[SystemSafety] Apple being sued for illegal use of Facetime

[Peter Bernard Ladkin]

There are a couple of cases in the US in which Apple has been sued for contributing to a death in a
car crash caused by a driver using FaceTime messaging while driving. The latest was recently filed
in Santa Clara County Court in California. The Guardian article contains some pertinent legal
commentary.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/03/apple-lawsuit-facetime-car-crash-iphone-patent

So here is someone doing something which is known to be risky, namely using a mobile phone while
driving. And thereby (we may presume) causing a death by accident.

It is interesting that, although the case is being tried in Santa Clara, the incident happened in
Texas, where apparently neither using a phone while driving nor texting while driving is illegal.

Are manufacturers responsible for inhibiting illegal use of their products? No, according to Santa
Clara law professor Goldman, quoted in the article. (But just suppose it were, for a moment. Murder
victims' relatives could then close down the entire US firearms industry if they organised - there
are over 10,000 per year. The US OMB apparently puts VSL at $7-9m
http://www.theglobalist.com/the-cost-of-a-human-life-statistically-speaking/ so if all sued and won,
that's some $70-90bn per year, six times the value of US firearms manufacturing
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/02/americas-gun-business-by-the-numbers.html )

In this case, it is apparently being argued that Apple had a technical means to prevent this use,
namely a patented feature, and has chosen not to deploy it. I think it's questionable whether Apple
has such a means: it apparently has a feature which stops phone use in a moving vehicle but I don't
immediately see how the device could distinguish between use by a driver and by a passenger.

(IANAL) Stanford law professor Engstrom says in the article that someone choosing to use a product
and thereby causing a death would constitute a "superseding cause", breaking the causal chain. I
wouldn't know if that depends upon whether the specific use is known to be risky.

Going back to thinking about the Tesla death in May, Driver Brown was using the autopilot feature of
the car in a manner denoted by the manufacturer as inappropriate: the AP is a driver assistance
feature, according to the manufacturer and its product description, and not an automatic-driving
feature. It has been reported (by the truck driver) that Brown was apparently distracted (watching a
film)
http://ktla.com/2016/07/03/tesla-autopilot-death-driver-may-have-been-watching-harry-potter-at-time-of-crash-witness-tells-ap/


Now, Brown's accident killed just himself. Suppose another person had thereby died, say a passenger.

Would that be similar? Would it be different?

PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, Bielefeld, Germany
MoreInCommon
Je suis Charlie
Tel+msg +49 (0)521 880 7319  www.rvs-bi.de





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