Latest news with #Enhanced911Act
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Yahoo
NM Supreme Court rules that 911 dispatchers are liable in emergency call lawsuits
NEW MEXICO (KRQE) – The New Mexico Supreme Court said 911 dispatchers are not immune from liability under the Enhanced 911 Act. On Monday, the state Supreme Court clarified the protections both dispatchers and governmental employers have during a lawsuit. New Mexico Supreme Court reinstates child abuse conviction for religious sect leader The family of a 16-year-old hiker, who suffered a heat stroke in the Organ Mountains in July 2020, sued several organizations, saying the teen's death was caused by delays and missteps in emergency response. The federal court asked the state Supreme Court to help it resolve the case. Defense lawyers claimed the enhanced 911 Act grants immunity to dispatchers and their employers, but the state Supreme Court disagreed, meaning they can be sued. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New Mexico Supreme Court clarifies 911 dispatcher immunity from lawsuits
A view of the Organ Mountains and surrounding desert in Doña Ana County on Sunday, April 7, 2024. (Photo by Leah Romero for Source NM) New Mexico's highest court on Monday clarified a question posed by a federal court about which law to consider when weighing an emergency dispatcher's legal immunity from allegations of a mishandled 911 call. The ruling stems from the death of a 16-year-old boy who was hiking with his family in July 2020 in the Organ Mountains in Doña Ana County when he started suffering from heat stroke. His mother called 911, which a Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority 911 dispatcher answered and then routed to the New Mexico Department of Public Safety. In a wrongful death lawsuit, the child's estate and family alleged that the Mesilla Valley dispatcher made a series of missteps that delayed the emergency medical response, and that DPS' dispatch center incorrectly noted their location that day. The Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority and DPS each asked the judge to dismiss the case, pointing to a New Mexico law called the Enhanced 911 Act that provides legal immunity to local governments and their contractors who run 911 dispatch systems 'except for intentional acts.' The federal court delayed a decision to dismiss the case and asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to weigh in. In a unanimous decision published on Monday, the New Mexico Supreme Court found that the Enhanced 911 Act, 'has no bearing on the 911 dispatchers' immunity from liability for the allegedly mishandled 911 emergency medical calls.' Instead, the justices wrote, immunity for dispatchers is governed by a law the Legislature passed six years prior to the Enhanced 911 Act: the Enhanced Medical Services Act, which provides immunity for dispatchers except for damages caused by negligence. 'Succinctly stated, important changes in statutory law are not generally made through inconspicuous means,' the justices wrote. 'Applying that principle here, we cannot conclude that the Legislature would announce a new rule more broadly immunizing 911 dispatchers from liability except for intentional acts in the space of one phrase in a statute primarily addressing enhanced 911 infrastructure and funding that makes only isolated and generalized references to 911 dispatchers or their equivalents.' The justices wrote that their ruling is only meant to clarify for the federal court which law to apply; they made no findings as to how it should apply the law to the boy's death. Under a new statewide emergency dispatch system expected to launch in August, dispatchers won't have to rely on callers to determine their location and instead will be able to track the cell phone's location data. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
NM Supreme Court clarifies 911 liability in case involving Doña Ana County
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) — The New Mexico Supreme Court clarified the legal protections that state law provides to 911 dispatchers and the government agencies that employ them from being sued for damages for personal injuries or deaths allegedly caused by their response to a call for help. The state Supreme Court issued the ruling on Monday, April 21, in a case involving a 16-year-old who suffered heatstroke while hiking in the Organ Mountains and died in 2020. The court unanimously concluded that the state Enhanced Medical Services Act (EMSA) governed the liability issue and that 911 dispatchers were immune from civil liability except for damages caused by negligence, according to a news release sent out by the Office of the state Supreme Court. The family sued the Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority, several of its dispatchers, the Doña Ana County Board of County Commissioners, the New Mexico Department of Public Safety and the city of Las Cruces. The lawsuit alleged that the teenager's death was caused by unreasonable delays and missteps in the emergency response, including an initial referral of the incident to a fire prevention specialist, a mischaracterization of it as a search-and-rescue situation and 'minor medical' event, and two ambulances being dispatched and then cancelled. Another state law – the Enhanced 911 Act – 'has no relevance' in determining the liability of dispatchers for allegedly mishandling emergency medical calls, the court wrote in an opinion by Justice Michael E. Vigil. The court issued its opinion in response to a federal court's request about the liability of 911 dispatchers under state law. The federal court posed the question in helping it resolve the family's lawsuit. The New Mexico Supreme Court analyzed two state laws to determine the scope of immunity provided to 911 dispatchers. It is the federal court's responsibility to apply the law to the facts of the family's wrongful death claims, the state Supreme Court said in its news release. The governmental defendants in the case argued that the Enhanced 911 Act applied to dispatchers and provided immunity for dispatchers and their employers from damage claims other than those based on 'intentional acts.' They pointed to a section of the law that granted such immunity to governmental agencies, employees, equipment suppliers and certain others for damages 'from installing, maintaining or providing enhanced 911 systems or transmitting 911 calls,' according to the news release. The defendants contended that the section included emergency 911 medical dispatchers. The court rejected the defendants' arguments that the statutory reference to 'transmitting 911 calls' made dispatchers subject to the immunity under the Enhanced 911 Act, which was enacted six years after the EMSA became law. 'Succinctly stated, important changes in statutory law are not generally made through inconspicuous means. Applying that principle here, we cannot conclude that the Legislature would announce a new rule more broadly immunizing 911 dispatchers from liability except for intentional acts in the space of one phrase in a statute primarily addressing enhanced 911 infrastructure and funding that makes only isolated and generalized references to 911 dispatchers or their equivalents,' the court wrote. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
