# Google maps sued for drowning death **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 26, 2023, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720 "2023-09-26T12:58:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Pork\_Rind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pork_rind/32/111_2.png) [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2023, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/321 "2023-10-01T23:36:33Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Some other user, equally unfamiliar with the area drives over the bridge. How would they know to report that the bridge is in operation? Presumably Google would learn the bridge was open the same way they learn about any other new roads in an area, which is to say from a local or regional transportation authority publishing an updated GIS dataset for the area. Which leads me to wonder, if the county (for example) continued to have that bridge open in their data, and a user reported it closed, how do they reconcile that info when the county publishes an update? > [@LSLGuy](#): > > I think you missed my point. Yes, malicious feedback is a problem. But that’s not the issue I was raising. Not at all. Indeed I did. My apologies. ---
**Author:** ![CaveMike](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cavemike/32/16379_2.png) [@CaveMike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaveMike)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/322 "2023-10-02T02:09:32Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > Which leads me to wonder, if the county (for example) continued to have that bridge open in their data, and a user reported it closed, how do they reconcile that info when the county publishes an update? In this particular case the road is private so the safest course would be to permanently remove it. However your point stands for most cases. It highlights the difficulty of incorporating user reports into the data. When Google Maps started they licensed the data from 3rd-parties (e.g. Navteq). Soon after they brought this task in-house and built their own data. Whatever they can’t get from official sources, they need to extract from aerial photos and street-view cars. The question is how often are they going to update rural areas? ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/323 "2023-10-02T02:16:07Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Do police patrol the roads on either side of the non-bridge? If so, I’d imagine they would be aware of the potential hazard, and I don’t think it much of a stretch to say they ought to have protected people from it. What do you think their basis for liability would be? What’s the claim? ---
**Author:** ![Digger11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/838e76/32.png) [@Digger11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digger11)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/324 "2023-10-02T02:42:56Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > A couple of months back a couple of cousins and I were traveling through Tennessee. Following the route the GPS suggested took us up one of the mountains on a not-particularly well-maintained two-lane road filled with sharp switchbacks, no guardrails, and a near-sheer drop maybe 20 feet off to the right. At one point we passed _above_ one of the anchor points of the Gatlinburg Sky Bridge. We crept along the road as slowly as we could manage (no traffic either way) and it was the most anxiety I’ve ever felt on a road. You wouldn’t last 10 minutes in the Rockies. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/325 "2023-10-02T03:03:33Z")
"upon information and belief"means we have a pretty good reason to make this claim but we don’t have documentary proof yet. Maybe he called his wife and said he was following GPS, and she knows he uses Google Maps. Maybe the traffic crash investigation turned up that information but the formal report hasn’t been released yet. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/326 "2023-10-02T03:28:55Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > I suppose Google might retain records of people’s map queries and usage Congratulations on winning the understatement of the year award. Google’s default setting for location tracking is to retain your maps search and location history for 18 months. ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/327 "2023-10-02T03:36:35Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > > [@DrDeth](#): > > > > Umm, how do we know he was using Google maps? > > You know, that’s a great question. > > The complaint, linked above, states in Item 51 ‘Google Maps directed Mr. Paxson to travel home over the Snow Creek Bridge.’ > > But directly above, in Item 49, ‘Upon information and belief…Mr Paxson used the Google Maps application to identify directions home.’ > > So IANAL, but ISTM that it is BELIEVED that the deceased used Google Maps to find a route to his house. Can it be proven? Is that important? > **[He Drove Into a Creek and Died. His Family Blames Google Maps.](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/21/us/google-maps-lawsuit-collapsed-bridge.html)** > > Philip Paxson’s family said in a lawsuit that he was following Google Maps directions last year when he drove off a collapsed bridge in Hickory, N.C., plunged into a creek and drowned. From the article: “Mrs. Paxson said she searched her husband’s phone after the accident and found that he had looked up directions home from the party on Google Maps.” ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/328 "2023-10-02T07:40:22Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > As soon as a local who knows the bridge is open uses it then Google will know its open. Not really. All Google knows is that a phone got from one side of the bridge to the other. Maybe the bridge is still out, and they walked across the creek. Maybe they were driving a tractor or some other vehicle that was able to bypass the missing bridge. Maybe they threw their phone to a friend on the other side. Sure, maybe these are somewhat unlikely scenarios, but if there is legal liability at stake, Google would want to err on the side of caution. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/329 "2023-10-02T11:38:57Z")
Please forgive me if this is too much of a hijack, but I, as a foreigner to the land where this happened, am struggling to reconcile the notion of Google having some responsibility to nanny you, with other things that I hear quite a lot from folks in the USA about wanting freedon from anyone controlling you or supervising your safety. Of course I realise Google is not the government, but I don’t really see how that matters. Am I just failing to comprehend some nuance? Or is it that the folks wanting safety supervision are a non-intersecting set with the folks wanting freedom from supervision? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/330 "2023-10-02T11:44:32Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Or is it that the folks wanting safety supervision are a non-intersecting set with the folks wanting freedom from supervision? I’d say they’re mostly non-intersecting up until the time they can get paid, at which time they’ll line up with whatever point of view has dollar signs attached to it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/331 "2023-10-02T12:54:15Z")
Plus a heaping helping of: > I want to have a safe environment for me and my immediate family, but I refuse to pay a penny towards anyone else having a safe environment. > > And I want the kind of safety I want, and only that kind. Folks that want different kinds of safety can go screw themselves; they’re interrupting mah Freedum! Summarizing both @Cheesesteak and myself: “It’s cognitive dissonance all the way down.” ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/332 "2023-10-02T12:58:55Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Am I just failing to comprehend some nuance? Or is it that the folks wanting safety supervision are a non-intersecting set with the folks wanting freedom from supervision? It’s almost as if Americans are not monolithic. And yet, if I were to suggest that members of any other country all believed and wanted the same thing, based on stereotypes, you and others might rightfully call me a bigot. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/333 "2023-10-02T14:24:08Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Please forgive me if this is too much of a hijack, but I, as a foreigner to the land where this happened, am struggling to reconcile the notion of Google having some responsibility to nanny you, with other things that I hear quite a lot from folks in the USA about wanting freedon from anyone controlling you or supervising your safety The law is quite clear that if your negligence is a proximate cause of injury to another, you are responsible. Assuming, of course, you have a “duty” to the injured person. That duty party is what is underlying the discussion here. (primarily, some have discussed negligence or reasonableness.) Duty tends to turn on foreseeability. If some conduct was not foreseeable as a matter of law, than a defendant has no duty to act to prevent it. Imagine a swimming pool with a diving board over a portion of the pool where it’s too shallow to dive safely. Does the hotel owner bear any responsibility for the inevitable broken spine? Why? People should be responsible for their own safety, right? The plaintiffs here have a tough road ahead due to severl legal and factual issues. I’m not saying that in this instance they will be (or should be) found liable. The claim, however, is not about expecting companies or government to “nanny” us. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/334 "2023-10-02T15:04:23Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Of course I realise Google is not the government, but I don’t really see how that matters. Am I just failing to comprehend some nuance? Yes. The nuance is that people are more paranoid about government surveillance than they are about corporate surveillance. Corporations provide them a service, generally in the form of more convenience, whereas any government service takes away their freedom (so they say.) They ignore the roads, the emergency services, the parks, the post office, and pretty much any benefit conferred by the government in favor of services provided by private enterprise. America only values its privacy when it comes to the government. (You overgeneralized, so I did too.) ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/335 "2023-10-02T15:15:11Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > Duty tends to turn on foreseeability. Necessary, but surely not sufficient. If I publish a large compendium of climbing routes, it is not just a foreseeable risk but a virtual _certainty_ that someone will eventually come to serious harm because (at least partly) of an error somewhere in the published beta. Yet, as I understand it, precedent is that authors/publishers are not liable for such errors, because eliminating them would be so onerous that nobody would ever risk publishing anything. So I’m not sure that this can hinge on forseeability. It is surely indisputable that it is _foreseeable_ that people will occasionally come to harm following routes that Google suggests. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/336 "2023-10-02T15:18:08Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > It’s almost as if Americans are not monolithic. And yet, if I were to suggest that members of any other country all believed and wanted the same thing, based on stereotypes, you and others might rightfully call me a bigot. I was asking for clarity and enlightenment from people with feet on the ground in a country I have never visited and openly admitted I don’t understand. Is that what you would characterise as bigotry? Really? ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/337 "2023-10-02T15:21:53Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > Necessary, but surely not sufficient. Yes, I simplified. There are cases that note that the concepts are so slippery it ends up being just “because that’s what we say.” > Duty is only a word with which we state our conclusion that there is or is not to be liability; it necessarily begs the essential question. When we find a duty, breach and damage, everything has been said. The word serves a useful purpose in directing attention to the obligation to be imposed upon the defendant, rather than the causal sequence of events; beyond that it serves none. In the decision whether or not there is a duty, many factors interplay: the hand of history, our ideas of morals and justice, the convenience of administration of the rule, and our social ideas as to where the loss should fall. In the end the court will decide whether there is a duty on the basis of the mores of the community, ‘always keeping in mind the fact that we endeavor to make a rule in each case that will be practical and in keepingwith the general understanding of mankind.’ (Footnotes omitted.) W. Prosser, Palsgraf Revisited, 52 Mich.L.Rev. 1, 15 (1953). > _Hunsley v. Giard_, 87 Wn.2d at 434–35 (emphasis added). ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/338 "2023-10-02T16:59:58Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > What do you think their basis for liability would be? What’s the claim? I really know little about sovereign immunity or the specific duty police/governments owe their populations. But it does not strike me as too much of a stretch to believe police should warn the public about obvious significant hazards of which they are aware. When they report to an accident, they put out flares and direct traffic. And they assist in detours/evacuations. ISTR hearing about accusations (no idea how far they went) following the release of arrestees who subsequently committed crimes. How often do you think police would drive the roads in that NC subdivision? Daily? Weekly? Less often? If there was a tree across the road, would the police call public works to have it removed, and set up some warning until it was? I don’t think this is exactly advocating a “nanny state.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/339 "2023-10-02T19:44:31Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > "upon information and belief"means we have a pretty good reason to make this claim but we don’t have documentary proof yet. Maybe he called his wife and said he was following GPS, and she knows he uses Google Maps Right. So we arent sure if he was following Google, but it seems likely. > [@zbuzz](#): > > “Mrs. Paxson said she searched her husband’s phone after the accident and found that he had looked up directions home from the party on Google Maps.” Then he wasnt following it while driving. And, “Mrs. Paxson said…” isnt really good evidence. The evidence that people informed google is iirc anecdotal. > [@Mangetout](#): > > Please forgive me if this is too much of a hijack, but I, as a foreigner to the land where this happened, am struggling to reconcile the notion of Google having some responsibility to nanny you, In general, most of us do not think Google had any _significant_ responsibility. That is just what the lawsuit claims. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2023, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720/340 "2023-10-02T19:55:15Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > In general, most of us do not think Google had any _significant_ responsibility. That is just what the lawsuit claims. Agreed. Google may have a little of the legal blame. Most of the blame is with whomever is responsible for putting up roadblocks. Without digging deep into municipal or county code, it’s either some government entity or the owner of the road/bridge. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-maps-sued-for-drowning-death/990720.md?page=18)