The Illinois Good Samaritan Law protects people who voluntarily help others during an emergency from most civil lawsuits over unintentional mistakes. The core statute, 745 ILCS 49, applies to anyone who steps in at the scene of an emergency, provided they act in good faith and without expecting payment.1Justia Law. Illinois Code 745 – Immunities A separate provision, 720 ILCS 570/414, also shields people who call 911 during a drug overdose from certain criminal charges.2Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 720 ILCS 570/414
Who Is Covered
The Act reaches both trained professionals and untrained bystanders. Off-duty doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other licensed healthcare workers are protected when they voluntarily provide emergency care outside the scope of their regular employment and without compensation.1Justia Law. Illinois Code 745 – Immunities
Laypersons with no medical training get the same protection. If you stop to perform CPR on someone who collapses in a store, or help pull a stranger from a burning car, the Act covers you. No certification is required. Good faith and a genuine effort to help are what qualify you.
What You Have to Do to Keep the Protection
Three conditions have to be met:
- You must be acting in good faith, genuinely trying to help the person in distress.
- You cannot expect payment. The aid must be voluntary and gratuitous.
- Your conduct cannot rise to willful or wanton misconduct.1Justia Law. Illinois Code 745 – Immunities
Ordinary negligence is protected. An error a reasonable person might also make under the same stressful conditions does not strip you of immunity. Willful or wanton misconduct is a much higher bar: conscious disregard of an obvious risk of serious harm. An untrained bystander doing chest compressions slightly wrong is making an ordinary mistake. Ignoring a visible spinal injury and dragging an unconscious person across a parking lot for no urgent reason is closer to reckless territory.
Where the Protection Stops
Recklessness or Intentional Harm
The Act does not cover anyone whose conduct amounts to willful or wanton misconduct. Intentional harm is obviously excluded, and so is behavior showing conscious indifference to the safety of the person being helped.1Justia Law. Illinois Code 745 – Immunities
Care You Are Being Paid For
If you provide emergency aid expecting to be paid, the Act does not apply. This matters most for healthcare professionals. A doctor treating a patient in the ER during a shift is acting within the scope of employment, not as a volunteer. The same doctor who stops at a highway crash on the drive home is providing voluntary, uncompensated care, and the Act covers her.
Going Well Beyond Your Skill
Immunity assumes the aid is at least roughly appropriate to the situation. If your intervention is clearly unnecessary, or you attempt a procedure far beyond your knowledge and make things worse, a court may find your conduct outside the statute’s protection. The law forgives imperfect execution under pressure. It is less forgiving of someone with no basis attempting to play surgeon.
Calling 911 for a Drug Overdose
Illinois has a separate Good Samaritan provision for overdoses at 720 ILCS 570/414. If you call 911 for someone who is overdosing, or if you are the person overdosing, neither of you can be arrested, charged, or prosecuted for certain drug offenses, as long as the evidence supporting those offenses came to light because of the 911 call.2Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 720 ILCS 570/414
Protected offenses include possession and delivery of controlled substances, drug paraphernalia violations, and certain related charges. The immunity has quantity limits. It applies only when the amount recovered falls below thresholds set by the statute, such as less than 3 grams for heroin, cocaine, or morphine, and less than 40 grams for amphetamines.2Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 720 ILCS 570/414 Amounts above those thresholds suggest distribution rather than personal use, and the immunity does not apply.
How Illinois Courts Have Drawn the Lines
In American National Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago v. Bransfield, the Illinois Supreme Court held that the Act’s protection depends on the rescuer acting in good faith and not crossing into reckless behavior. Reasonableness is the standard courts use to evaluate whether conduct qualifies for immunity, and good intentions are not enough if the actions were objectively reckless.3Justia Law. American National Bank and Trust Co. of Chicago v. Bransfield – 1993
In Estate of Johnson v. Condell Memorial Hospital, the Illinois Supreme Court held that a doctor who provided emergency care while on duty at a hospital was not protected, because the care fell within the scope of employment.4Justia Law. Estate of Johnson v. Condell Memorial Hospital – 1988 The compensation exclusion is not about whether money changed hands at the scene. It turns on whether the rescuer was already being paid to provide that kind of care.
You Are Not Required to Help
One thing the Act does not change: Illinois imposes no general legal duty to rescue. You cannot be sued or prosecuted for walking past someone in distress, no matter how easy helping would have been. The Good Samaritan Law removes barriers for people who choose to help. It does not create an obligation to do so. The narrow exceptions involve people who already have a legal duty of care, such as parents toward their children or employers in certain workplace situations.