Fire Fighters Refuse to Fight Fire, Homeowners Forgot to Pay Fee

It is unfortunate. But firefighters are not obligated to save property under all circumstances.

 

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They gave several funding proposals to the County govenment for universal coverage.
Bill by adding a charge per Electric meter or bill by increasing property taxes .13c.

The one where they added the charge to every meter (renters and owners) was $3 per meter, which is the number I've been using because it is most comparible with the Opt in plan.

Even if they just went with owners it would be $5 per meter, but that's still less than the $75 now.

County meetings where these things are discussed are open events with minutes published, and it would likely be carried in the local news/paper. You knew if you wanted to know.

Arthur

 

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What Legal Standard are you referring to?

What Law did they disregard, since they had no contractual obligation, under a Subsription system to provide service to someone who did not subscribe?

Similarly they were under no legal obligation to allow someone to subscribe to the service after a fire had been reported.

I know you think they should have helped, but I don't think you can find a LAW that they broke by not responding or not accepting his fee after the fact.

You might complain that what they did wasn't ethical or compassionate, but I have seen nothing to suggest the fire dept broke any laws.

Arthur

 

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Are you really that heartless to not see the other side of this? What if this had been you? WHat if you were having a hard time making ends meet. Took a gamble, because how often does one need the fire department in their life....

A bush. county or city, was causing people to lose property and pets lives were at stake. They sat there and did nothing! What sense does that make really? What is the point of even being a firefighter if you are going to pick and chose what fires you are going to put out. This really really makes the volunteer fire fighters that dont get paid in this world, look really good.


You honestly can't look at the other side of this, on a moral, humanitarian level? You really believe that someone deserves to lose their whole home, their pets, things that equate way over the $75 he owed?

 

Yes, three per month comes out to $36 per year. $5 per month is $60 per year. Both are less than the $75 subscription.

I wonder what the local electrical power provider said about stuff being tacked onto their bill.
I wonder what the country seat used as a basis for making a decision.

You make good points when you make them.

Don't go into denial now.

They failed to respond to a Brush Fire.

 

Really I'm not.

If you read this thread from the beginning you will see where I first said the Fire Chief should have put out the fire, since the funding for that year was a done deal, and then put his efforts into doing away with the Subscription service.

BUT

Then I found out that that's what he had already done.
The Fire Chiefs and the Mayor put together a proposal, that would provide Universal coverage to all residents of the County for just $3 per home per year. So for less than half the cost of the annual Subscription service that a bit less than half the residents subscribed to, this whole problem would go away.

But they were turned down by the County.

The County does not fund 1 penny towards fire service, they tell their residents to get it on a subscription basis from the City.

But the City officials were getting fed up with having to provide fire service on this basis, because the shortfall was essentially a tax on city residents. The Fire Chiefs report to the Mayor and thus the policy of not responding if no fee paid put them in this awkward position of having to check to see if someone had paid before they would roll.

It's important to remember that the City is under no obligation to provide ANY fire or emergency service to the County, and indeed, they could end this subscription service come the next renewal period.

What sense does it make?

Well this isn't the first house the City has let burn down. The ONLY reason this made the news is because they went out to the second house next door that had paid the subscription fee. Made good television.

But even if this event hadn't happened, then other houses will eventually burn because the fire dept has apparently decided to enforce the pay to spray rule.

So, if this "lesson" causes the County to change to a Universal system, then in the long run, it will save more houses.

As to your Volunteer fire dept being different, nope, two of the Subscription services in the County are handled by Volunteer fire depts, but in that case, only the people are Volunteers, the cities still provide the Trucks and Fire Stations etc.

The only down side to this, is that one person in the county paid a much larger price than his neighbors, but ultimately that's the way a subscription service works, so it's hard to get too worked up over the loss, because that's what the County wanted.

Arthur

 

Please show where the CITY fire department has an obligation to respond to a brush fire in the COUNTY that is not on the home of a subscriber.

I think they tended to do so, but that doesn't create an obligation to do so.

Arthur

 

No biggy.
They typically collect fees/taxes for other govt agencies.
They would probably charge a one time charge to add the fee and then probably a small monthly service fee to transfer the funds.

Arthur

 

Arthur is not cold hearted. He’s just being reasonable and presenting the other side. By not paying, Mr. Cranick chose to accept the risk. Even Mr. Cranick said “I’ll have to suffer the consequences” of failing to pay the annual fee. Luckily, Mr. Cranick paid the premiums on his homeowner’s policy. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t be getting anything from the insurance company.

Like I said before, there has to be some level of accountability. If we continue to reward irresponsibility, it will collapse the system, and make it less safe for everyone. This is exactly what has happened, but on a much larger scale throughout the country.

I don’t understand why everyone wants to blame the Fire Chief and the firefighters, when it is clearly the county’s responsibility. The city had a legal right to withhold services. Why can’t you just admit that the COUNTY was to blame?

 

The county is to blame.

So is Cranick.
That doesn't absolve either the city or the fire chief. There can be more than one responsible party, you know.

The city DOES service out in the county. You make it sound as though that's something they just don't do. They do.

And when that fails him, he becomes unreasonable and attacks peoples personal character.

Yes, he's quite a guy. Fair and level headed. I'm a walrus.

 

No. You're a gadfly.

 

Legally, though, that does not bind them to always do the same thing in every case in the future. A waiver of a contractual right does not mean that the right is forever erased from the relevant contract (unless that was the intent--but I imagine there will be no evidence of an intent to permanently waive the right to prepayment of fees in perpetuity). Even if they had waived the fee for this particular homeowner before, that doesn't mean that would be legally bound to waive it the next time he sets his house on fire.

The primary issue is whether they set such a pervasive system of waivers, that it's relevant for interpreting their contract. All contracts are to some degree ambiguous, and the "course of performance" (as its called) can be relevant in determining what the contract "really means". In general though, a course of performance does not technically "amend" the contract, it's just one factor to consider in interpreting that documents terms. In this case, I have difficulty imagining that their contract is ambiguous on this point of when fees must be paid (though you never know).

Even if it were ambiguous, though, I'd also be surprised if the agreement the City put forth did not have a clause that said (A) All amendments must be in writing and signed by the City and (B) A waiver of any obligation granted by any party in one case shall not affect that party's right to require full performance at any time thereafter or in any other case. Those are are boilerplate in 99% of lawyer-prepared agreements where performance will repeatedly occur over time, or in more than one location.

One caveat to that: because they are a public entity, one could argue that their waivers were arbitrary and capricious (but that is a high standard...and there are always case-by-case differences in things like this that could be used to differentiate prior curcumstances and the fire department would be given a lot of deference. Even then that standard is not normally applied against a public body in what amounts to a contract case.) There might be a way to pigeonhole the action as actionable if that could be shown in this particular case, but that is no slam dunk.

It is bad policy to grant waivers on standards that change from case to case, but that is because your customers get pissed off, not because the law punishes you for it.

None of that changes my personal position. Whatever the Tennessee law is on this issue, anyone who wants to live in a community that has a subscription system, should have the freedom to do that, imo. If the law automatically punishes the service provider in that sort of system, that freedom will never really exist and free riders who attack the system will damage the liberty of the community that presumably wanted this system.

I wouldn't want to live in that community myself, but I would not want to foist my personal preferences on them either.

If the homeowner was unaware that there was a subscription system I'd be sympathetic, but so far as I know he knew about it, he chose not to move after learning about it, and he then inexplicably (but apparently intentionally) chose to to light things from his yard on fire in an unsafe manner. Now he regrets his own foolishness, yet he does but ponder just how unbelievably stupid his many decisions were (albeit in hindsight). rather he uses the moment to think that the City he does not live in should have been obligated to save him from himself. The only problem I actiually have with that (apart from the minor fact that he is avoiding the karma he kind of deserves) is that if that argument wins, then no one in his community can have a subscription based fire system, because the law will convert it to somee other model (seemingly a model in which the City is subject to obvious and serious adverse selection problems, and thus loses money in the long term unless they behave rationally and terminate all future subscription based service)

In that case, if I lived in the City, I would simply refuse to ever service areas that did not agree to pay in advance and in full ever again. Subscription system dead, because a minoirity of people abused it in this way (too bad for those who actually wanted it).

Alternatively, perhaps I'd let it be known that each "after the fact" payor, will have to pay, let's say, $100,000 per fire plus the costs of any medical bills incurred by any firefighter injured during that fire, plus attorney's fees and other costs incurred to force him to pay up, and plus any firefighter injured or killed would *not* agree to waive wrongful death or tort actions against the homeowner for negligence or otherwise). Subscription system still dead, but if this guy couldn't afford $75, then to get my $100K+, I'm very likely going to have to sue him and then (most likely) I'll be forced to seize and sell his assets (like the home that I just saved from burning). He may not have the money or assets to pay my actual costs, which might still lead to a loss, but if Al's fire costs me $50K, and I only collect $10K from him because he is poor, and Bob's fire costs me $60K, but I actually collect the full $100K, I break even.

(Another solution is to require the local government where the fire is located to either pay the fee for every resident themselves or to be secondarily liable for any fires that occur there. That latter choice would give me more certainty on collection and allow me to drop my prices (say from a $100K per fire, to $60K per fire.)

By doing something along those lines, I can't save the subscription system, so liberty loses out, but at least the City would be less likely to lose money on this. That seems fair to me because any system where the city loses money is a system where cities never provide life saving services to outsiders in the first place.

There is, of course no guaranty that the City will break even so long as adverse seection is a problem (indeed if Al is poor and Bob is not, Bob may well pay the $75 just to avoid "insuring" Al, and in effect the wealthy who refuse to pre-poay would be doing just that for the poor who refused)...so I think the only long term viable model of for the City to contract with the outside localities and force that locality to pay the fees in advance (or refuse them any service at all). Then the locality has the choice to either pay the City $75 per house, or pay to establish their own fire department. (Or, of course, do nothing, then watch as property is destroyed and people burn to death, and then, no doubt, blame the City.)

 

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Pandaemoni, I couldn’t agree more.

 

http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere_p2.html

 

According to the proposal made to the County to provide Universal fire service for Obion County:

http://troy.troytn.com/Obion County...tation Presented to the County Commission.pdf

Arthur

 

I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher last night and an interesting point was made what if it was merely a clerical error and he had paid is fee and this happened what than. Clerical errors do happen you know.

 

He could sue the Fire Dept.

It's also why, if I was Mayor of the City, I'd pull the plug on this Subscription service next year and offer only Universal Service. The County could fund it any way they wanted.

Arthur

 

Under the law there is no duty to protect the individual or his property, that has been decided by the Supreme Court.

The Mayor doesn't have the legal capability to extend the jurisdiction of the city into the county, unless a special circumstance is created, such as the $75.00 fee.

The Court spelled out plainly the “fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen".

Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1, 4 (D.C. 1981)​

 

Wow, just wow. But letting the house burn on puts the neighbourhood in danger, the neighbourhood where there's certainly someone who paid the fee. I thought if it was for the greater good (getting rid of the potential danger for the neighbourhood: putting out the fire) it was their duty to do what they were meant for and that is to put out the fire...

 

But guess what? the neighbor paid the fee and the Fire Department did protect that neighbor from danger and harm.....

Again by Court Decision, there is no duty for the government or it's agencies to protect the individual from harm or loss.

The funny thing is that the only time there exist a specific duty to protect a individual, by the government, is when that individual has been placed in custody, arrested.