At the end of September in Obion County, Tenn., Gene and Paulette Cranick lost their home to fire. Evidently, the fire began when their son was burning papers in a burn barrel. No one is quite sure why fire jumped the barrel, but it ignited grass, and once that happened, it spread quickly.
The Cranicks called 911 to send out the South Fulton Fire Department (the department with responsibility for their area), but nothing happened. They called several times. In the meantime, their own attempts to fight the fire with garden hoses proved futile. Fire reached the house and burned it to the ground.
That took a while. Before the Cranicks' house was engulfed, the fire got past their property line and began to threaten one of their neighbors. It was then that the fire department showed up and put out the fire on the neighbor's property.
You might ask why the department responded to their neighbor and not to them. Well, the Cranicks live outside the city limits of South Fulton and since 1990 have been required to pay an annual fee of $75 for fire department service.
Although they'd paid it "many, many times," they hadn't gotten around to paying it this year. When the fire department showed up at his neighbor's property, Gene Cranick pleaded with the fire chief, saying that he'd pay all the fire department expenses, if they would just put out the fire at his house. The chief refused.
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When asked by a news crew whether the fire chief could have made an exception in the Cranicks' situation, South Fulton Mayor David Crocker backed up the fire chief by saying, "Anybody that's not in the city of South Fulton, it's a service we offer; either they accept it or they don't."
In other words, it's Gene Cranick's own fault that his house burned down (that'll teach the cheap so-and-so).
In the aftermath, some people have likened the unpaid fire fee to not carrying insurance. (No insurance, no insurance payment; no fee payment, no fire department service.)
Then again, the Cranicks' story brings the "good Samaritan" law and the four vacuous main characters of the NBC comedy "Seinfeld" to mind. In the sitcom's final episode, the four made fun of a fat man who was being robbed at gunpoint - instead of helping him - and all four ended up being sentenced to a year in jail for not acting as "good Samaritans."
Bear with me here; NBC and I confused "good Samaritan" statutes, which legally protect passers-by who do harm while trying to help with "duty to rescue" laws that place expectations on citizens - particularly emergency personnel, such as firefighters. It is "duty to rescue" that might apply in the Cranicks' situation.
In explaining "duty to rescue," that fount of general knowledge Wikipedia says that "a person cannot be held liable for doing nothing while another person is in peril" except in two situations. One of them covers emergency workers such as firefighters, "who have a general duty to rescue the public within the scope of their employment." (No doubt the meaning of "peril" and "scope" in this case could be argued in court for quite a while. Three dogs and a cat died because firefighters wouldn't help, but no family members were in the house, and there was that unpaid fee.)
Whether the fire chief's decision passes legal muster, the real cultural and societal question is about ethics and morality. Isn't it unethical - sadistic, really - for firefighters, who are right there and entirely capable of turning on their hoses to help a desperate family, to pack up instead and head back to town? Doesn't that decision diminish bedrock American ideals of humanity and citizenship?
More generally, do we want to live in a disengaged "Seinfeld" world where the operative phrase is "Sucks to be you"?
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Ahlin is a weekly contributor to The Forum's Sunday commentary page.
