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In light of the risks contemplated by an attempting rescuer the common law and ‘legal literature make it quite clear that absent a special relationship, there is no duty to act for the benefits of others.’[1
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In light of the risks contemplated by an attempting rescuer the common law and 'legal literature make it quite clear that absent a special relationship, there is no duty to act for the benefits of others.'1 The law makes a point of differentiating between misfeasance2 and nonfeasance3, by and large, 'the law has not been willing to infringe on the individual freedoms of the populace and has therefore been extremely reluctant to impose an affirmative duty to act'4, and as a result there is no law against not acting. The limitation of the common law can be explained by the metaphor; 'English and other common lawyers have been brought up to understand that they can ignore a small child drowning in twelve inches of pond water, so long as it is not their child or their pond.'5 This reluctance to avoid combining law with morality has often led to disquieting results. 'Nowhere...
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