Providing Assistance to Out-of-State Entities. How Risky is it?

Counties are regularly asked to assist other government entities in emergency situations including fires, floods, medical emergencies, law enforcement emergencies and others. Cooperative assistance during emergencies is critical to counties, cities and states to protect the health and safety of the public. While the importance of responding to requests to aid other entities is understood and supported by UCIP, it is important for officials to understand the increased liability to the county when assistance is provided to entities outside of Utah.

Counties are protected under the Governmental Immunity Act (GIA) for governmental functions and particularly for public safety related functions. Those protections include immunity from claims arising from actions or failure to act in a governmental capacity as well as monetary limitations on judgements. These protections significantly limit county liability for claims occurring in Utah.

Unfortunately, these protections are for the most part unavailable to counties for claims arising from activities in other states. The loss of these protections has the effect of the county’s liability increasing from no liability based on immunities or worst case a judgement limited to the current GIA tort caps to being liable for unlimited damages for injury, death or damage to property for claims occurring in other states.

Counties should look to agreements they may have in place with out-of-state entities to provide aid to determine if the county’s liability is or can be limited under those agreements.  UCIP is happy to assist with review of aid agreements.