Attorney Drops Case Against Text Message Sender, Calls Appellate Ruling a Partial Victory

Morristown lawyer Stephen “Skippy” Weinstein said he is dropping his effort to take a case involving texting and a vehicle crash against a Rockaway woman before the state Supreme Court, the Star-Ledger reported.

Weinstein represented Linda and David Kubert, a motorcycling couple injured in a 2009 Mine Hill collision in Mine Hill between their bike and a pickup truck driven by then-18-year-old Kyle Best, who reportedly was distracted by a text from Shannon Colonna of Rockaway, who was then 17. The Kuberts sued Best and the case was settled against him, but the trial judge and a subsequent appellate judge refused to hold Colonna responsible because it could not be proven that she knew Best was driving when she made the text, the article said.

The Kuberts' attorney had planned to appeal to New Jersey's highest court, but according to the article, he decided to stop his effort to avoid risking an overturn of the appellate court's decision that said text message senders can be held legally responsible for a crash—if it can be proven that the sender knows the message recipient is operating a vehicle. Weinstein called that provision a precedent in the state that accomplished his clients' stated goal, stopping texting and driving.