Brown v. Pennsylvania Dep't of Health Emergency Med. Serv. Training Inst.

No. 01-3234 (3d Cir. Jan. 21, 2003) ; Clearinghouse Number: 54851

Description

State Has No Constitutional Obligation to Provide Rescue Services

Abstract

The Third Circuit has held that there is no constitutional right to rescue services, competent or otherwise. While in his aunt’s care, plaintiffs’ one-year-old son began choking on a grape. The aunt called 911 for help three times; emergency medical technicians (EMTs) arrived approximately 10 minutes after the first call. The EMTs transported the child to a local hospital, where he subsequently died of asphyxia by choking. Plaintiffs filed a civil rights suit against the City of Philadelphia and the EMTs alleging deliberate indifference to their son’s life. Plaintiffs claimed that defendants violated their son’s rights to life, liberty, personal security, and bodily integrity without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court granted defendants’ motions for summary judgment, and plaintiffs appealed. Citing DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989), the court of appeals held that citizens do not have a constitutional right to receive rescue services. Moreover, the court held that, because the Due Process Clause does not require the state to provide rescue services, it would be nonsensical to try to interpret the clause to place an affirmative obligation on the state to provide competent rescue services if it provides those services at all. The court noted that, although state tort law might provide a remedy for a state’s negligent rescue attempt, it neither logically nor legally follows that federal constitutional law must do the same.

Additional Information

Attorney Information
Docket Date
2003-01-21 00:00:00+00:00

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