Arizona bill would limit liability for 911 operators

Arizonans who are affected when the 911 phone system fails would not be able to sue for civil damages under a bill being considered Thursday by lawmakers.

Sen. Adam Driggs, R-Phoenix, has offered the proposed changes for Arizona that would prevent civil actions against a 911 system operator. He authored a "strike-all" amendment to House Bill 2205, which is scheduled to be heard Thursday in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The state already has a limitation on liability for 911 systems, but the wording makes that protection stronger by requiring such an act to be "wonton or willful misconduct," according to a brief on the amendment by Senate staff.

In October 2013, CenturyLink experienced a five-hour failure for landline 911 calls into the Mesa emergency dispatch center, which was blamed on damaged equipment. Callers seeking help heard a busy signal. Cell calls were not affected.

CenturyLink handles most, but not all, of 911 calls in Arizona, a company spokesman said.

It's unclear if the company is facing civil lawsuits over the Mesa event or others.

Last April, 4,500 landline and cell calls to 911 from Washington, North Carolina and Minnesota didn't go through because a facility in Colorado run by a CenturyLink subcontractor, Intrado Inc., was not functioning properly for six hours, according to the report CenturyLink provided to Washington regulators.

Callers either heard unanswered rings or a busy signal.

The outage did not affect every emergency call during that time, as about 770 calls placed during those hours went through, according to the report.

Washington regulators in December recommended $2.9 million in fines for more than 11,000 violations of state rules related to 911 systems. They also reported the outage affected more calls in more states than did the CenturyLink report.

In another incident, the family of a Colorado man is suing the city of Denver and a 911 operator because the operator instructed a man reporting an assault to return to the scene of the crime, where his companion was shot. CenturyLink is not named in that lawsuit.

The proposed bill in Arizona reads that a "person, a service provider or an equipment provider is not liable for damages in any civil action for injuries, death or loss to a person or property" caused by emergency communications services "for ambulances, police and fire departments or other public safety entities, except in the cases of wanton or willful misconduct."

"The standard proposed in HB 2205 is similar to existing law in Washington and other jurisdictions," CenturyLink spokesman Mark Molzen said. "HB 2205 would not impact state or federal administrative actions, claims, or fines."

Driggs did not return calls for comment on the bill Wednesday.

House Bill 2205

The amendment's language reads: A person, a service provider or an equipment provider is not liable for damages in any civil action for injuries, death or loss to a person or property that are incurred by any person and that resulted from or were caused by any act or omission in the provision of an emergency service, regardless of technology platform, that receives, develops, collects or processes information for the service's location information databases, relays, transfers, operates, maintains or provides emergency notification services or system capabilities, or provides emergency communications or services for ambulances, police and fire departments or other public safety entities, except in the cases of wanton or willful misconduct.