Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande announced yesterday that she will introduce legislation that will protect the sender of a text message from civil liability if the receiver of the text is involved in a car accident while reading the message.
Thank goodness, and let’s hope that legislation get fast tracked
In what can only be considered a gift to the overpopulated legal community, the Appellate Division of New Jersey’s Superior Court last week ruled that senders of text messages could be liable for accidents that occur while the receivers are reading them “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.”
What is a “special reason to know?” That is new legal distinction that will have to be defined in another expensive court decision, unless Casagrande’s common sense legislation is passed and signed into law before the next ambulance chaser gets his law school buddy on the bench to define it.
Imagine the cases, and legal fees, this new legal liability will create. Imagine the increases in insurance premiums, auto, homeowner’s, and business liability, this will cause.
If a spouse texts “pick milk” to his or her significant other during rush hour, and the receiving spouse gets into a car accident, the couple’s homeowner’s insurance company will get dragged into the law suit filed by the ambulance chaser.
Imagine the deposition questions asked at $250+ per hour per attorney:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: September 5th, 2013 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Caroline Casagrande, Lawsuit Reform, NJ Courts, NJ Judiciary, NJ State Legislature | Tags: Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, Caroline Casagrande, frivolous lawsuits, NJ Courts, NJ Legislature, texting, texting while driving, texting while the receiver might be driving | 2 Comments »
In a column posted on NJ.com yesterday, Where is the sin in Cryan’s tawdry sex e-mails?, Star Ledger Editorial Board Editor Tom Moran argues that “the sin” is the “outrageous breach of privacy” that Cryan suffered as a result of the leaked emails.
Yes, Cryan, a Democrat from Union County, had sex with a lobbyist and tried to hide that fact for years. But we are talking about two consenting adults, neither of them married at the time. Where is the crime against humanity?
Anything goes if you’re an unmarried consenting adult and everything apparently did between Cryan and Karen Golding. But what does it say about New Jersey that texting while driving is a crime, but fellatio while driving is not a sin?
We’ve evolved as a culture to the point that sexual acts are no longer sins or crimes, unless they involve children, money exchanging hands or the violation of a marriage vow or vow of celibacy.
Golding says that Cryan emailed her pornographic pictures from his government owned computers, but that is apparently OK, because, unlike his former office mate, former Assemblyman Neil Cohen, the pictures did not depict children.
Moran should have read beyond the tawdry emails. Golding provides evidence of possible perjury, abuse of power, judicial misconduct, and official misconduct by several in the Union County/Trenton government machine. There is no apparent effort to investigate or prosecute these alleged crimes, but there is an announced investigation into who leaked the emails.
Evidently Cyran’s pride and privacy are more of a government priority than his actually working while on the government payroll as a Union County Under Sheriff or a State Legislator.
Cryan’s personal emailing activity from his government issue computers raises the question of how much political activity is done from those computers. How much of his “work” as Democratric State Chairman was done while on the Union County Sheriff Office’s dime? New Jersey residents deserve more investigating of Cryan and his protectors than Bob Ingle asking, “Where does he find the time?”
Don’t say, “Everybody does it” as a defense for using government equipment and offices to do personal and/or political business. Everybody doesn’t do it. I talk to many elected officials who won’t take my calls in their offices just in case the subject becomes political. They call back from their personal cell or home phones. Or they won’t meet me at their office, but at a restaurant accross the street.
Posted: March 27th, 2013 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Joe Cryan | Tags: Corruption, fellatio while driving, Joe Cryan, Karen Golding, tawdry emails, texting while driving, Tom Moran | 2 Comments »
