During his 24-year legal career, Jim Juneau litigated serious injury and death cases involving the design and use of fire apparatus and firefighting equipment. He's currently a voting member of the NFPA Fire Apparatus Technical Committee, which writes and promulgates the NFPA's national design and safety standards for U.S. fire apparatus. Juneau also serves as designated legal counsel to the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers Association and to the Fire and Emergency Manufacturers and Services Association.

You often focus on the fire chief's responsibility for safety within the department. Doesn't responsibility really fall on the individual?

Safety is everyone's responsibility, but if all firefighters were effectively able to police their own conduct, then there would be no need for supervisory personnel whatsoever.… We have no trouble recognizing the value of such leadership at the scene of an incident. Why is it so difficult to recognize that the same level of leadership is required when performing station duties, or when en route to the call, or when returning from an incident?

We all tend to lull ourselves into a false sense of security, thinking that the dangers of the firefighters' job are all encountered on the fire scene, while, in contrast, the statistics tell us every year that we lose more firefighters going to and from the call than we do at the scene of the call. The fire chief, command staff, company officers and apparatus operators have serious leadership obligations and responsibilities to guard the life-safety of their firefighters, and these officers should be held personally accountable for their unwillingness to recognize the risks and to exercise their obligations in a way that protects the men and women under their command, whether the individual firefighters like it or not.…

Can fire departments be held liable in a court of law?

Many states have laws that protect public officials … when they exercise discretionary decision-making in the course and scope of executing their public employment responsibilities. This law allows a public official, acting in an emergency setting, to make important decisions and to exercise his best judgment without fear that he will have to bear personal legal responsibility for making the wrong choice. The key to this official immunity is the concept of “discretion.” If a public official has “discretion” to exercise his choice as to what course of action to take, then that discretionary decision is protected from liability, whether it turns out to be right or wrong.…

An officer presumably has no discretion to act in a manner that is contrary to the applicable law, so decisions that are illegal would not be protected from liability because they fall outside the officer's discretion. Likewise, a fire department's policies and procedures also define the boundaries within which firefighters and command staff may exercise their discretion. If the department's policies and procedures demand, for example, that an apparatus not exceed the posted speed limit by more than 10mph in an emergency response, then a decision by a driver or captain to exceed that speed requirement would clearly be outside the scope of his discretionary authority, and would thus not be protected by official immunity. …

Do you really think that a firefighter, officer or fire chief would serve jail time for to failure enforce some aspect of safety?

In the last two years, we have seen no fewer than 20 cases in which fire apparatus drivers or supervisors have been criminally charged for conduct committed in the line of duty that led to an injury or death.… Whether or not the firefighter involved goes to jail is in the hands of the courts and juries of the affected jurisdiction, but criminal charges and convictions have certainly come to pass with increasing frequency, and the effect that a felony conviction for dereliction of duty will have on a firefighter's or fire commander's career and family is easy to predict.

How can fire chiefs protect themselves from lawsuits?

Most modern fire departments have policies and procedures in place designed to protect the safety of responding personnel. In departments where such comprehensive written procedures aren't in place, “Arrive Alive” response procedures should be immediately adopted.…

[But] the very best of policies and procedures are meaningless if the department's command officers are unwilling to commit themselves to making their personnel do the things that the policies require. When an accident occurs, and a shameful failure to enforce the department's own regulations is found to be the reason that a firefighter was injured or killed, it is the responsible driver, officer, commander or chief who should properly be called to answer for such neglect of their own duties by failing to provide the level of professional leadership and supervision that their position required of them.