Who is Liable for Damages That Occur on Mutual Aid Responses in New York?

The New York Supreme Court for Dutchess County has ruled that a fire department that requests aid from a neighboring community is responsible to compensate that assisting department for damage that occurs to their apparatus, even though the apparatus has been released from the incident, and even though the damage was solely the result of negligence by its driver.

The facts of the case are relatively straight forward;

• On June 10, 2021, the defendant, City of Poughkeepsie, requested mutual aid from the New Hamburg Fire Department for a fire located at 5 Parker Avenue in the City of Poughkeepsie.
• The New Hamburg Fire Department responded to the scene with 4 firefighters and a single fire truck.
• The New Hamburg fire truck was driven by Brian Smith.
• After New Hamburg’s assistance was no longer needed at the site, Mr. Smith, while backing up the fire truck to leave the scene, ran the truck into a telephone pole as he lost sight of his spotter (another New Hamburg firefighter).
• The truck was damaged.
• New Hamburg’s insurer, National Union Fire Insurance Company of Pittsburgh, alleges that it paid for the damage to the fire truck and thereafter submitted a notice of claim to the City of Poughkeepsie for payment for the damage in the amount of $85,307.25.
• The City of Poughkeepsie, through its insurer, denied the claim. This action followed.

At issue is a state law, General Municipal Law §209, that requires the requesting department to pay for damages sustained by the responding department, as follows:

• Any loss or damage to, or expense incurred in the operation of, fire apparatus or other equipment answering a call for assistance from outside territory as provided for in subdivision one of this section or otherwise, and the cost of any materials used in connection with such call, shall be a charge against and paid by the city … which issued the call for assistance.

Poughkeepsie argued that it should not be liable for New Hamburg’s damage for several reasons, including that fire departments in New York have immunity protection and that immunity protection should rightly usurp a separate law like §209; that the New Hamburg truck had been released from the incident and the time of the damage, and thus was no longer “answering” the call; and that §209 does not require a requesting fire department to pay for damages caused solely by the negligence of the responding department.

Judge Thomas R. Davis rejected the arguments made by Poughkeepsie, concluding instead that:

• [T]he intent of the Legislature in enacting GML §209 was to encourage neighboring communities to answer calls for help in fighting fires.
• Limiting … the statute in the manner proposed by the defendant would undermine this intent as it could make responding agencies hesitant to provide aid if they had doubts about whether the cost of damage to their equipment would be covered by the municipality requesting help.

Quoting from a press release issued by fellow firefighter-attorney Donald J. Kavanagh, Esq., who represented the plaintiff in the case:

• As both an attorney for plaintiff and a volunteer firefighter myself, I am pleased and relieved that the Supreme Court ruled in plaintiff’s favor.  This ruling is significant because it confirms that fire departments need not hesitate or make a choice between helping a neighbor and putting their very costly equipment at risk.

Here is a copy of the decision.