Duty to create a culture of care

We need to talk, Hoosiers, because we’re not taking care of each other.
Even though it’s tempting, more legal responsibility for each other isn’t the answer.

There’s a legal concept called duty of care that says we are required to be reasonably safe with respect to the people and property around us.

In certain situations, you accept responsibility for the safety of another individual through your own actions — often without even
knowing it.

Rob and Charlene Spierer are claiming that’s exactly what Jason Rosenbaum and Corey Rossman did on the night of June 3, 2011, when their daughter Lauren Spierer disappeared.

If they had a duty of care for Lauren, failed to execute it and that failure contributed to her disappearance, they could be held monetarily responsible.

Randall Frykberg, director of Student Legal Services, said the Spierers tried to convince the court to expand the list of actions that create a duty of care. The Spierers want to include things such as attempting to help someone or intervening when someone else offers to.

The judge chose not to expand it, although the case is still moving forward under an older Indiana law.

As much as my thoughts are with the Spierers, and I respect their efforts to find a small amount of justice for their daughter, the judge made the right choice.

The law tends to struggle when it tries to mandate desirable behavior.
Establishing that kind of precedent would probably have a negative impact on our interest in the well-being of those around us.

There’s already no shortage of apathy and aloofness on this campus.
It’s not difficult to imagine a scenario in which large campus organizations, known for their partying culture, begin unofficially training their members on how to avoid assuming a legal obligation for someone else.

It’s not that we would be less concerned about those around us. We would just be less likely to act in a way that might make us legally responsible for them.

Arguably, that’s because legal obligations are enforceable where moral obligations often aren’t. Many would say that’s precisely why legal obligations are preferable.

And in a perfect world, where fulfillment of a legal obligation is entirely objective, I would agree.

Back in reality, legal obligations are sticky and subjective. Even if you did fulfil yours, you’ll have to spend a lot of time and money convincing a handful of fallible human
beings.

For that reason, you’ll probably think twice before taking on an obligation.
Legal obligations should exist for when moral obligations fail, not to serve in their absence.

The fact that Lauren Spierer walked home alone that night — that this culture is one in which something like that could happen, in which no one thought or chose to make sure she was accompanied or safe — infuriates me. It represents a void of moral character in this community.

Unfortunately, that’s not a void that can be filled by legislation. It isn’t a culture that can be written into law, dictated by a court or enforced by the police.
It has to start with each individual person.

You have a duty of care for every person around you. You have a duty to keep them safe, to get them help if they need it and to take care of them physically, mentally and emotionally.

You have that duty not because a judge tells you to or because you’ll get sued if you don’t fulfill it. You have that duty because you’re an adult and a decent human being.

­— drlreed@indiana.edu