MY LOVED ONE DIED RESCUING A DROWNING PERSON. CAN WE SUE THE PERSON WHO WAS RESCUED ?.

By BarefootLawyers.

 

Right as Lwanga got out of the taxi at his home stage, he saw Ambrose struggling and drowning in Nakivubo channel. Being an expert fisherman, he dived in and tried to rescue him.

 

While Lwanga was dragging Ambrose to safety, Ambrose swung his arms and hit Lwanga against a stone. Bystanders pulled Ambrose out, but Lwanga drowned because he was unconscious from the injury to his head.

 

Lwanga’s family want to sue Ambrose for killing their son. Can they do this?

 

 

WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY?

 

The law says that when a person willingly engages in an activity that is risky or dangerous while fully knowing what the most likely outcome of such action will be, then you are taken to do this at your own risk.

 

This is called “Voluntary Assumption of risk”. This principle says that if you knowingly and voluntarily expose yourself to a risk, you cannot sue someone if you are injured as a result.

 

As long as no one has forced you to do something risky, then you cannot claim that you got hurt in that risky thing and ask to be compensated.  Because Lwanga was an ‘expert fisherman’ who knew how to swim, and it was his choice to try and rescue Ambrose, then he (and his family) cannot claim that Ambrose is to blame for what happened to Lwanga who was acting as a ‘Samaritan’

 

Therefore, according to the law, Ambrose is not responsible for what happened to Lwanga.

📷: Unsplash