Requires that before any fire fighter or police officer is eligible to receive benefits for illness or injury sustained off duty, they prove they had reasonable grounds to believe that an emergency existed that required immediate need of their assistance.

## Plain-English Summary

This bill would change the rules for when firefighters and police officers can receive injury or illness benefits for something that happens while they are off duty. Under current law, these public safety workers may be eligible for benefits if they are hurt or become ill while responding to an emergency even when not on their official shift. This bill would add a new requirement: the worker would need to prove they had a reasonable belief that a genuine emergency existed and that their help was urgently needed before they stepped in.

In practical terms, this means that an off-duty firefighter or police officer who gets injured while trying to help in a situation would have to demonstrate that the circumstances genuinely looked like an emergency requiring immediate action. It is not enough to simply say they were trying to help — they would need to show that a reasonable person in their position would have also recognized it as a true emergency. This is meant to establish a clearer standard for when these benefits apply.

This bill directly affects firefighters and police officers across Rhode Island's cities and towns, as well as the municipalities that pay out these benefits. For public safety workers, it could make it harder to qualify for benefits if the emergency nature of a situation is disputed. For cities and towns, it could potentially reduce the number of off-duty benefit claims they are required to pay. The bill is currently under committee review and has not yet been passed into law.