According to the New York Times, Jennifer Smith, 35, is suing the companies that provided phone and wireless service to the driver who was talking on his cellphone when he hit and killed her mother. She hopes to prove that the companies should have foreseen the dangers and that they failed to provide adequate warnings.
Legal experts say that her lawsuit faces steep challenges as it is currently the only such case and one of only a handful ever filed. The lawsuit raises interesting questions about responsibility for behavior that is a threat to everyone on the road.
The lawsuit involves a crash in Oklahoma City on September 3, 2008. Ms. Smith’s mother, Linda Doyle, 61, died after her Toyota Rav4 was hit by Christopher Hill, then 20, who was so distracted by a cellphone call that he ran a red light in his Ford pickup at 45 miles an hour. He hit Linda Doyle as she crossed in front of him.
Hill was talking on a Samsung UpStage phone on the Sprint Nextel service. Samsung declined to comment. Sprint Nextel said that it “rejects the claims of negligence” in the suit and that it includes safety messages on packaging and user manuals, on its Web site and in its advertising.
Past lawsuits involving similar situations have been dismissed for reasons that include the unforeseeability of the accident and the absence of a legal relationship between the plaintiff and the service provider. Also, the courts have said that the crashes are caused by driver inattention, not by cellphones, adding that drivers often talk on phones without crashing.
Hill plead guilty to negligent homicide, a misdemeanor, does not blame the cellphone companies. He indicated that “It’s our choice if we’re going to talk on the cellphone while driving or walking down the street or in the office.”
