Destefano v. Children's National: DC Adopts the Rescue Doctrine
A mother watches her six-year-old son vanish through an uncovered vent in a hospital parking garage — a 25-foot drop into an air shaft — and she lunges in after him. Last month, in a decision arising from that nightmare, the D.C. Court of Appeals formally added a doctrine to District law that most states have recognized for generations: the rescue doctrine. For families hurt trying to save each other from someone else's negligence, it is a landmark.
The case
In Destefano v. Children's National Medical Center, 121 A.3d 59 (D.C. 2015), decided July 23, a six-year-old boy fell through an uncovered vent into a 25-foot air shaft in a hospital parking garage. A jury awarded the injured children $1,586,000. But the trial court had granted summary judgment against the boy's mother on her claim for negligent infliction of emotional distress — the trauma of the rescue itself — and other rulings were challenged on appeal by both sides.
The Court of Appeals delivered three holdings that will shape DC injury law for years:
1. The rescue doctrine is now DC law. Joining the vast majority of states, the court held that a person who enters the zone of danger during a rescue attempt may recover for negligent infliction of emotional distress. The mother who lunged into the shaft after her son was not a bystander; the law now recognizes that a negligent defendant who imperils a child also imperils those who will predictably risk themselves to save him. As courts have long put it, danger invites rescue. Her claim was revived. 2. The sister's zone-of-danger award stood. The court affirmed the emotional-distress award to the boy's sister, who was herself in the zone of physical danger. 3. No expert was needed to call an open vent dangerous. The parking operator in control of the garage owed a possessor's duty of reasonable care, and the court held that jurors do not need expert testimony to understand that an uncovered vent over a 25-foot shaft is a hazard. Some dangers are within the ken of ordinary people.
In candor, not everything went the plaintiffs' way — the court ruled against them on punitive damages and on a jury-instruction issue concerning permanency of injury. But the core of the decision is a substantial expansion of protection for injured families.
Why the rescue doctrine matters
Emotional-distress law in the District has long been restrictive: generally, a plaintiff claiming negligent infliction of emotional distress had to be physically endangered — in the "zone of danger" — herself. That rule produced harsh results for parents and family members who suffered profound trauma rescuing or trying to rescue a loved one, but who entered the danger only after the negligence had done its work.
The rescue doctrine fixes that. It recognizes the rescuer as a foreseeable victim of the original negligence. A defendant who leaves a vent uncovered, a pool unfenced, or a stairwell unlit should expect that when someone falls, someone who loves them will go in after them.
The doctrine's logic reaches well beyond parking garages. Think of the father who plunges into an unsecured apartment pool after his child, the passerby who pulls a driver from wreckage, the sibling who runs back into a building. In each case the rescuer's injuries — a wrenched shoulder, burns, or the psychological aftermath of the attempt — trace directly to the negligence that created the emergency. Until now, District law offered such rescuers an uncertain path at best. Destefano makes the path explicit.
What this means for injured people in the District of Columbia
- Families injured in rescue attempts now have a recognized claim. If you were hurt — physically or psychologically — trying to save a family member from a hazard someone else negligently created, DC law now provides a path to recovery.
- Premises cases just got more straightforward. Destefano confirms that the entity in control of a property (including a contractor or operator, not just the owner) owes a duty of reasonable care, and that obvious physical hazards do not require expert testimony to prove.
- Children's cases deserve special urgency. This case is also a reminder of how catastrophic premises hazards are for children, and how much turns on prompt investigation of who controlled the property and what they knew.
A final note on timing: emotional-distress and premises claims in the District are governed by the same unforgiving deadlines as any other injury case, and rescue-doctrine claims will be new territory for insurers and courts alike. Early, well-documented presentation of these claims — medical and psychological records included — will matter while the doctrine's contours are being worked out.
We represent families in premises liability and child injury cases throughout the District, and Destefano is now one of the first cases we reach for.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.