On Thursday morning, January 15, 2015, protesters sat linked arm in arm on Route 1-93 in Milton and Medford at approximately 7:30AM. The protesters, by pouring cement over their joined arms and placing heavy concrete barrels in the middle of the highway, effectively shut down Interstate 93 north in Milton and 1-93 south at Mystic Avenue. During rush hour traffic.
The police were unable to remove the protesters until roughly 10:00AM. Those with any familiarity with the City of Boston, and the already brutal commute to and from the city during the workweek, instantly demanded that the protesters be jailed, fined, and otherwise punished for their thoughtless and reckless actions. The protesters were, in fact, arrested. They were arraigned in Quincy District Court on charges ranging from Trespassing, Resisting Arrest, Conspiracy, Disorderly Conduct, and other misdemeanor offenses. They will later appear in Quincy District Court for a pre-trial date set for April.
Another charge listed against the protesters: Willfully obstructing an Emergency Vehicle. Due to the ridiculous traffic caused by the protesters’ blockade, an ambulance carrying an elderly gentleman from Easton, who had been involved in a serious car accident resulting in life threatening injuries, was diverted from Boston Medical Center to a local, less prepared hospital. Thankfully, this man is doing fine. But what if he were not? What if he suffered serious injuries, exacerbated by treatment at a local hospital instead of a skilled trauma center?
Instead of examining the overall effect of the protest, and the message of the protest itself, this week’s blog seeks to focus on the law: Could a plaintiff sue the protesters because his ambulance was diverted and he received lesser treatment?
Negligence:
In order to succeed on a claim for negligence, a plaintiff needs to prove four elements: 1) A Duty of care, 2) Breach of that Duty, 3) Causation, and 4) Damages.
1. Duty – While it may seem surprising that people unknown to you owe you a duty of care, in certain circumstances that is absolutely the case. You owe a duty to foreseeable victims of your actions. For example, every time you drive your car on a public street, you have a “duty” to all others on that street to drive carefully.
2. Breach – Once you have established that a duty exists, the defendant needs to breach that duty in order for the plaintiff to bring a claim for negligence, such as an act or omission to do something.
3. Causation – This element essentially links the breach of duty to the resulting injury that the plaintiff alleges. Both factual and proximate causation are necessary. Actual causation relies on a “but-for” analysis. For example, “but-for the defendant’s actions, the injury would not have occurred.” Proximate cause focuses instead on the foreseeability of the injury – whether it is foreseeable that your actions would cause a certain result.
4. Damages –In order to file a suit for negligence, there must be an injury or loss.
1-93 Protesters:
Our hypothetical plaintiff here, the gentleman who was in the ambulance diverted from Boston Medical Center, could sue the protesters if he is able to establish the above four elements of negligence. First, he must show that the protesters owed him a duty. As described above, you owe a duty of care to foreseeable victims. One could, and should, argue that it is foreseeable that someone in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would need to go to a hospital by ambulance. There are five major hospitals in Boston. Boston Medical Center houses a trauma one medical facility. It is foreseeable that by blocking traffic, the protesters would prevent an ambulance from getting to the hospital. Therefore, we have a duty to refrain from doing so.
Those who were diverted from the hospital also have met the element of breach. The protesters blocked the traffic and prevented his ambulance from reaching its intended destination.
The next element, causation, has also been met – both actual and proximate cause are present in this fact pattern. As discussed above, proximate causation is reached because it is foreseeable that blocking a highway will also prevent ambulances from reaching the hospital. Factual causation is met because but-for the protesters’ actions, the potential plaintiff’s ambulance would almost certainly have reached its intended hospital, instead of being diverted to a local hospital instead.
The real question here is damages: Will the potential plaintiff be able to prove that he was injured? We already know that he was involved in a fairly serious car accident. The question for the jury would likely be whether his injuries are worse due to the fact that treatment was delayed, and that the treatment that was eventually issued was likely less effective than a better equipped hospital. Clearly the potential plaintiff here was injured seriously enough to warrant being directed to Boston Medical Center instead of a closer hospital in the first place.
Conclusion:
All in all, the gentleman who was sent to the local hospital instead of Boston Medical is doing well and recovering. The protesters involved in this matter are lucky that blocking the highway only created a massive inconvenience to those trying to commute to work. In all likelihood, they failed to consider all the doctors, nurses, and patients seeking to go to Boston to perform lifesaving surgery, to receive or administer world class treatment, and those who are already going through a difficult time without dealing with cancelled chemotherapy or delayed treatments. They also failed to consider the many lost hours (and wages) of work suffered by employees, and their employers.
Whether or not they ever made their point is still up for debate.
SOURCES:
Protesters with Arms in Barrels Shut Down 1-93
Protesters force Diversion of Ambulance Carrying Badly Injured Man
Massachusetts lawmakers seek crackdown on highway protests
Barstool Founder, Others react angrily to protests
Lucas Law Group, LLC
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