The New Jersey Supreme Court recently declined to expand the rescue doctrine to include injuries sustained to protecting another’s property, such as someone else’s pet. Samolyk v. Berthe, 2022 N.J. LEXIS 515, (June 13, 2022). The common law rescue doctrine has applied in situations where the rescuer sues the rescued victim who is either completely, or partially, at fault for creating the peril that invited the rescue, i.e. where the rescuer is injured when trying to rescue another person. See Saltsman v. Corazo, 317 N.J. Super. 237, 248 (App. Div. 1998) (quoting Burns v. Mkt. Transition Facility, 281 N.J. Super. 304, 310 (App. Div. 1995)).
In Samolyk, the Court was required to determine whether to expand the common law rescue doctrine to permit plaintiffs to recover damages for injuries sustained as a proximate result of attempting to rescue defendants’ pet dog. Id. at *2. After saving the life of the defendant’s pet dog, plaintiff was found floating unconscious, sustaining neurological and cognitive injuries. Id. Moreover, the plaintiff specifically alleged that the defendants were liable under the rescue doctrine by negligently allowing their dog to fall or jump into [a] canal. Id. Plaintiff claimed that the defendants invited the rescue because their dog was in peril and the plaintiff would not have jumped but for the dog needing rescue. Id. at *4.
Although the Court acknowledged that the Restatement Second of Torts extends the rescue doctrine to property of another, and provides that, “it is not contributory negligence for a plaintiff to expose himself to danger in an effort to save [them]selves or a third person, or the land or chattels of the plaintiff or a third person, from harm, unless the effort itself is an unreasonable one, or the plaintiff acts reasonably in the course of it. See Restatement Second of Torts § 472. Additionally, the Court went on to mention that the Second Restatement further provides a plaintiff may run a greater risk to [their] own personal safety in a reasonable effort to save the life of a third person than he could run in order to save the animate or inanimate chattels of his neighbor or even of himself. Id. at *5. Although the Court also acknowledged that a majority of sister states have extended the rescue doctrine to cover another individual’s property, the Court ultimately declined to follow and to expand the rescue doctrine. Id. at *9.
In review of whether the rescue doctrine extends to include those who voluntarily choose to expose themselves to significant danger in an effort to safeguard the property of another, specifically here, a dog, the Court emphasized that the rescue doctrine permits recovery for damages and injuries sustained in situations in which an individual had acted to shield human life. Id. at *12. Without discrediting any strong emotional attachments we may have towards our dogs, cats, and other domesticated animals, or any significance to our family heirlooms, the Court reasoned that any attempt to reform the application of the rescue doctrine to include the protection of property, must emanate from the instinct to protect human life. Id. at *12-13.
Conclusively, the Court affirmed the Appellate Division decision to dismiss plaintiff’s Complaint as plaintiff’s decision to jump into the canal to save the dog’s life does not give rise to a recognizable claim under the rescue doctrine. Id. at *13. Additionally, the Court, in detail, reasoned that certain preemptive acts that appear to be driven by the protection of property are, at their core, adjuncts to the protection of human life and may give rise to a cause of action under the rescue doctrine, such as a neighbor who reports a fire in a nearby house to the proper authorities, then attempts to squelch the fire based on a reasonable, good faith belief that children or other vulnerable inhabitants may be in immediate danger, then under those circumstances, the neighbor may have basis to invoke the rescue doctrine to recover damages for injuries. Id. at *15.