If you send someone a text, are you liable if they do something negligent (or just plain stupid) while reading it? That’s the question in a new lawsuit involving vehicle wreck.
A woman sent a text message to her boyfriend. He read it while driving his truck. While reading this message, he hit two motorcyclists.
Now both the truck-driving boyfriend and his texting girlfriend are being sued because of injuries caused to the motorcyclists.
Reading texts while driving is dangerous. But sending texts to someone? What’s the threshold for liability when texting someone who is driving? Do you need to have actual knowledge the recipient is driving a vehicle? Or is there a higher standard?
What if the woman had sent an email instead of a text message? Would it be any different from a liability standpoint?
This looks like overreach…but as technology evolves, the courts are going to have to sort out messes like this one.
