Samaritans in our Present Litigious Society

A customer approached me today and asked what would be the best way to get help to change a flat tire. She said she had roadside assistance with her insurance company but had no way to contact them. She could not use her cell phone since she lent it to her daughter (this contradicted her later claim, come to think of it, that she could not get an answer from her family members at home in Chicago to lend help). I suggested she speak with the folks in Safety and Loss Prevention, but she claimed that they gave her "attitude", especially since she asked to use their phone. In the end, I did get the non-emergency number for the Bolingbrook Police Department and contacted them for her using our courtesy phone. Afterward, I bade her good luck.

Skepticism worked against my sense of empathy once she told her tale. When I shared this experience with my coworkers during lunch, one of them suggested that this woman attempted to prey on my empathy to change her tire for her. This of course prompted me to draw things to a seemingly illogical conclusion. If you're a Good Samaritan today, you can be a civil suit defendant tomorrow.

But is it really an illogical conclusion?

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