Girl Sued For Her Boyfriend's Texting-While-Driving Accident

[RJ 17]

http://redtape.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/22/11797573-could-you-be-sued-for-texting-with-a-driver-experts-say-maybe?lite

Not sure what to make of this one, my fellow Escapists. A girl texts her boyfriend and while responding, he drifts into oncoming traffic and gets in a wreck, causing both passengers of the other car to "lose their legs" (as the article says).

The Plaintiff's lawyer is saying that the girl was essentially aiding her boyfriend in an illegal act: texting while driving (numerous states, New Jersey included, have officially made it illegal). That she surely knew her boyfriend was driving home from work at the time and knowingly distracted him.

The Defense is arguing that she has no control over her boyfriend or when he chooses to read/respond to the text. How is she liable because her boyfriend didn't do the responsible thing and wait till he got home before reading/responding to the text?

So whatcha think folks? Another frivolous lawsuit (i.e. hot coffee in the lap) or is there a genuine case here?

Personally, while I do HATE to see someone texting while driving, I think if this case goes through for the plaintiff it could set a dangerous precedent. All of a sudden you could be liable when your friend gets in a wreck because you sent him/her a text asking what he/she was doing that evening.

 

[jackpackage200]

Does the plaintiff have a reasonable case?

Short answer: No

Long Answer: Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

How the fuck was she supposed to know he was driving? All the blame should go to him, not her. I shudder to think what kind of legal precedent it would set if the plaintiff won?

 

[Esotera]

Utter rubbish, it's the boyfriend's fault for reading the message whilst driving. Although if it was a spam text then would that mean that a corporation could be held responsible?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well you can sue people for anything these days (lawyers love the extra dummy cash) but that doesn't mean they won't just laugh at you in court, which they most surely will with this one.

 

[Vuliev]

WHAT.

Spoiler: Magnitude of my disgust for human beings like this

No. They have absolutely no case. How on earth did the judge not laugh them out of the courtroom?

 

[Raven's Nest]

Utterly ludicrous case... I am totally not typing this while driving...

 

[Antari]

Even if the girl knew he was driving it makes no difference. The guy is driving, its his responsibility to maintain control of the vehicle, no matter what.

 

[Phasmal]

This is totally reasonable. Do you not know that if people dont answer a text within three minutes then their collar activates and their head explodes? Or is that just me...?

 

[repeating integers]

So whatcha think folks? Another frivolous lawsuit (i.e. hot coffee in the lap) or is there a genuine case here?

*beep* Wrong! That was not a frivolous lawsuit. That was a case of coffee being kept way above what could possibly be considered a safe temperature for any human being. It wasn't just a case of some dumb american not realising coffee was hot. If you keep coffee just tetering on the brink of turning into plasma, you can't just pipe "You shoulda realized it was hot!" when someone gets scalded.

Wow, just completely ignore the actual topic and go after something the OP said in parenthesis, eh? That takes a special kind of jackass. My hat is off to you, good sir.

Captcha agrees: "You're Not Listening."

I think it was just his pet peeve - I've seen similar corrections before on other threads. Give the guy a break.

 

[Maxtro]

The only possible way she can be held partially responsible is if she explicitly knew that he was texting while driving and she sent him a message knowing that he is going to reply while driving.

 

[senordesol]

Typical legal tactic, sadly. "Sue Everybody" according to the article they're also going after the guy who actually caused the accident but for some reason Lawyers get lawsuits more traction by adopting a 'Sue everyone remotely involved' stance. The hope, I think, is to get people to settle for something out of court and get his client more money (which his client will use to pay him).

Still fuckin' lame.

 

[Sixcess]

Further details here

It blows my mind that the driver didn't even lose his licence, but that's a different story.

OT: To quote Shakespeare, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." This is nothing but greed and stupidity and can only bring the entire american legal system into even greater disrepute, if that is even possible.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

Its not her fault. My wife knows not to give me long giant essays of text to read, but even when she does (AKA when I made a boo boo) and I know its smart if I respond right away I pull over and flip on the hazards.

I do text and drive, I freely admit its a bad idea even if I haven't had a single close call yet. Yet I keep doing because its my choice. As in the choice of the person with the phone in his hand.

 

[Lilani]

So whatcha think folks? Another frivolous lawsuit (i.e. hot coffee in the lap) or is there a genuine case here?

*beep* Wrong! That was not a frivolous lawsuit. That was a case of coffee being kept way above what could possibly be considered a safe temperature for any human being. It wasn't just a case of some dumb american not realising coffee was hot. If you keep coffee just tetering on the brink of turning into plasma, you can't just pipe "You shoulda realized it was hot!" when someone gets scalded.

She didn't tell him to pick up the phone and text. That was entirely his choice. He could have just as easily ignored it, or stopped someplace to text. But he didn't. You can't blame other people for other people's conscious decisions. You can't compare it to the "you should have realized it was hot!" situation because there was nothing about the situation he wasn't aware of. He knew what he was choosing to do.

EDIT: Whoops, sorry. Failed to realize you were pointing out the frivolous lawsuit was the coffee thing, not this case. Never mind.

 

[RJ 17]

So whatcha think folks? Another frivolous lawsuit (i.e. hot coffee in the lap) or is there a genuine case here?

*beep* Wrong! That was not a frivolous lawsuit. That was a case of coffee being kept way above what could possibly be considered a safe temperature for any human being. It wasn't just a case of some dumb american not realising coffee was hot. If you keep coffee just tetering on the brink of turning into plasma, you can't just pipe "You shoulda realized it was hot!" when someone gets scalded.

Wow, just completely ignore the actual topic and go after something the OP said in parenthesis, eh? That takes a special kind of jackass. My hat is off to you, good sir.

Captcha agrees: "You're Not Listening."

I think it was just his pet peeve - I've seen similar corrections before on other threads. Give the guy a break.

I'll give him a break when he gives me one. Seems fair enough to me.

 

[Shpongled]

Its not her fault. My wife knows not to give me long giant essays of text to read, but even when she does (AKA when I made a boo boo) and I know its smart if I respond right away I pull over and flip on the hazards.

I do text and drive, I freely admit its a bad idea even if I haven't had a single close call yet. Yet I keep doing because its my choice. As in the choice of the person with the phone in his hand.

Yeh, and it's also the choice of the person you plow into because you weren't paying atte... wait no, it wasn't their choice at all, they're just suffering because of your choice.

Unless i'm reading you wrong or something, please go hand in your license, you clearly aren't responsible enough to be behind the wheel of 2 tons of metal.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

This is going to be one of those lawsuits where the judge looks at the case, then at the plaintiff's lawyer and says "Get the fuck out of my courtroom and stop wasting my time." Case in point: The Romantics suing Harmonix (the makers of Guitar Hero pre-3) because their cover of "What I Like About You" on Rock the 80's was "too good".