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Case Study of Legal Issues Involving Emergency
Management and Emergency Services
Partners In Emergency Preparedness Conference 2012
Will Moorhead, J.D.
Liability Framework Application of liability
Situation analysis
Best practices
Events that create legal issues
Possible Legal Action
Tort: Action that harms another person, business, or group.
A person or group of people act, or fail to act, without right and thus harm another directly, or indirectly.
Injury
Breach
Cause
Elements of Liability Duty Law, rule, regulation, standard of care
Act or omission
Connects breach with injury
Injury is required. Usually the source of the conflict.
What would a reasonable person have done under
the same or similar circumstances?
Standard of Care
Practical considerations Identification of hazards Planning
Training
Exercise
Lessons Learned
Communications Expenditures Recognition of Hazard
Proper Warning
Who’s in charge
Contracts and MOUs
Coordination Considerations
External and Internal
Security of the Finances
Fiscal Responsibility
Business Continuity Limited Downtime
Efficient Spending Fewer Losses
Alternate space
Suppliers
Cleanup Contractors
Incomplete Planning
Case Studies
Poorly Planned Exercise
Insufficient Response
Class Action Following Hurricane Katrina
Two Families Sue For Wrongful Death In VA Tech Shootings …for gross negligence and wrongful death. Among those facing the lawsuits - Cho's estate, Virginia Tech, counseling center, the local mental-health agency, several top officials, and the college's president. …although a double homicide was reported before the other shooting took place, officials did not alarm the rest of the school that there may be a murder suspect on campus. …the mental health center that treated Cho could and should have also prevented the tragedy. The wrongful death suit is made up of ten separate counts and asks $10 million in damages.
Virginia Tech Victims' Families Win $8M in Wrongful Death Lawsuit Thu, Mar 15 2012 Families of two victims of the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings will receive $8 million in a wrongful-death lawsuit, a jury ruled Wednesday. The suit, brought by relatives of slain students Erin Peterson and Julia Pryde, alleged Virginia Tech officials were negligent in taking too long to notify the campus that a gunman was on the loose, WTKR-TV reports. The Virginia Tech massacre began when two students were shot and killed in a dorm on April 16, 2007. School officials did not alert the campus because they believed the shootings were an isolated incident, Virginia Tech’s attorneys said. Virginia Tech’s failure to warn anyone about a gunman on campus led to the killing of Peterson and Pryde, their families’ wrongful-death lawsuit asserted. But the school’s lawyers argued there was no evidence that a warning would have changed what happened that day. No one could have reasonably foreseen Cho’s massacre, they argued. In a negligence case, a defendant is generally held liable only for harms that could have been reasonably foreseen by the defendant’s actions, or failure to act. Whether a result was foreseeable is a factor in establishing causation, one of the essential elements of negligence.
Federal judge overturns $55,000 fine against Virginia Tech over campus alert in 2007 shooting March 30, 2012
In a ruling that became available Friday, Administrative Judge Ernest Canellos dismissed a $55,000 fine against the Blacksburg school and determined that the university officials’ actions on April 16, 2007, didn’t violate the Clery Act, which requires schools to issue timely warnings of campus threats.
Canellos said he accepted that the university’s initial conclusion was reasonable, though later proven wrong, that the first reported shootings of two students in the West Ambler Johnston dormitory were a targeted act of violence stemming from a domestic argument that didn’t present an ongoing safety threat.
Wendell Flinchum, the university’s police chief, had testified the conclusion was based on factors such as the lack of forced entry into the dorm room and the victims’ clothing, the woman in pajamas, the man in boxer shorts.
The Education Department “has the burden of proof in this proceeding and it has not presented persuasive evidence that Virginia Tech’s conclusion was somehow unreasonable,” his ruling said.
Class-Action Suit Filed After Katrina Hospital Deaths Settled for $25 Million July 21, 2011 A New Orleans judge gave preliminary approval today to a settlement agreement that would end a class-action lawsuit against one of the nation's largest publicly owned health care companies. Under the terms of the deal, Tenet Healthcare Corporation and a subsidiary will pay $25 million to patients and visitors trapped at Memorial Medical Center after Hurricane Katrina. The lawsuit against the hospital and its parent company, Tenet Healthcare Corporation, alleged that they failed to prepare for and respond sufficiently to a foreseeable disaster. Patients and others who took shelter at Memorial were harmed, the plaintiffs claimed, because emergency plans for evacuation and backup power were inadequate. The hospital was plunged into darkness after its backup generators failed, and helicopters hired by the corporation did not arrive until two days after the streets around Memorial flooded. Maintenance staff at the hospital had warned prior to Katrina that the hospital's electrical system was vulnerable to flooding, a known hazard in the low-lying city.
OAKLAND SETTLES LAWSUIT WITH DISABILITY RIGHTS GROUP January 22, 2010 City officials reached a settlement this week with the Berkeley-based Disability Rights Advocates over a 2007 lawsuit that said the city was ill-prepared to help disabled people in the event of a disaster such as an earthquake or firestorm. The agreement requires Oakland to implement programs to specifically address the needs of the city's disabled residents in its emergency preparedness plans. Both sides said they are satisfied with the outcome. Karla Gilbride, an attorney for Disability Rights Advocates, said that when the lawsuit was filed, Oakland had an array of deficiencies in its emergency plans. She credited the city for working with people with disabilities and finding ways to best address their needs. "This is a victory for people with disabilities in Oakland," she said. "Oakland has shown itself to be a leader in making sure people will be equally safe "... and we're hoping other cities will follow Oakland's lead." A similar lawsuit filed by Disability Rights Advocates and another organization is pending against the city of Los Angeles. Gilbride said her organization is also investigating whether other cities in California are unprepared to properly help disabled people during emergencies.
ICU 'drill' -- with real gun -- was a lawsuit waiting to happen Apr. 30, 2011
Let's send a cop undercover into a hospital's intensive care unit, waving a real gun, and see how the staff reacts. But let's not tell anyone it's an emergency preparedness drill. That's exactly what officials at St. Rose Dominican Hospital-Siena Campus did on May 24. On April 20, three ICU nurses and a respiratory therapist sued the hospital, the off-duty cop, the Chief Operating Officer, and three members of the Emergency Management Committee. The lawsuit -- filed by three nurses and a respiratory therapist describes how each one feared he or she was going to die that day after an angry man entered the ICU and began waving a gun. The defendants are accused of civil conspiracy, assault, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, intentional misrepresentation, fraud, and breach of contract.
