• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, May 9, 2008

Verizon Wireless is being sued by the parents of a Connecticut teen who was assaulted by a man she met after accessing the Web through a cell phone.

The parents, who purchased four cell phones from Verizon in 2005, allege that their 14-year-old daughter downloaded a program to one of the phones that enabled her to post an online profile and "participate in various chat rooms." The following year, she was allegedly assaulted on two occasions by a 30-year-old man she met via mobile social networking.

The parents accused Verizon Wireless of manufacturing an unreasonably dangerous product and failing to warn them that users could connect to the Web from the phones. "Unbeknownst to the plaintiffs," they allege, "the defendant's cellular service plan allowed any cell phone user to 'self subscribe' to the internet through the cellular telephone." The case, quietly filed in state court in Connecticut, was sent to federal court last week.

A Verizon spokeswoman declined to comment on the matter, stating that the company could not discuss pending litigation. The telecom is expected to file a response with the court in several weeks.

This lawsuit appears to mark the first time a telecom has been sued in connection with social networking activity, but MySpace has faced similar lawsuits. Last year, federal district court judge Sam Sparks in Austin, Tex. dismissed one lawsuit by the parents of a teen who was assaulted by a 19-year-old she met online. "If anyone had a duty to protect (the teen), it was her parents, not MySpace," he ruled. The parents appealed that case to the 5th Circuit, which has not yet rendered a decision.

The parents in Connecticut might have an even harder time in court than in cases where families have sued social networking sites, said Eric Goldman, director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. That's because the parents' argument would require a judge to accept that telephones--which are, after all, designed for communication--somehow become more dangerous when they can connect to the Web.

"It's like a bad joke to say that a telecommunications device that also enables Internet access becomes automatically 'unreasonably dangerous' because of that extra functionality," Goldman said.

In addition, he said, the parents are likely to find it challenging to prove that Verizon caused an injury to their daughter because of all the other acts--including the 30-year-old perpetrator's criminal behavior--between the time they bought the phones and the assaults.