If You Or Your Employees Use A Cell Phone, Then Read This With Your Lawyer. |
Word is the Investment Firm of Smith Barney just settled a
lawsuit against them for $150,000.00 over and above their liability insurance
coverage in a wrongful death case.
What’s this got to do with Cell Phones?
It was an Employee talking on his Cell Phone that was at fault in the
fatal accident. That put Smith
Barney on the hook, for the negligence of their employee.
If your employee’s use Cell Phones when driving, it can be
an open door to liability exposure, should they get into an accident.
We all know that DUI stands for Driving Under the Influence.
Talking and Driving is now being called DWT.
And is being sited as the cause of more and more accidents.
Do you really need to involve your attorney?
Lets put it to you this way. Lets
say you just cover yourself by sending out a memo to all employees telling them
to pull of the roadway and come to a complete stop before using the phones.
Then one of your employees gets attacked in a bad neighborhood because
they had to make a business call right then, so they had to stop in that bad
area. Bingo it’s a lawsuit.
So don’t be sorry, talk to your attorney and make an addendum to your
employee handbook.
You could also look into supplying your employees with
headsets or better yet, hands free units. In
fact, look for upcoming reviews in BizNet OnLine for some nifty universal hands
free kits with Voice Dialing!
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Last modified: November 08, 2002