Fire brigade turned up late to burning pizza shop ?as satirical statement?

[Lazybones]

http://newsbiscuit.com/article/fire-brigade-turned-up-late-to-burning-pizza-shop-as-satirical-statement

Don't piss off the fire department and the cops... you might need them some day.

[Thorin]

Yeah, but...  The owner of ProntoPizza and the building it was in should sue the hell out of the fire and police departments.  Imagine if someone had died due to their gross negligence?  Just because they get poor service, shouldn't mean they give poor service.

[Lazybones]

Your right, but I am also guessing there is a lot more to the story.

[Darren Dirt]

Yeah, but...  The owner of ProntoPizza and the building it was in should sue the hell out of the fire and police departments.  Imagine if someone had died due to their gross negligence?  Just because they get poor service, shouldn't mean they give poor service.

In theory you are correct.

But have a closer examination of that word, "negiglence". Especially the "legal" definitions...

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?db=mwlaw&q=negligence
"failure to exercise the degree of care expected of a person of ordinary prudence in like circumstances in protecting others from a foreseeable and unreasonable risk of harm in a particular situation"

obviously this implies a "duty" to provide such care (i.e. "expected of...") so the real question is, does the fire department -- or any government-provided "protective service" -- have any kind of duty/obligation to provide their service?

The answer to that simple question is disturbing. Just search Google for:
dial 911 and die no duty

[Thorin]

"degree of care expected of a person of ordinary prudence" does not translate at all to "duty".

Also, this is an article from Great Britain, not from the United States.  Have a look at the results on the first page of that Google search; they're all discussing American law.

And even in American law it is stated that government officials are not immune to prosecution of gross negligence charges; it merely states that if they can prove they could not have prevented what happened, they're off the hook.  In this case, the firemen and police officers were not off the hook, as they were reprimanded.  There is a solid case for a civil lawsuit.

Let me just quote the article:

Yesterday at South London Magistrates Court, six members of the Balham fire crew were found guilty of gross negligence and ordered by the judge to pay appropriate compensation. They were ordered to pay the pizza company a ?1 voucher for taking longer than thirty minutes.

Oh, wait, they were found guilty of gross negligence.

You've been pushing the "Police Don't Need To Protect Us" angle for a long time now, and I think it's time for you to open your eyes to the fact that policemen still get charged with and found guilty of gross negligence when people are injured because of their actions.

Yes, if the police try their best but can't save you, they're off the hook.  But if they don't try at all, they're not.  But hey, don't argue with me about it, go ask a lawyer.

[Tom]

I like how the judge seemed to agree with the Firefighters and Police. ?1 heh.

[Darren Dirt]

"degree of care expected of a person of ordinary prudence" does not translate at all to "duty".

Sorry, I wasn't intending to "give legal advice"

BTW on that particular dictionary page it often references legal dictionaries, but those definitions are almost always based on commonlaw definitions, from whence the modern American and Canadian and British legal systems all originated.

And the point I have tried to make, linking to that easy-to-research-yourself Google search, is that the organization providing the service is not obligated to provide it, although they force the potential customers to pay for it either way. Many of the results on that Google search mention case law examples where women were raped and/or murdered after calling 911 and being told that "help is on the way", etc. Any attempts by family members to receive compensation for the failure of the police resulted in a "lack of standing" or similar judgement, i.e. that there was no duty to protect the victims as individuals (only that "society" level protection needed to be provided)... the fact that individuals cops are often charged with negligence or worse is a separate issue -- as a free civilian who stops to help a bleeding victim of a car accident, then leaves after changing their mind, can also be charged with "negligence" (whereas if they never entered into the implicit contract to provide the aid, they would not have assumed any kind of personal duty or obligation to do anything, thus would not be liable and that victim would have no standing to sue).

Anyway, hope that clarifies things a bit -- I've done a lot of research on the whole issue of "standing" and "obligations/duty" of certain often-presumed-to-be-required-to-be-provided-to-folks services... It's eye-opening to say the least (a "standing cross-reference" can be found here, showing the common results of cases state-by-state, and though it's US cases, the principles are based, again, on the common law. But the blurb that prefixes the case explains why these quoted cases are important.)