Tort liability for a failure to render assistance in a comparative perspective

Abstract

The article looks at the problem of tort liability for a failure to render assistance and compares the legal approaches to this issue. There are no European legal systems that regulate such a duty to render assistance directly in the provisions of private law. This is generally because most of them (with the exception of common law countries) have criminal law provisions that penalize a failure to rescue another person in need of assistance. This raises the question of the impact of criminal law on liability in private law. The paper discusses this issue in detail, accepting the opinion that, in those legal systems where a failure to render assistance is punishable as a criminal offence, the provisions of criminal law should determine the conditions and prerequisites for rendering assistance in private law and establish the boundaries of liability in tort law. In addition, the article aims to present universal guidelines that might be useful for courts in order to establish tort liability in other cases of a failure to render assistance.