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Firefighters Let House Burn Because Owner Didn't Pay Fee
Dthief writes "From MSNBC: 'Firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground last week because the homeowner hadn't paid a $75 fee. Gene Cranick of Obion County and his family lost all of their possessions in the Sept. 29 fire, along with three dogs and a cat. "They could have been saved if they had put water on it, but they didn't do it," Cranick told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann. The fire started when the Cranicks' grandson was burning trash near the family home. As it grew out of control, the Cranicks called 911, but the fire department from the nearby city of South Fulton would not respond.'"
He didn't forget to pay. He chose not to pay. He received a bill and then a phone call and was advised his home would not be protected if he didn't pay.
No different then letting your life insurance policy lapse, then you die, and your spouse tries to collect $1 mil by paying this months premium.
The county he lives in does not have a fire department. A nearby city does. The city FD (which is funded by the tax base of the city only, not the county at large) allows county residents to pay the $75 for them to cover them as well, but since they don't live in the city itself, the city can't compel them to pay. And the county apparently isn't willing or able to fund their own FD out of the county tax base.
This is fucking incomprehensible to me.
County and city taxes pay for county and city services and infrastructure. Federal taxes pay for federal services, to which the military belongs. They are completely different taxes.
Now some cities and municipalities may qualify for grants and what-not from federal and state sources, but none of that changes that this idiot gambled and lost. Paying $75/hr for fire service is an easy, low IQ decision. Not to mention dirt cheap.
The real failure, IMOHO, is the fact the fee is not mandatory.
"Blame the government that set up a no-win situation."
You mean, blame the people that voted for the gov't that set up the no-win situation. People blame the gov't all the time -- without realizing THEY ARE THE GOV'T. As a citizen, you are responsible for your gov't...not the other way around.
There is a lot more information about this out there from other sources
According to the Mayor of the Town involved
1. The policy is if there is human life at risk, the department responds and rescues, but only fights the fire enough to effect the rescue
2. This person did not "forget" to pay. The fire department called him in August to tell him that they had not received his payment and he would not receive fire protection until he did
3. In an earlier interview, the guy said "I knew I didn't pay, but I thought they would come anyway". Now in interviews he says he forgot
4. Fire Service should be tax based, but in Tennessee, to put a new tax in place, like a fire protection district, requires a positive vote in favor of the tax. For 20 years, this County has regularly voted against such a tax.
5. The Community of South Fulton, who's fire department responded, is located in Kentucky. So not only do you have a city fire department responding out of their protection area, they are responding into another STATE.
South Fulton used to send out bills of $500 to non-payers for fire response. Less than 50% of the people paid that bill.
They realized that they would have to get a court order to collect the rest.
Subscription districts suck.
There is one problem - being the neighbor of the guy who didn't pay. Now your house is more likely to catch on fire.
In TFA, the neighbor's property did catch fire, and the firefighters fought it up to the property line. IMHO, paying taxes for firefighting services for the whole community is a better idea, but in some areas I guess the collective decision is to let everyone make their own choice. It's the way that things used to be - you can see the "fire marks" (usually a metal star or suchlike) on older buildings; you'd get the mark from your insurance company, and their private fire fighters would only put out fires at properties with the right mark.
As others have pointed out, the fire department showed up to prevent the fire from spreading to the neighbor's property. The neighbor had paid the $75.
The only thing that tires me more than a frothing libertarian is a frothing libertarian hater, of which there seem to be more than actual libertarians.
If you knew anything about what the hell you were talking about you'd realize that libertarians aren't opposed to all government, just parts of it. As with any group of humans there's variance, some are quite moderate, some are more extreme. However you find that things like military and public safety, which fire departments are, are things they almost universally are ok with taxes paying for.
There's a big difference between saying "Reduce or eliminate many government programs," and saying "Eliminate ALL government." That would be anarchists, not libertarians.
Also please realize the people suggesting bill him mean "Bill him for the cost of putting out the fire." It would be a case of "Pay $75/year in insurance, or pay the full cost if there is a fire."
That is the proper way to handle a situation like this, since fire is a public safety issue. Not putting out a fire should never be an option since the problems isn't that a house may burn down, it is that all of them may burn down. Ask London what happens when you lack proper fire control.
Even 3rd world African countries have free fire protection.
In fact, as far has I know, the last state that asked a fee for fire protection was Rome. I think that says a lot about USA. Even more when I see so many comments here in Slashdot supporting the fire department action.
He didn't forget to pay. He chose not to pay.
Ah, yet another person who reads the one article and believes they know everything about it. As much as you will hate hearing it, you are absolutely wrong. This was a case of forgetfulness. He had paid the fee on-time for years and years past, and slipped his mind this time. And that's not my assuming, that's my reading articles, listening to news bits, and quotes directly from those who handle fees and from Mr. Cranick.
And it's EXTREMELY different than life insurance. Life insurance is paying fees for benefit. This case is paying fees so you don't lose everything you own. It is a case when no policy like this will ever be right. There are plenty of better ways to go about this situation... They chose about the dumbest one possible.
No, there is no "-1 I'LL NEVER ADMIT BEING WRONG!!!" mod.
OSHA considers a house fire to be "Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health"
All my personal protective equipment comes with warning labels that even when wearing the equipment properly, I can still be killed in a fire that the equipment will survive.
Every time I enter a building that is on fire it counts as "substantial personal risk". I am definitely at less risk than someone without the training or equipment, but I am still at risk.
If I am injured on a fire that my department has no legal responsibility to respond to, the Workman Comp Insurance provider can deny my claims.
Unless there is a pre-written agreement between the County and my Community, responding to a non-subscribers house fire is an out of jurisdiction response. The Subscription fee is what gives my fire department jurisdiction.
Bad news: the scotus has already ruled that police can, in fact, legally stand by as you are raped. Even if they know about it. Even if you call for help.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
Also:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
"Duress": I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Black's Law (quoted here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duress) defines duress as: "any unlawful threat or coercion used... to induce another to act [or not act] in a manner [they] otherwise would not [or would]".
In other words, I can induce you to sign a contract with any LEGAL threat that I so please, and the contract is still binding. But if my threats are inherently illegal (such as threatening to hurt you, hurt your family, destroy your property, blackmail you), then the concept of duress applies, and you have a defense against my breach of contract claims.
This definition makes a lot of practical sense, if you think about it. If duress were a broader concept that included me refusing to provide you with services if you don't sign a contract, then I wouldn't even legally be able to tell you the point of signing the contract, in the first place. Under that kind of twisted logic, if you asked "Why should I sign this contract agreeing to pay you $20 to mow my lawn", and I responded "Because I won't mow your lawn for free", then I'd be subjecting you to duress. Clearly, that's not conducive to basic business arrangements.
In this case, the firefighters would be threatening to withold a service (fighting the fire consuming the man's house), which doesn't seem to be an illegal threat, to me. Granted, the house represents a very serious economic and emotional loss to this man and his family. I don't want to belittle that. But it's not like the firefighters set the man's house on fire, in the first place.
Now, there are some situations where a society will legally or socially obligate an individual member to act on behalf of his fellow man in a time of need. Some jurisdictions even have laws requiring you to aid another human being in distress, as long as you're not putting yourself in harm's way (like in the Seinfeld finale). So everything I said, above, assumes that this little Tennessee burg isn't one of situations.
they could charge the homeowner whatever turns out to be the actual cost of the service (the annual cost of having the resources available divided by the average number of fires per year, plus a surcharge for "forgetting" to pay). It might be several thousand dollars, and it's up to the homeowner to decide whether his house is worth paying for the service or not.
All fine and dandy except for one niggling problem:
Federal law limits post-fire bills to $500. This isn't enough to keep people paying the $75, nor enough to cover actual expenses. So they let it burn.
I don't read AC A human right
I live in the next town over, across the state line in KY, so allow me to expand on this a little.
The fire subscription fee has been in existence for 20 years for those living within a certain distance of South Fulton in Obion County. It has never gone up in 20 years. It is a meager fee for such service, yet a large portion of those eligible still gamble with it. Before 1990, the rural folks flat out didn't have fire service, period. South Fulton FD would not respond outside the city limits, so this is considered an expanded service for those outside the city limits, not a gov't paid and provided service like it is for those inside the city. And we use the term "city" liberally. South Fulton has a population of maybe 2500 people and falling as the old die off and the young leave for lack of employment opportunity.
Had there been a person in the home whose life was in danger, the firefighters would have been legally obligated to respond to save the person, but once the person is rescued, their duty ends for those without a fire subscription. Also, I don't understand why his pets died. From what I've been told, it took almost 2 hours for the fire to go from the burn barrels to his shed and ultimately to his house. He had lots of time to rescue his pets and his most important documents and possessions before the fire got to his house, but he instead assumed that the SFFD would come save his pets and property even though his fee was not paid. He expected something for nothing and got exactly what he put effort into - nothing.
As for the property next door, it was a harvested soybean field on fire, not another home. They have special tanker trucks with big spray booms to deal with such.