You are right, emergency response workers face potential liability. Leaving aside the issue of whether the worker is actually liable, nobody can prevent a person from suing or naming them in a lawsuit. Society is becoming increasingly litigious.
Your concerns for your workers are twofold.
First, since you can’t prevent them from being sued, you need to put some scheme in place to ensure that they have access to legal counsel to act on their behalf. Your company could adopt a corporate policy whereby it would pay for lawyers and legal defence costs to defend emergency workers.
Second, as to actual liability. Professional rescue workers are not likely to be protected under good Samaritan legislation designed to protect volunteers. Workers could be liable for negligence if they fail to act reasonably or fail to exercise due care and attention. Emergency response personnel should be properly trained, be supplied with adequate equipment and support. In addition your company should obtain insurance coverage for them.
Barry Spiegel Willms & Shier Enviromental Lawyers Connie Lum wrote: ------------------------------- In preparing an Emergency Response Plan, a question came up during one of the team meetings regarding protecting emergency response team members from possible liabilities. For example, if a family member of an employee who died, and brings on a lawsuit against any team members. How can I implement the plan to protect employees from this or any kind of liability?