South Dakota’s highest court began its final day of oral arguments with a case involving a volunteer firefighter’s car crash.
On the fourth of July in 2007, Tim Bauman responded to a Chester fire call, when his speeding vehicle hit a car turning across the road. Bauman was driving his personal pickup at about 80 miles an hour to a fire call.
Attorney Peter Bendorf represents Areyman Gabriel, who was driving the car that turned and was hit. Bendorf says South Dakota law doesn’t protect the actions of the speeding firefighter.
"[He did not have the right of way] because he was speeding. The statute specifically says that, if you are speeding, you have sacrificed any right of way that you may have enjoyed prior to that," Bendorf says.
Bendorf says the justices must decide whether Bauman’s driving was willful, wanton and reckless. He says Bauman disregarded his fire training, which included a warning not to speed.
But firefighter Tim Bauman’s attorney says the driver’s decisions were not willful, wanton and reckless. Attorney Lisa Prostrollo says Bauman’s training may have shown him that speeding could possibly result in an accident.
"But by no means would that instruction create a conscious realization in Bauman’s mind that, in all probability, Gabriel would turn directly in front of him, causing this accident," Prostrollo says.
Prostrollo says Bauman was driving with his hazard lights on, so he was alerting others – proof, she says, he didn’t have a reckless state of mind. The opposing council notes Bauman didn’t have emergency lights on his personal pickup.
Justices on the court asked attorneys questions regarding the full impact of this decision on future cases, because their arguments involve South Dakota’s Good Samaritan law. That protects people from liability in emergency situations.
The Chester Fire Department and the Chester Rural Fire Protection district are also appellees in the case in front of the South Dakota Supreme Court. Today/Wednesday was the last set of oral arguments during the fall term.