No, at least not according to a Connecticut court in the East Hartford library case. Library employees were sued when a coworker hit and seriously injured a police officer with her car. The officer claimed that the library staff had observed that the coworker wasn't feeling well, yet allowed her to drive home.
The library staff (or their lawyer) claimed that they had no duty to the police officer. The court agreed. It said that even if the staff violated its own procedures (about workers who become ill), those procedures were intended to protect library employees, not the general public.
Ludemann v. Town of East Hartford [Doc. No. CV03-0824930] Lavine, J. (Nov. 24, 2004) Source: Connecticut Law Tribune (December 20, 2004)
Minow experience: One day a library clerk reported to me that the computer repair person (from a private company) disappeared after starting to fix a library computer. I thought the library clerk was overly concerned and told him that she had probably gone for lunch. The clerk was insistent that something was wrong, so we searched for her for almost an hour. We finally found her slumped in the driver's seat in her car in the parking lot. I called 911 and it turned out she was in a diabetic coma. The clerk was later recognized by the county for his astuteness -- he was right to follow his instincts and not listen to me. As for the Ludemann case, it may sound harsh, but it follows the general rule that we generally don't owe a duty to others, absent special circumstances.
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