According to a published report in the Hickory Daily Record, the widow of a Hickory man who died after driving off a washed-out bridge has filed a lawsuit against Google and the owners of the bridge alleging negligence.
The lawsuit filed by Alicia Paxson comes nearly a year after Philip Paxson, 47, died when his vehicle fell into Snow Creek as he drove on 24th Street Place NE in Hickory. The bridge had fallen nearly a decade prior.
The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in Wake County, names Google and Google’s parent company Alphabet, Hickory businessman James Tarlton and the companies Tarde LLC and Hinckley Gauvain LLC as defendants.
Tarlton and the two companies are identified in the lawsuit as the owners of the bridge and the land near the bridge.
The lawsuit says that Google Maps continued to list the road with the collapsed bridge as a viable route even though the company had been notified that the bridge was gone. Philip Paxson used that road after searching on Google Maps, according to the lawsuit.
Tarlton, Tarde and Hinckley Gauvain are accused of failure to repair the bridge or to maintain appropriate barriers or lighting to prevent people from crashing into Snow Creek.
During a press conference held over Zoom on Wednesday, Robert Zimmerman, an attorney for Alicia Paxson, said the family filed the complaint in Wake County because of Google’s corporate presence there.
Story: hickoryrecord.com
Related Story
https://860wacb.com/fatal-crash-on-closed-roadway-reported-in-hickory/