A New Jersey appeals court wrote on August 27 that text senders may be held responsible if the receiver of the text ends up in an accident and some is injured. The key point is that knowingly sending a text to someone who is driving is just as dangerous and the person driving sending a text.
“To summarize our conclusions, we do not hold that someone who texts to a person driving is liable for that person’s negligent actions; the driver bears responsibility for obeying the law and maintaining safe control of the vehicle,” the appeals court wrote.
“We hold that, when a texter knows or has special reason to know that the intended recipient is driving and is likely to read the text message while driving, the texter has a duty to users of the public roads to refrain from sending the driver a text at that time,” two of the three appellate court judges agreed in their opinion.