Councilman Wants L. A. to Help Sued ‘Samaritan’

Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs said Monday he will seek to have the city provide the legal defense for a Lancaster carpenter who is being sued as a result of his efforts to help three people escape from an overturned car last January.

Wachs said he will introduce a City Council motion today to have the city defend Jim Campbell, 31, who joined a Los Angeles police motorcycle officer last Jan. 30 to aid a pregnant woman, her husband and a teen-age cousin.

The councilman also said he would ask legislators to extend to ordinary citizens protection under the “Good Samaritan” law, which now protects doctors, nurses and emergency personnel from lawsuits.

“Government should stand by its citizens when they act in a responsible way like this man did,” Wachs said.

Campbell and the police officer, Loran Dale Turner, have been sued by the teen-age cousin whom they helped from the car. The cousin, Anzelma Sanchez-Sianez, 17, was struck by an oncoming car and suffered a ruptured spleen, according to her attorney, Paul Jay Bershin.

In the lawsuit, filed Sept. 25, the teen-ager claims that Campbell put her in “an unsafe place” after helping her from the car and that Turner “failed to put up a flare pattern” to warn off other vehicles.

She also sued Ricardo Macias-Garcia, the driver of the car. The initial accident occurred as Macias-Garcia was driving his wife, Norma, to the hospital to deliver a child. The couple survived the crash, as did their unborn child, who is now 10 months old.

Bershin declined to comment on Wachs’ actions Monday.

Wachs warned that the city’s failure to defend Campbell would encourage “people to stand by and watch (during an emergency). I don’t want to see L.A. become another New York. I don’t want to see people idly stand by while others die in the streets.”

The councilman said he did not foresee major objections in the council despite worries about the city’s budget. The city attorney’s office, however, informed him that the city could use public funds to aid Campbell only if the council determines that the move is for “the public good.”

That requirement will not be an obstacle, Wachs said.

“You can’t have much of a Police Department if you don’t have citizens willing to help,” he said. “There’s no price you can put on that.”

Wachs said he has had no contact with legislators on sponsoring an amendment to California’s Good Samaritan law. But he added that he would not be surprised to see opposition from trial lawyers.

Campbell had not asked for legal help, Wachs said. Much of that groundwork was laid by Turner, who told the councilman that Campbell’s “day-to-day” existence as a carpenter might make hiring a lawyer an expensive proposition for him.

Campbell said Monday that he had contacted a lawyer after being notified last spring that he would be sued but had not “followed through since then.”

Welcoming Wachs’ offer of a city-paid legal defense, Campbell agreed with the councilman that he might have second thoughts about joining in future rescues if he knew he might be sued again.

“Why would anyone want to stop and help in that kind of situation?” he asked.