Philip Paxson’s family are suing the company over his death, alleging that Google negligently failed to show the bridge had fallen nine years earlier.
Mr Paxson died in September 2022 after attempting to drive over the damaged bridge in Hickory, North Carolina.
A spokesperson for Google said the company was reviewing the allegations.
The case was filed in civil court in Wake County on Tuesday.
Mr Paxson, a father of two, was driving home from his daughter’s ninth birthday party at a friend’s house and was in an unfamiliar neighbourhood at the time of his death, according to the family’s lawsuit.
His wife had driven his two daughters home earlier, and he stayed behind to help clean up.
“Unfamiliar with local roads, he relied on Google Maps, expecting it would safely direct him home to his wife and daughters,” lawyers for the family said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Tragically, as he drove cautiously in the darkness and rain, he unsuspectingly followed Google’s outdated directions to what his family later learned for nearly a decade was called the ‘Bridge to Nowhere,’ crashing into Snow Creek, where he drowned.”
Local residents had repeatedly contacted Google to have them change their online maps after the bridge collapsed in 2013, the suit claims.
Multiple entities can hold responsibility, including:
This was a long running problem that Google was contacted to fix and didn’t. They don’t bear sole responsibility, but that is negligence that contributed to his death.
This is not on Google and in any way, shape or form. Google Maps is not a civil engineering project. Google is not a state or local governing entity.
What’s next? Google gets sued because someone missed out on an important interview? “Google Maps mislead me and caused me to lose out on a prospective job offer.”
I don’t think we know that yet, and I think the discovery will be interesting.
How many reports were there? Were they credible? What other sources of truth did Google consult in deciding to ignore those reports?
Google gets lots of reports and needs to filter out spam, and especially malicious reports like trying to mark a competitor’s business as closed, or trying to get less traffic in your neighborhood for selfish reasons. It wouldn’t be reasonable for Google to accept every user suggestion either.
So if Google reached out to the town and the town said the bridge is fine, then it’s not Google’s fault. If they ignored multiple credible complaints because the area was too rural to care about, that might be negligent.