury awarded him $1.6 million, and found that the cab company was 45% liable for Garcia’s injuries.

On appeal, the Colorado Court of Appeals reversed the decision, finding that “it was mere coincidence” that Garcia was on the scene, as there was no relationship between him and the cab company at that point. Furthermore, the court did not find Garcia to be the cab driver’s rescuer.

“There’s no evidence in the record that he attempted to physically intervene; he didn’t, for example, get between the two men or try to pull one away from the other,” wrote Judge Jerry N. Jones.

“We conclude that such a requirement goes too far,” countered Boatright in the Supreme Court’s opinion. “The human instinct to help those in distress will not always take the form of overt physical exertion, and it would be unwise and perhaps unsafe to always require physical intervention.”

To mandate such intervention may escalate a dangerous scenario or preclude people from stepping in entirely, Boatright reasoned. If the appellate court’s threshold prevailed, “a plaintiff who threw a punch at an attacker would have a better chance at qualifying as a rescuer than a plaintiff like Garcia who saw the same altercation but instead approached the attacker and yelled at him to stop.”

The court devised a three-part test to determine whether someone is entitled to compensation under the rescue doctrine. First, to be a rescuer, a person must intend to aid or rescue a party. Second, they must have a reasonable belief that the party is in imminent peril. Finally, the intervention “must stand a chance at substantially helping the person(s) in peril.”

Kate S. Hulme, an attorney at Cannon Law in Fort Collins, said that the court’s reasoning parallels the “Good Samaritan” law, which exists in all 50 states to protect those rendering aid voluntarily. “The broader interpretation of this legal doctrine extends much needed legal redress for Good Samaritans in Colorado who will now be protected both from liability for their actions and will be compensated for injuries they may suffer when they act to protect others in imminent peril,” she said.

The court concluded that Garcia was a rescuer, reversing the appellate court’s decision. The case is Garcia v. Colorado Cab Co.