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Texter Not Responsible For Textee's Car Accident, Rules Judge
linuxwrangler writes "After mowing down a motorcycling couple while distracted by texting, Kyle Best received a slap on the wrist. The couple's attorney then sued Best's girlfriend, Shannon Colonna, for exchanging messages with him when he was driving. They argued that while she was not physically present, she was 'electronically present.' In good news for anyone who sends server-status, account-alerts or originates a call, text or email of any type that could be received by a mobile device, the judge dismissed the plantiff's claims against the woman."
But anyone with an ounce of logic can see it is bad to sue someone who is not responsible. This is completely money grabbing. Just because you have been injured doesn't mean you should try and ruin everybody else's life.
Having bad things happen to you does NOT EVER give you a free pass to cause bad things to happen to others.
You don't consider it douchebagy to sue an innocent person just because they have money?
explain to me the harm they have caused to anyone aside from the inconvenience to walk to court?
Walking to court costs nothing.
Walking to court with a lawyer will cost you $600/hr, for who knows how many hours to prepare for the completely baseless case. Luckily she had a judge that was smart enough to throw the case out quickly. God help her if this was dragged to trial, as the 'inconvenience' could have run into the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.
They are assholes for dragging a woman into court that they know is completely innocent. Period.
Actually, they were injured because some asshole was reading texts (OK, maybe he was replying as well). But he didn't have the good sense to leave his f*cking phone alone while driving.
The fact that the driver's sentence was just a slap on the wrist is what is disturbing. But just going after the next person with deep pockets or a paid up liability policy is ludicrous.
Have gnu, will travel.
The lack of national health care and a decent social safety net in the United States is one of the biggest drivers behind "frivolous" lawsuits like this.
In most European countries, the injured couple would have all their medical expenses automatically covered. They would not face the risk (ubiquitous in the U.S.) of medical bankruptcy. They would also be able to take advantage of other social programs if they were too seriously injured to continue work in their current jobs.
In the U.S., when you get seriously injured, you face the very real probability that you will be financially ruined as well. Therefore, your only defense is to find someone with deep pockets who is arguably responsible for the accident, and sue them.
Likewise, in Europe, it's harder and less lucrative to sue for injuries arising from consumer products – but there are also much stricter safety regulations and the regulators are less shy about yanking products from the market if they do prove genuinely unsafe.
We as a country have decided to outsource large parts of our regulatory and insurance apparatus to the courts, and this is the result.