Case Law Bonus Post: Hopson v. Dawson

Outline:

• There are rare circumstances in which:
• It may be reasonable to take actions that involve a high degree of risk of serious harm to others.
• Dangerous action may be better than no action at all.
• This does not preclude liability for actions taken in an emergency if the actor’s tortious conduct caused the emergency.

Notes: This case again illustrates the relationship between the factual situation of a case and the legal concept of recklessness. The idea it articulates is a fairly commonsensical one: sometimes we have to do very risky things in an emergency. That shouldn’t be considered reckless. We could probably get to this conclusion if we thought hard about the definition of recklessness explained in MK Studios. Recklessness there is understood to be a function of the relationship between the risk involved and the benefit to others. In the types of emergencies described here, the risks are very high, but so are the potential benefits, like saving a life. So the risk and the reward are still proportionate and the conduct wouldn’t be reckless under the MK Studios rule. Hopson gives us basically an argumentative shortcut to that conclusion: we don’t have to recreate that line of logic in trial because the Midlands Supreme Court already did.
It’s worth noting also that the last sentence has two possible interpretations. It might mean that actors can still be held liable for the type of conduct discussed in the rest of the case (risky choices made in emergency situations) if they caused the emergency in the first place. But it might also mean that non-reckless conduct after an emergency doesn’t excuse- “preclude liability”- for actions that caused the emergency. Based on the fact that the preceding case does seem to exclusively talk about liability for risky emergency conduct, I think the argument for the first interpretation is stronger. But a case for the second interpretation could be- and might be- made.