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Permalink Reply by Jenny Holderby on October 28, 2008 at 5:22pm

This is from the Ohio Revised Code:
2744.02 Governmental functions and proprietary functions of political subdivisions.
(A)(1) For the purposes of this chapter, the functions of political subdivisions are hereby classified as governmental functions and proprietary functions. Except as provided in division (B) of this section, a political subdivision is not liable in damages in a civil action for injury, death, or loss to person or property allegedly caused by any act or omission of the political subdivision or an employee of the political subdivision in connection with a governmental or proprietary function.

Farther down in this section it states that "willful & wanton misconduct" must be proven for a political subdivision or an employee to be liable for damages done while performing their duties.

As far as the Ky law goes maybe the people who filed the lawsuit had a point. I didn't find anything that said that the FD did or did not call for mutual aid. How long was the delay from the time the fire actually started until the FD was called? There are a lot of questions I would ask in this situation. One of them is why the individuals are suing & not the insurance company. If there is a question of neglect the insurance company will do an investigation to determine if sound or standard practices were used in response & extinguishment of a fire. I would also like to know if there the allegations that the FD "underestimated" the fire was actually true and how many ffs were on scene & if they actually did only have 1 small truck. A "small" truck could be any kind of apparatus depending on who is describing it.

The problem here is that you can be pretty sure that some legal eagle urged the plaintiff to file hoping to score a big settlement of which they get a huge percentage of. The more money awarded to the people, the bigger chunk the lawyer gets. So the more neglect he is going to try to put on the FD and everyone involved. The entire world is lawsuit happy. Which is why insurance is so outrageously expensive.

AND - if the court sets a president, then anybody & everybody will be suing the FD for damages to their home/property during a fire.

We fall under the state statute liste above but the FD also carries liability insurance in case something goes wrong. That insurance will pick up for us if someone tries to sue the Chief or individual members instead of the FD or the township.