Would pulling the switch be a felony? Would not pulling the switch be one? Would a preservation-of-life defense hold any water?
Are there any notable cases about this?
IANAL, and it depends on the countries law. My understanding is in the US 99.999% of the time, as a passerby, you cannot have liability for inaction. Remember the last episode of Seinfeld and the lawyer saying you don’t have to help anybody.
However actions you take are always potentially legally liable. And taking an action to cause someone to die always puts you on the hook potentially for manslaughter. Defense of others might be a mitigation, but that is usually like shooting an active shooter. In this case I think that’s not what’s happening.
Sadly, I think the safe thing for you to do legally is to keep walking and forget you ever saw the lever.
Nope. Not if you have any heart at all at least. The us has good samaritan laws in all 50 states, with minor variation. Sure, it’s technically possible you might be opening yourself to legal consequences if you help out, but the law as written protects you from being sued for it unless you do something incredibly fucking dumb. (moving a man with a broken spine out of a car is bad, unless the car is on fire).
In china, the opposite is true; everything you do other than inaction can very easily open you up to legal consequences. This is why you can see someone who drove an elderly couple to the er get sued by that couple, or a baby get run over by a truck with a good dozen people walking past without helping (same website).
There is the vague chance in the usa that helping might get you in trouble, but it is most certainly not the best choice to walk past them if something obviously bad that you can help with is going on.
I agree it’d be heartless to prosecute or sue a switch-thrower who was acting in good faith, but the family of someone killed often don’t have a ton of sympathy.
http://www.cprinstructor.com/DC-GS.htm
Using DC as an example, I don’t think that tampering with railroad equipment counts as “in good faith, rendering emergency medical care or assistance at the scene of an accident or other emergency” and it only covers against civil damages: basically it reduces private claims of negligence or liability when you did your best to stabilize an injured person. It gets into shaky ground when the person is not yet injured, and they become injured because of your actions. It also doesn’t prevent the government from trying you for manslaughter.
It’s definitely a messed up situation though, ideally we’d have further laws reducing the bystander effect and encouraging people to do whatever’s possible to help. Often we see that people already do, though, and fortunately(?) the situations are often far less clear cut and diabolical than the Trolley Problem.
