Aguila v. Frederic
In a wrongful death suit arising from a fatal pedestrian crash, the trial court compelled the defendant driver to disclose whether he possessed a cell phone at the time of the crash, its number and carrier, and phone logs for the hour surrounding the collision. The Third DCA granted certiorari and quashed the order, holding that with an unresolved traffic homicide investigation pending, the compelled responses were testimonial and could furnish a link in the chain of evidence of a texting-while-driving violation, violating the Fifth Amendment.
Key facts
- In a wrongful death suit arising from a fatal pedestrian crash, the trial court compelled the defendant driver to disclose whether he possessed a cell phone at the time of the crash, its number, carrier, and phone logs for the hour surrounding the collision.
- The defendant driver asserted a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination based on a pending traffic homicide investigation that could result in prosecution for texting-while-driving violations under Florida Statutes section 316.305(3)(a).
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Why it matters
This is a practical roadmap for defending (or attacking) cell-phone discovery in auto and trucking cases where a parallel criminal or traffic-homicide investigation is open — an increasingly common scenario given… — full analysis with a trial
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