Health care sharing ministries

For at least the third time in recent years, John Oliver’s HBO show This Week Tonight has tackled an issue litigated by Garmer & Prather. In 2019, attorneys at our firm convinced the Kentucky Supreme Court to overturn a seven-decades-old law that gave police officers total immunity when an innocent bystander was killed by a police chase, regardless of whether it was reasonable to conduct a high-speed pursuit given the crime or the conditions, as long as the officer did not directly hit the victim. Now, Kentucky juries can determine whether law enforcement shares in the fault based on all of the circumstances involved. The opinion was Gonzalez v. Johnson, 581 S.W.3d 529 (Ky. 2019).

Police pursuits are incredibly dangerous, killing thousands of Americans every year, and more than 10 deaths each week are innocent bystanders who were not involved in the pursuit. Oftentimes these pursuits are initiated for things as trivial as minor traffic violations or, as in our Gonzalez case, nonviolent drug offenses when the suspect would be easy to find later. John Oliver shone a light on these practices and the failure to fairly weigh risks versus benefits when law enforcement initiates or continues the pursuit.

We recommend everybody watch this important segment. Mr. Oliver even includes footage of criminologist Geoff Alpert, a leading expert on police pursuits and one of our consultants in putting together the Gonzalez case.