ABSTRACT
But, can there also be recovery where my performance of your public duty was not forced, but was carried out reasonably and in a situation of urgent necessity? In certain cases, this step has been taken. Thus, where those responsible for the burial of a dead body have failed to carry out their responsibility, other persons who have shouldered the responsibility have been given a right of recovery against them, on the basis that the persons responsible have thereby been saved the expense.47 And in Canada, a doctor who provided emergency assistance to a pauper, where this was in fact a statutory duty laid on the municipality, successfully recovered his fee from it.48 This right, in so far as it applies, should presumably be limited to cases where the intervention was not intended to be gratuitous, and where the intervening party had some reasonable excuse – such as a close relationship with the deceased – for interfering.
