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In re Estate of Arthur Keck. Janice Cabe8/23/1993
In this wrongful death action, Janice Cabe, the representative of the estate of Arthur Keck, appeals the trial court's order granting summary judgment to John Blair. The trial court ruled that, as a matter of law, Cabe could not establish the elements of the rescue doctrine and that the doctrine did not apply to the facts of this case. Cabe argues that the elements of the rescue doctrine are present and that genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether Keck was rescuing Blair from "imminent peril" when Keck was killed and, if so, whether Blair's negligence was the proximate cause of that peril. We conclude that a jury could properly apply the doctrine to the facts of this case and accordingly reverse and remand for trial.
I
Facts
On April 1, 1987, John Blair had three or four beers over a period of several hours in a tavern in Monroe, Washington. He later drove to a friend's home, visited for about an hour, and left at 7:30 p.m. to go home. While he was driving east on State Route 2, a 4-lane highway with only a few scattered street lights, Blair accidentally dropped a cassette tape on the floor of the passenger side of his truck and leaned down to retrieve it. As he did so, he glanced away from the road and ran into the back of a truck that was attempting to turn left off the highway. The other driver was not injured, but the impact of the collision forced Blair's truck across the eastbound lanes and pinned his passenger door against the guardrail. The door on the driver's side of Blair's truck was smashed and buckled so that Blair could not open it.
John Cormican drove by and, recognizing Blair's truck, stopped to offer assistance. Although it was dark, he could see that Blair was bleeding "pretty good" from facial cuts from the broken windshield. Arthur Keck lived across the highway and joined Cormican at Blair's truck, apparently
after hearing the accident. Blair asked both men to help him get out of the truck. They pulled on the door while Blair kicked it from the inside, and it eventually opened. According to Cormican, he could smell alcohol on Blair and Blair was acting "goofy". Although Blair did not believe he was impaired by alcohol at the time, he remembered receiving a "pretty good crack on the head" from the accident. Because Blair appeared intoxicated and was bleeding, Cormican felt it would be too dangerous to leave him alone with his truck, which extended about 1 foot into the easternmost lane of traffic. The men decided to walk across the highway to Keck's house to clean Blair's injuries and wait for the police. According to Cormican's later declaration, neither he nor Keck could determine for certain how badly Blair had been injured, but Cormican stated that they could both see that Blair was
bleeding pretty good from the face and head, he had a possible broken leg or foot, could not get out of his car or the highway without help, and was very drunk. Given Blair's condition, leaving him there on the highway would have exposed him to the threat of additional injury. Blair needed our immediate help, asked for our help, and got our help.
As I indicated in my deposition, Blair could not carry his own weight and could not walk to a place of safety without [Keck's] assistance.
In an affidavit, Cormican also stated that Blair wanted to clean the blood from his face and "straighten up" before the police arrived.
Consequently, Keck put his arm around Blair's shoulders and began slowly walking with him across the highway. According to Blair's declaration, he was shaken from the accident, but he did not think he needed help to cross the highway and Keck was only giving h
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