Google Facing Lawsuit Claiming Google Maps Caused Man's Death

The family of a man from North Carolina who died after following Google Maps directions and driving his car off a collapsed bridge is suing the tech giant for negligence, claiming it knew about the collapse but did not update its navigation system.

According to The Guardian, a lawsuit was submitted on Tuesday in Wake County Superior Court alleging that Philip Paxson, a medical device salesman and father of two, drowned on September 30, 2022, when his Jeep Gladiator slid into Snow Creek in Hickory.

Google Maps allegedly instructed Paxson to cross a bridge that had collapsed nine years earlier and was never repaired as he was returning from his daughter's ninth birthday party through an unfamiliar neighbourhood, BBC reported.

"Our girls ask how and why their daddy died, and I'm at a loss for words they can understand because, as an adult, I still can't understand how those responsible for the GPS directions and the bridge could have acted with so little regard for human life," his wife, Alicia Paxson, said.

It was reported by state troopers that there were no barriers or warning signs along the washed-out road where Paxton's body was discovered in his flipped-over and partially submerged truck. According to the lawsuit, he had driven off an unguarded ledge and crashed about 20 feet below.
The original developer's company had dissolved, according to the North Carolina State Patrol, and neither local nor state authorities were responsible for maintaining the bridge. The lawsuit names several private property management firms as defendants, alleging that they are in charge of maintaining the bridge and the nearby land.

According to the lawsuit, numerous people had alerted Google Maps about the collapse in the years before Paxson's passing and had urged the company to update its route data.

A second Hickory resident used the map's "suggest an edit" function in September 2020 to inform the company that it was directing drivers over the collapsed bridge, according to email records included in the court filing on Tuesday. Google acknowledged receiving her report and reviewing the suggested change in an email sent in November 2020, but the lawsuit asserts that no further action was taken.

"We have the deepest sympathies for the Paxson family," Google spokesperson José Castañeda told The Associated Press. "Our goal is to provide accurate routing information in Maps and we are reviewing this lawsuit."