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Snapchat Sued For Facilitating 107 MPH Car Crash (patch.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A Georgia couple is suing Snapchat, a popular instant messaging and photo sharing app, after a car accident last year seriously injured the husband, leaving him permanently brain damaged. According to media reports, Wentworth Maynard, the victim, was driving in a 55-mile-per-hour zone when 18-year-old Christal McGee crashed into him traveling at 107 miles per hour. McGee, according to lawsuits, was attempting to use Snapchat's "speed filter" -- a feature that overlays the speed one is traveling on a picture. "Snapchat's speed filter facilitated McGee's excessive speeding," reads the lawsuit. "McGee was motivated to drive at an excessive speed in order to obtain recognition through Snapchat by the means of a Snapchat 'trophy.'"
But not fast enough for first post!
I suggest total anarchy and societal result if this is given any merit by the system.
I hate frivolous lawsuits.
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
new law proposal: for millennials to get drivers licenses, they must install a lockout mechanism in the vehicle, similar to a brethalyzer, that will disable the ignition or accelerator if a phone is active in the vehicle.
It does make you wonder what Snapchat was thinking with this feature. Did nobody anticipate that jerks would drive crazy speeds because of this thing?
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
rookie
Yet another case of holding people who have absolutely NOTHING to do with this situation asking to be held responsible for the actions of another. Why don't we hold the person responsible for this... responsible? And before you say "Why does snapchat even have this filter?". Ever heard of passengers? It's the same reason why locking out the phone while driving doesn't work (n-1) people in a vehicle/boat. I for one don't want a stupid world where people not responsible for a situation are responsible.
I know there can be a kneejerk libertarian argument for personal responsibility, but certainly a rational observer could reasonably entertain the idea of "contributory negligence" against Snapchat. If Snapchat enables very easily some behavior that could be considered negligent or law-breaking, some party could sue them for contributing to a reasonably-anticipated outcome of that contribution.
If Snapchat started having a feature called "Number of red lights run!" -- would you defend them from liability?
Does that mean a speedometer motivates you to speed because the speed is displayed? How you use a device/app is up to you though, if you're an idiot then it's your own fault.
they are the only industry that has figured out how to earn money on stupid
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
What kind of dumbass tries to pul out on a road where people are driving over 100mph?
http://imgur.com/fxJJCiG
While an argument can be made that Snapchat was being idiotic for producing an environment that might entice people to drive faster, the blame still seems to me to fall squarely on the driver that was going too fast. Why are they trying to sue Snapchat? Snapchat wasn't controlling the car in any way, so this whole thing looks very suspect to me.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Do jerks need a reason to drive stupidly fast?
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Neither the kid nor the kid's family have deep pockets. So the couple is suing Snapchat because it has deep pockets. Of course, the attorneys will milk every dime.
Before we jump to the assumption that this family went out of their way to file a lawsuit against snapchat because "georgia reasons" lets remember that after an accident, attorneys will market directly to you. Any cut-rate lawyer in the state has probably shilled all parties for relevant interest in a lawsuit. An attorney, however misplaced, has identified a willing party to file a lawsuit against a popular corporation and sadly failed to realize that snapchat has no identifiable revenue stream. Sure, you'll probably enter the courtroom confident in a win..but outside of publicity for winning a suit against a popular online service your billable hours have likely easily usurped Snapchats own guestimate of a one-time 3 million dollar revenue generation.
the real pisser is that in the event snapchat puts up a fight over your definition of "facilitate" (which isnt the strongest here) you risk dragging real victims into court which they may not be prepared for. since you havent specified damages, its likely youre waiting for a settlement based on your "facilitate" defense, but be prepared for the possibility the parties give up, or the judge decides theres a reasonable cap on what you can bleed from a company that...again...doesnt make money.
Good people go to bed earlier.
any feature that risks
http://www.mofo.com/people/a/a...
being on the other side of the table in a lawsuit
SHOULD NOT BE CREATED
i think at MoFo the interns make more money than most of us here
Yeah, that's obvious...
Both the software engineers and the person driving the car were complete asshats in this situation. What kind of utter moron would think this kind of "feature" in software would be a good thing? What kind of utter moron would be stupid enough to use the feature in this way?
Sue Snapchat? While it's probably the most misguided app feature in a long time, I'm still not sure how they're culpable for somebody recklessly driving. Did they say "hey go out and snap a selfie going as fast as you can! We'll give you a prize?" What about the car manufacturer, it ultimately was the weapon in the crash or how about the cell phone manufacturer for allowing selfies to be taken while the car is in motion? How about the cellular carriers, they allowed the pic to be transmitted while at speed.
I think this is just a blowhard lawyer looking for deep pockets, Snapchat's lawyers will have this out of court in no time. At least their part in the case. This dipshit who caused the crash should be thrown into a deep hole and covered up with peat.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
They should sue the car manufacturer for making a car that could go 107MPH.
The DOT for making a road that is decent enough for a car to travel 107MPH.
The cell company for allowing connections to their cell towers while the user is traveling 107MPH.
The phone maker for not detecting that the car was traveling 107MPH.
The police for not pulling him over before he crashed into their car while traveling at 107MPH.
Snapchat is only the tip of the iceberg here.
Take this sig and smoke it.
Putting "using Snapchat" (or any other distraction) aside, I've heard of people seeing how fast their cars would go before. Back in college, a close friend of mine went 100mph on a straight, deserted road just to see what it was like. Even then, I told him that was idiotic. I've done 80mph on highways before and I could feel my control of the car slipping. At 85mph, I'd be much more prone to an accident. I couldn't even conceive of doing 100mph. I'm sure there might be some who could do 100mph safely, but this is a minority. Unfortunately, there are a lot more people who think they can do 100mph safely but can't.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Choose your poison: ...sue car manufacturer for adding speedometer to dashboard (it allows users to create selfies with speed), ...sue car manufacturer for allowing excessive speeds in the car, ...sue phone maker for not displaying warning do not operate while driving (like garmin does), ...school system for producing mindless creatures that can't connect action with cause, ...Darwin for creating a trophy that some are destined to win, ...self - for not reading instructions called "life"
I used it on a plane and sent a snap of me traveling in excess of 600 MPH.
If you are a moron yourself!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
People kill people
I have never used Snapchat but I googled for their trophies and I just don't see any "speed trophy" - there are trophies for all kinds of things, but speeding is not one of them. Could someone please enlighten me what's this trophy they talk about?
Real life is overrated.
NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO!!!!
It is the driver using the app/device's fault NOT the app's fault, not the phone's fault.
The people filing the suit should be shamed out of the country.
Better sue the car maker that put a speedometer in the car too!
Let's sue all car manufactures if their velocimeter range is above the current circulation max speed because, obviously, they're inactivating people to break the law.
> I think your idea is stupid and that is incentive for me to slap you. Therefore you are responsible (or partly responsible) for the slap.
There's a well-established legal principle that the recipient of a slap can indeed incite the slap. For example, if I were to call your wife a nasty hoe, a fucking cunt, and you immediately punched me in the nose, most jurisdictions would recognize that I would indeed have some responsibility for what happened.
Whether or not you or I LIKE that principle is a different matter, but in fact calling your wife a disease-ridden whore would actually make a punch in the nose likely, and the law does recognise that.
Has McGee been put away behind bars for a good part of his life? His irresponsible behavior of using a smart-phone while driving has caused so much pain and suffering to another family.
Recently I was in an incident that involved using smartphone while driving. One fellow who was busy looking into his smartphone while driving, apparently looking at driving directions, came and hit my vehicle which was static. Luckily no body was injured. Stupids with smartphones.
It's time for people to start taking responsibility for their own actions.
Fine.
But someone at Snapchat programmed and approved an app that even those caught in the Mercedes c230 with this eighteen year old girl knew was an open invitation to floor it for the trophy.
There are a few cases a year (one recent one was local to us) where a dummy uses Periscope to live-stream their drunk driving. Then they're shocked when the police thank them for providing vital evidence in their case. I read this Snapchat story a couple days ago - obviously it finally got far enough in the court system to be picked up publically because it's being reported everywhere now.
It seems to me that if Snapchat weren't a hip, cool Internet startup, something like a speed filter and/or trophy would have immediately been squashed by even the most clueless in-house legal team. In "real businesses" it's their job to ensure that products don't get released that can lead to lawsuits, or if they can, to minimize their impact. I can just see the discussion around a conference table in Snapchat's HQ about this awesome new feature that uses the GPS to tag a user's speed -- "Wouldn't that be epic? "Yeah, let's do it!" was probably the only consideration it was given.
Obviously, the idiot driver was at fault, but if you're an accident victim, you'll try to recover anything you can. Apparently the other driver in the crash is permanently disabled and has traumatic brain injury as a direct result. You can bet that the first thing that Christal's family did after the crash was to hide their assets and declare bankruptcy. Wentworth will wait for decades to get any sort of compensation from insurance companies, let alone punitive damages.
The whole thing reminds me of this Bloom County: http://www.gocomics.com/bloomc...
Chances are the whole lawsuit is predicated on the idea that the plaintiffs will get a lot more from Snapchat than they will from an 18 year old.
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
I wonder where we draw the line for responsibility when encouraging reckless behavior. If someone threatens to murder another person's family if they don't perform some reckless act, then the one making the threats clearly bears most of the responsibility. Youtube creates an environment for people to get attention by showing off their reckless behavior, thus encouraging it. However, I don't think it's specific enough in the behavior it encourages, and therefore isn't responsible for it. Snapchat's speed overlay seems to be a strong enough, and specific enough of an encouragement that it's largely responsible for the ensuing recklessness. At the very least, I would say that it's as responsible for the behavior as a person directly 'daring' another to go faster, and mocking them for being a coward if they don't do it. Where do you think we should draw the line for encouraging such behaviors?
It's not the kid saying "it's not my fault -- it's Snapchat's!" Rather, it's a brain-damaged man and his wife, who obviously aren't going to be able to recover their expenses from the kid (because the kid doesn't have millions and the kid's insurance likely has a liability cap), so they're going after the party who *does* have some money: Snapchat. Snapchat played *some* causal role in this. Ultimately the question whether they are at fault, however, depends on whether Snapchat breached a duty owed to the injured man and his wife--and that's for a jury to decide.
is the world now
Look it, that 18 year old probably doesn't have a pot to piss in.
Now, we have a guy who is brain damaged and is going to need millions of dollars worth of medical, rehab, and accommodations built into his home over a lifetime.
And then there's the loss of companionship.
Insurance won't cover all of that and neither does disability - it's chump change.
So, where do you think the victim is going to get the money to pay for that?
I think this quote from TFA sums it up perfectly.
A warning when users first open the speed filter feature urges them not to use it while driving.
So why would the couple sue Snapchat? Sue the dumb bitch that thought going over 100mph while trying to take a picture on her iPhone was a good idea.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
Pics or GTFO
Nope, no sig
One person pulls out in front of another, ILLEGALLY (the car sueing was ticketed for pulling out wrongly),
In addition, we have an 18 y.o driver (2 years of experience), WITH A FRIEND, driving over 100 MPH in a 55, while using a phone illegally, and the car goes after snapchat.
What our fascists does not destroy, lawyers will.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Some idiot drove at excessive speeds and crashed into an innocent driver's car, ruining his life. The idiot, Christal McGee, chose to drive recklessly. It wasn't an accident, it was a crash. Calling the crash an accident suggests Christal is somehow innocent of having made the choice to be an idiot. She's lucky it wasn't vehicular manslaughter. It's like cops shooting people and pets and then documenting the incident as "the gun went off" or a political leader starting an illegal war and then washing his hands of responsibility with a passive "mistakes were made".
"It wasn't my fault, it just suddenly happened. The fact that I happened to be in the vicinity is completely coincidental and irrelevant."
Bullshit.
Just a bit faster and he could have also gotten the Vehicular Manslaughter badge.
"The heat of passion" is a vaguely similar concept related to CRIMINAL culpability, most often mentioned as a difference between 1st degree murder and 2nd.
Civil law (suing somebody) is concerned with CAUSATION. Did the defendant do something which partially caused the harm? Comparative negligence specifically is the idea that separate actions by two or more people are often involved, so one may be 75% liable and the other 25%.
The general causation test is the "but for" test. Plaintiff asserts that the harm wouldn't have happened but for the defendant's action or inaction. In other words, is this statement true:
If Snapchat didn't advertise the speed , the collision would not have occurred.
If the above is true, they helped cause the accident and share liability unless they have some specific defense. The fact that they knowingly market the app to the 16-22 year old market could suggest they would be negligent (not careful) about promoting unsafe driving, given that they know their users in in age group prone to unsafe driving.
Nothing above represents my opinion of how the case should be decided. I don't know all of the relevant facts of the case. The above comments are about what the relevant law is, not what I think it -should- be.
252 km/h (156 mph) in a Porsche on the Autobahn.
I took a pic of the speedometer with my phone, but have no independent GPS verification from snapchat that I just didn't adjust the digital display with Photoshop.
Sigh...
( It's $350 to rent one for the day incase you're wondering )
People seem to have forgotten where to sue smart phones.
While driving is NOT one of those places.
Darwin Runner-up?
who has more to take? The kid/parents or the bullshit web 2.0 company with the hyper inflated valuation?
Makes about as much sense as suing a firearms manufacturer for the murders committed by someone who happened to have their product.
"Fighting words" is a free speech term, related to the state criminalizing certain actions which include speech as a component of the crime. In other words, "fighting words" means the state can make it ILLEGAL to call someone a "god damn cocksucker".
Again, civil law (suing someone) is concerned with CAUSATION. Violating a contract isn't a CRIME, but it may cause damages, for which you can be sued. Failing to set the parking brake on your car isn't a crime, but it may cause damage, and you'd be liable for the damage in a civil suit. You're responsible for any damage you cause; whether or not your action is criminal is completely separate.
Calling someone names may cause a fight. That's all a civil law suit cares about, cause and effect. It doesn't MATTER whether those particular insults constitute a criminal offense in that particular situation, and in that particular jurisdiction. If my actions cause damage to you, I owe you to make right the damage, unless some specific exception applies.
Here, if Snapchat said to teenagers "we'll give you a trophy if you drive over 100 MPH", that could have caused some teenagers to drive over 100 MPH. It's so far unclear what exactly Snapchat did, what kind of trophy may have been offered.
A 92' Geo metro on a canyon road? 100mph in a decent car feels like 50, aside from things going by faster. 85-90 is speed of traffic in the southwest on 75MPH roads. As someone mentioned, the autobhan *average* speed is 88mph and their fatality rate is much lower than ours. I'll bet it has a lot to do with drivers being much more attentive at higher speeds.
what append to law suit against strava? they add a dangerous notice to some segments
Given their actions, I would argue that the husband was brain damaged before the accident occured.
This is like blaming the fast food restaurant because you're fat.
If I were the judge in this case, it would be tossed out in seconds.
If there was a warning not to do it, then it's proof they knew it could have the ability to incite people to do it.
Subject says it all
The speed warning signs that tell people how fast they are going all have maximum speeds they will display and most of them have switches to set the max for a given road so people don't try to get the high score.
That sets enough precedent that snapchat should have considered a an upper limit and if there are any internal documents even mention "high score" and ways around it, they better have a very good reason not to do it or the jury will award a massive payout.
It would be trivial to find a traffic professional engineer to show up in court and explain this to the jury.
This was an easily predictable outcome. Automobiles are a necessity of sorts. An app that puts your speed on a pic is not.
Pay attention!
Kid's don't need to be driving and texting at the same time.
Someone wanting to defend that?
Think about this: Your first DUI may be your last :-(
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.
> I don't see how the corporation encouraged this behavior. If there was a "trophy", yes. However, as far as I know, the trophies are from third party sites and not from Snapchat.
The plaintiff says Snapchat has/had a "100 MPH" trophy. Somebody who posted a comment here says they didn't. I don't know. That fact, and the other relevant facts, will come out at trial if not before. I'm not assuming either side is right at this point. I'm just saying that IF Snapchat knowingly, recklessly, or negligently caused an increased risk of crashes, they can be held liable, with comparative negligence (shared fault) in many states.
I have every sympathy for the guy who got wiped out in the crash - he's facing up to what may well be lifelong impairments and I can see why the family might be looking for money because care etc for those sort of injuries is not cheap.
But I hope they lose the suit against Snapchat because they aren't responsible here - is the filter a bit of a stupid idea? Certainly. Is it aimed at people who traveling in cars or other vehicles at high speed? Sounds like it. But that doesn't make them responsible for what happened, this girl is someone who is supposedly responsible enough to drive, and she is the one who made the decision that driving at 100+ while dicking around on Snapchat was a good idea (Oh and with a pregnant woman in the car as well). Honestly she sounds like someone who shouldn't be trusted to be driving a pedal car!
Drunk drivers killed my cousin im suing ford.
You CAN fix stupid...it's called "death".
Unfortunately, it's usually someone else who dies as the result of the actions of the stupid person.
Since it says the couple is suing, I'm more interested in knowing how the husband is managing to pull this one off. There's a snapchat trophy for that, right?
You're really passionate about this particular issue and a lack of involvement on snap chats part. The data available on the internet was clearly spelled out to you above by NYCL but you are continuing to double down on the derp. I'm a betting man. I feel reasonably comfortable making the claim that you're a snap chat employee. No one else in this entire thread is white knighting them like you are. You care about this case far too much to just be hating on frivolous lawsuits. If course, you'll claim you aren't but your posts indicate something else at work you aren't sharing with us.
This is the fault of the idiot who attempted to drive 107 MPH and only him. If we are going to blame snapchat then perhaps we should blame the manufacturer of this persons car for building an engine that can reach such a speed, other manufacturers for failing to build a car that can withstand any crash including being hit by a car going 107 MPH, all levels of government for designing a highway where someone is capable of driving recklessly without being stopped by law enforcement, etc. Sure a manufacturer will tell you that their car can go a maximum speed of 130 MPH but would also explain that it is highly recommended that you don't attempt to drive at high speeds since chances are you will crash and if you cause damage to your engine, transmission, or other moving parts, they will not cover repairs under warranty since they don't recommend customers drive their vehicle at such speeds. Common sense would also tell you that this is a bad idea.
Trophies only have meaning to those who want them to.
The numbers the needle hits on your speedometer is a sort of trophy. I can not think of one teenage friend who has never tried to get that speedometer to 160 kph. Because all kids think that 100 mph is a sort of social trophy. So later they can say: "Yeah, I did that."
IMO: The only responsible party is a speeding driver. It don't matter who or what encouraged them to get there. That is why we demand age restrictions and a license, because driving is the drivers responsibility. Driving in public is not meant for trophy seekers.