Articles
Terry was driving down the street one spring day when her car was struck by a car being driven by Kellie. Kellie was allegedly (as we lawyers like to say) chatting on her cell phone at the time that her car attempted to occupy the same space as Terry’s.
Knowing a deep pocket when he saw one, Terry’s lawyer promptly sued the purveyors of the offending cell phone. He argued that the cell phone people were negligent as they knew, or ought to have known, that their customers would use their cell phones while operating motor vehicles.
The trial judge, who was later affirmed on appeal, did to the lawsuit what Kellie should have done with her cell phone: threw it out. Terry’s lawyer was outraged to have been thus shown the door, and filed a motion to reopen the case based on newly discovered evidence.
That evidence, duly submitted to the court, was a cartoon strip depicting the cartoon character Blondie talking on a cartoon cell phone while driving her cartoon car and causing a cartoon accident. Unimpressed by the probative value of this new evidence, the judge would not budge. The cell phone case remained disconnected.
Moral:
If you’re smashed by a driver trying to steer
With a cell phone plastered to her ear,
You won’t become a Rockefeller
By blaming it on the cell phone seller.
And, should you file a cartoon strip,
The court will still award you zip.
Williams v. Cingular Wireless, 809 N.E.2d 473 (Ind. App. 2004).
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TO ORDER
True Tales of Trying Times is available at Willow Crossing Press
