rescue doctrine

rescue doctrine. Torts. The principle that a tortfeasor who negligently endangered a person is liable for injuries to someone who reasonably attempted to rescue the person in danger. • The rationale for this doctrine is that an attempted rescue of someone in danger is always foreseeable. Thus, if the tortfeasor is negligent toward the rescuee, the tortfeasor is also negligent toward the rescuer.

— Also termed danger-invites-rescue doctrine. Cf. EMERGENCY DOCTRINE; GOOD SAMARITAN DOCTRINE. [Cases: Negligence 510(3). C.J.S. Negligence §§ 240, 317.]

“Danger invites rescue. The cry of distress is the summons to relief. The law does not ignore these reactions of the mind in tracing conduct to its consequences. It recognizes them as normal. It places their effects within the range of the natural and probable. The wrong that imperils life is a wrong to the imperiled victim; it is a wrong also to his rescuer …. 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 …. The emergency begets the man. The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had.” Wagner v. International Ry. Co., 133 N.E. 437, 437–38 (N.Y. 1921).

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