Court case(1921) 232 NY 176

The plaintiff and his cousin Herbert were passengers on the defendant's electric railway. The car was crowded and the doors were left open. As the car went round a curve on a trestle bridge at night, a lurch threw Herbert out. The car stopped beyond the bridge. The plaintiff walked back along the bridge in the darkness to look for his cousin; he missed his footing, fell from the bridge and was injured. He sued the railway, whose negligence in leaving the doors open had caused Herbert's fall.

The New York Court of Appeals, in a judgment by Cardozo J, held that the railway could be liable to the rescuer and ordered a new trial, the trial judge having wrongly directed the jury that the plaintiff could recover only if the railway had invited him to go on the bridge. Cardozo J said: "Danger invites rescue. The cry of distress is the summons to relief. The law does not ignore these reactions of the mind in tracing conduct to its consequences... The wrong that imperils life is a wrong to the imperilled victim; it is a wrong also to his rescuer." The rescuer's act need not be instantaneous; it is enough that it is a natural response to the emergency created by the defendant, and the rescuer is not barred unless he acted rashly.