In 2009, a New Jersey teenager was driving his pickup truck down a rural highway while engaging in an ongoing text-message conversation with his girlfriend. At the same time, a couple was riding their motorcycle heading down the same highway, approaching the teen driver. Just 17 seconds after sending yet another text to his girlfriend, the driver of the truck was calling 911. His vehicle had drifted over the median and struck the couple on their motorcycle. Their injuries were described as "gruesome" and resulted in both the husband and wife losing their left legs.
As one would expect, the couple sued the teen driver for their injuries, and a settlement was ultimately reached. What was rather surprising was that the couple also sued the driver's girlfriend. They alleged that she violated a duty she owed to the public to not distract a driver.
The couple lost their case, but appealed. The crux of their attorney's argument was that the girlfriend's actions were comparable to a passenger in the truck willfully distracting the driver.
On Tuesday, the NJ appeals court ruled in the girlfriend's favor yet stated that "We hold that the sender of a text message can potentially be liable if an accident is caused by texting, but only if the sender knew or had special reason to know that the recipient would view the text while driving and thus be distracted." They found the girlfriend to be without fault, as she had a habit of sending over 100 texts per day with no knowledge of whether the receiver was driving or not.
The ruling is now facing backlash from multiple sources. Governor Chris Christie has spoken out against the idea of holding the text sender responsible for the text receiver/driver's negligence. Others have asked whether this will lead to a slippery-slope, where others could face liability for actions including calling a driver on his or her cell phone, or a passenger distracting a driver with conversation.
Recently, New Jersey has been aggressively attacking the problem of distracted driving by treating it akin to drunk driving. A recently enacted law makes it a crime to cause an accident due to "distracted driving," with penalties as high as $150,000 in fines and 10 years in jail. Further, additional legislation is now proposed which would allow police officers to search a driver's cell phone if they have "reasonable suspicion" to believe the driver was talking or texting when a crash occurred.
To see a summary of Rhode Island's laws, click here.
What do you think? Has NJ gone too far? Or should RI lawmakers and judges follow suit?
Contact: AThayer@srt-law.com
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