Can You Be Sued If Your Employee Texts Someone Who is Driving?
Can you be sued if your employee texts someone who is driving?
In New Jersey, sending a text to someone you know will view it while driving can potentially result in civil penalties. In a recent case, Judge Victor Ashrafi of the New Jersey Appeals Court wrote the following for the majority:
“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.”
While this isn’t a formal law, it indicates the Garden State will potentially prosecute individuals who send texts to someone who caused an accident on any of its 39,000 miles of public roadways.
If your employees drive while on company business, it is a good idea to include a no texting policy as part of your auto fleet manual and review all guidelines at least annually. A business auto policy has no exclusions for negligent entrustment. To learn more about Negligent Entrustment, please contact your KMRD Partners relationship manager.
At KMRD Partners, we realize expertise in assessing and transferring risk through proper insurance coverage is only part of what it takes to properly service our insureds. We also support them with experienced, knowledgeable claims management professionals who act as their advocates following one minute from normal.
KMRD reduces the overall cost of risk for clients by producing a greater value for each insurance dollar spent, while utilizing an enterprise risk management approach to engineer the optimal solution. The firm’s diagnostic process is supported by its unique collaborative technology, KMRD XCHANGE ®.
We are dedicated to anticipating risk and helping firms recover from unplanned events that wait on the other side of one minute from normal.
To review your organization’s insurance coverage please contact your KMRD Partners relationship manager or e-mail us at contactus@kmrdpartners.com before one minute from normal strikes.
