Legal Lesson of the Month: No Immunity for Medics in Va. Death

EMS can be full of interesting and tricky legal scenarios. While you can’t have an attorney ride with you, it behooves providers to have at least some familiarity with the principles, precedents, and major issues of EMS law. To that end EMS World is pleased to offer the EMS Legal Lesson of the Month.

These cases are presented by prominent attorneys in the EMS field. This month’s comes from Larry Bennett, program chair for fire science and emergency management at the University of Cincinnati. Bennett’s department publishes a monthly Fire & EMS and Safety Law newsletter; subscribe to that by e-mailing Lawrence.bennett@uc.edu or read the latest edition here. Find this case and more in his newsletter archive. 

Case: Angela L. Lawhon, Administrator of the Estate of Joshua L. Lawhon, v. Alexander Mayes, et al.

Decided: November 2021

Verdict: The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held the paramedics, like the police officers in this case, are not entitled to good faith immunity, and Lawhorn’s lawsuit will proceed.

Facts: On January 16, 2018, two officers from the Richmond Police Department responded to a call from Joshua Lawhon’s roommate, Shaunna Tunstall. Tunstall expressed concern for Lawhon’s well-being because he had fallen and injured himself. Lawhon had a history of paranoid schizophrenia and informed the officers he had taken too much of a certain medication that day. The police officers urged him to go to the hospital voluntarily for evaluation, but he refused.

When two paramedics arrived, they asked Lawhon a series of questions to evaluate his state of mind. He answered the questions correctly but became increasingly agitated. When the paramedics prepared to leave, Tunstall urged them to take Lawhon and expressed a concern that he could kill himself if he remained at home. However, she did not convey any fear that he could pose a danger to others.

According to the complaint, the police officers and paramedics then “carried out a ruse” by pretending to allow Lawhon to go find a cigarette he had requested. As Lawhon walked toward the other room to do so, an officer grabbed him from behind, forced him into the prone position—on his stomach with his hands behind his back—and with the assistance of another police officer and the two paramedics, handcuffed him. The defendants then applied varying degrees of force to his body while Lawhon remained handcuffed in the prone position for nearly six minutes, with his face pushed into a pillow on the floor for most of that time.

During the last three minutes, Lawhon was motionless and silent. When the defendants finally rolled Lawhon off his stomach and onto his back, he remained unresponsive. It was later determined he suffered “irreversible hypoxic brain injury due to cardiac arrest and/or asphyxia.” Two days later he was declared brain dead.

Key quote: “The paramedic defendants…raise a good-faith immunity defense under Virginia’s Good Samaritan statute. However, as the district court determined, ‘This statute only shields those who in good faith render emergency care or assistance.’ The complaint asserts that the paramedics failed to provide Lawhon with emergency care or assistance. Thus, the statute cannot immunize the paramedics at this stage of the litigation.”

Legal lesson: When police use force to restrain a patient, it is particularly important that EMS thoroughly document its actions at that scene, including assistance to both the patient and the police.