RESCUE DOCTRINE
rescue doctrine.Torts. The principle that a tortfeasor who negligently endangered a person is
liable for injuries to someone who reasonably attempted to rescue the person in danger. • The
rationale for this doctrine is that an attempted rescue of someone in danger is always foreseeable.
Thus, if the tortfeasor is negligent toward the rescuee, the tortfeasor is also negligent toward the
rescuer. — Also termed danger-invites-rescue doctrine. Cf. EMERGENCY DOCTRINE; GOOD
SAMARITAN DOCTRINE. [Cases: Negligence 510(3). C.J.S. Negligence §§ 240, 317.]
“Danger invites rescue. The cry of distress is the summons to relief. The law does not ignore
these reactions of the mind in tracing conduct to its consequences. It recognizes them as normal. It
places their effects within the range of the natural and probable. The wrong that imperils life is a
wrong to the imperiled victim; it is a wrong also to his rescuer …. The railroad company whose
train approaches without signal is a wrongdoer toward the traveler surprised between the rails, but
a wrongdoer also to the bystander who drags him from the path …. The emergency begets the man.
The wrongdoer may not have foreseen the coming of a deliverer. He is accountable as if he had.”
Wagner v. International Ry. Co., 133 N.E. 437, 437–38 (N.Y. 1921). [Blacks Law 8th]