emergency doctrine

1. Law enforcement: Principle that a police officer may carry out an immediate search without warrant on a reasoned assumption to thwart an imminent danger to life, limb, or property.

2. Liability law: Principle that someone acting instinctively to an immediate need for help in a dire situation is exempt from the standard of reasonable care.

3. Medicine: Legal principle that assumes a patient's consent to an emergency medical procedure when he or she is in manifest danger but incapacitated to give an informed consent. It is based on the reasoned belief that the patient would have consented if he or she could.