The Cop and the Lion

When eleven-year-old Elizabeth Lee reached into a lion cage at an Anchorage amusement park, a 300-lb. lioness named Cleo seized her arm in its teeth. Alaska State Trooper Frank Johnson raced to the rescue, pulled out his pistol and shot the lion in the head. As the lion fell dead, both Johnson and the girl went sprawling; Johnson's gun accidentally went off again, and the girl was wounded in the thigh.

Elizabeth eventually recovered, but she filed a $65,000 damage suit against the trooper, the amusement park and the state of Alaska. The jury decided that the amusement park should pay her $ 15,000 in damages because the cage was inadequately guarded. It rejected the rest of Elizabeth's claim.

Johnson's exoneration was based on Alaska's good Samaritan statute. Like similar statutes in more than 40 other states, it holds that one who voluntarily aids a person in distress is not liable for damages unless gross negligence is involved. Although some European countries (including Soviet Russia) have laws making a rescue attempt mandatory, the English common law traditionally rejected compulsion; instead, it made the rescuer responsible for mishaps caused by his negligence. Thus in 1966 a Georgia court ruled that the owner of a private swimming pool had no duty to rescue a drowning child. On the other hand, in 1962 a Wyoming traveler who tried to herd some cattle off the road to avoid an accident was held liable for damages when the animals ran around a bend and collided with an oncoming car.

For Trooper Johnson, the law has taken a strange twist. The Alaska Supreme Court has now reversed the ruling absolving him. As an officer, said the court, Johnson was under a legal obligation to provide aid; he cannot be protected by any good Samaritan statute. Elizabeth, now 15, is therefore free to press her complaint of negligence. The court added, however, that if Johnson is found at fault, Alaska too would be liable. In that case, the state would presumably pay the bill.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.