Woman sues Sprint over mother’s death

by Michelle L on December 9, 2009

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Wireless carriers in the United States are no strangers to lawsuits. They’ve been sued for charging exorbitant early termination fees. Customers have filed suit over a lack of certain services. A couple of them have even sued each other over claims made in advertising. Now Sprint, along with Samsung, is being sued for indirectly causing the death of a 61-year-old Oklahoma City woman.

On September 3, 2008, Linda Doyle was driving through an intersection when Christopher Hill, 20 years old at the time, ran a red light in his pickup truck and hit Doyle’s car while traveling at about 45 miles per hour. She later died. After the accident, Hill admitted the reason he had run the red light was that he had been distracted by speaking on his cell phone as he drove. Hill was sentenced to probation, and did not serve any jail time.

Despite Hill’s admission of guilt, Doyle’s daughter, Jennifer Smith, is now suing Sprint, who was Hill’s wireless service provider at the time, and Samsung, the company that made the handset Hill was using when the accident occurred. Smith contends that neither the handset maker nor the wireless carrier did enough to warn consumers about the potential dangers of using a cell phone while driving.

While Doyle’s death is tragic, and her daughter’s grief is no doubt substantial, in the end, this is nothing more than yet another frivolous lawsuit with the potential to negatively affect many people, not just the companies named in it.

Samsung has refused to comment on the lawsuit, filed in October 2009, but Sprint “rejects the claim of negligence,” and pointed out that it does warn against the dangers of cell phone use while driving in its user manuals, on its product packaging, in advertising, and on its Web site. Smith says it’s not enough, and that the companies should have done more to warn customers.

Regardless of how many warnings Sprint, Samsung, or any other company provides, the fact remains that anyone with any common sense knows it’s dangerous to use a cell phone while driving, whether it’s talking on it, texting, or doing anything else that today’s cell phones allow users to do. One of the basic principles of driving is keeping your eyes on the road. Whether a driver looks away to fiddle with the radio, talk to a passenger, pick up something dropped on the floor, or to use a cell phone, it’s the driver’s responsibility if anything happens while they’re not paying attention to what they’re doing while they operate a two-ton vehicle.

This lawsuit brings to mind many others that have been filed over the years, against many other types of companies, but for similar reasons. Probably the most prominent examples are all the multi-million dollar lawsuits filed against tobacco companies for not warning people of the health risks brought about by smoking. Granted, it did come out that the tobacco companies had hidden information about the addictiveness of nicotine, and the specific outcomes of health studies they had commissioned. But at the same time, health warnings have been printed on cigarette packages for years, and United States Surgeons General, in particular C. Everett Koop, have spoken and written about the dangers of smoking for decades. Should someone be able to sue because the responsible party ignored the warnings that were provided? Hill says he never read his user manual. How many people do?

The same principle applies here. Whether Sprint and Samsung printed one warning or one thousand, people know that it’s dangerous to engage in distracting activities while driving. If they still engage in those activities, they—and no one else—should be held responsible for any subsequent accidents, injuries, or deaths that result from their behavior.

It would be easy to say that Smith’s lawsuit doesn’t have a chance in hell of succeeding, but the same could have been said about the tobacco lawsuits. Or the lawsuit filed against a fast food chain when a woman put a cup of hot coffee between her legs while she drove and ended up burning herself. Or the lawsuits filed by obese people blaming fast food chains for their condition. It would be nice to think that common sense will prevail, and there will be no judgment against Sprint or Samsung. But I’m not holding my breath. We live in a time when people are not held accountable for their actions, and when people shun personal responsibility in favor of blaming someone else for their misfortune, and, if they can manage it, making some money at the same time.

If the lawsuit does go forward, and if Smith does win any sort of judgment against Sprint and/or Samsung, it will set a dangerous precedent. Would it open the door for cosmetics companies to be sued over women applying makeup while driving? For convenience stores to be sued for selling cold beer that can be cracked open in the car? For auto makers to be sued for allowing car stereos to be turned up too loudly? Where does it end? When are drivers alone held responsible when they get behind the wheel of a car?

Hill already pleaded guilty to negligent homicide in this case, and his punishment was meted out. Whether it was too lenient is something that should have been addressed by Ms. Smith at that time. To come after the wireless carrier and the handset maker more than a year later doesn’t seem like an attempt to gain justice. It just seems like an attempt to gain.

Filed under : Consumer Issues