Andy Hertz Vs. in Turner Collin County Bar Association 2022 8" Grade Mock Trial CompetitionStipulated Facts: On September 3, 2021, Andy Hertz was traveling on E. Forrest Street, in the city of Republic, state of Texoma, when a vehicle being driven by Casey Jones crossed the centerline and struck the Hertz vehicle heac-on. Jordan River was traveling behind the vehicle being driven by Jones and was on the telephone to 911 atthe time of the crash, [Asa result ofthe collision, Hertz was severely injured and no longer has the use of his tight arm. Casey Jones was prosecuted for texting while driving and causing an accident and sentenced 10 '90 days in the Texoma Department of Corrections. At the time of the accident, it was determined that Jones had exchanged text messages with Quinn Turner. ‘Turner had a poker party at his/her home on the night of the accident and Jones had just left the party. Jones was alone when he/she left the party. Hertz has sued Jones and Turner for the accident claiming they were negligent. Jones has settled with Hertz, but will received credit toward the settlement for every dallar awarded against Turner. The parties have stipulated to damages in the amount of $1,000,000, so damages do not need to be proven. However, this jury must access a percentage of negligence against Turner. The percentage must be anywhere between 0% and 100%, The jury must proportion negligence between Turner, Jones and Hert, if ary. ‘The medical reports confirm that Hertz and Jones had not consumed any alcohol or drugs, so those substances were not factors in the accident. Hertz was driving a vehicle without working headlights at the time ofthe accident and it was dark outside, ‘The Plaintiff is Andy Hertz. Hertz will call 3 witnesses: Andy Hertz, Pat Sully and Casey Jones. Pat Sully is an expert onthe issue of the dangers of texting and driving, The Defendant is Quinn Turner. Turner will call 3 witnesses: Quinn Turner, Tracy Richards and Jordan Rivers. Witness statements have been provided. A map of where the accident happened is provided and marked as Exhibit 1. The map accurately depicts the location of the accident with a small "on E, Forrest Street. Also provided as an Exhibit are screen shots of the text message statements between Turner and Jones. The screen shots are two pages have been ‘authenticated and is a true and correct copy of the information in Casey Jones phone, and are ‘marked as Exhibit 2. The comments on the left side of the screen shot is a message sent by Casey to Quinn. ‘The messages on the right side of the screen shots were received by Casey from Quinn,‘The plaintif has the burden of proof in the case to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the accident and injuries were caused by the negligence of Jones and Turner. The parties hhave stipulated that the injuries were caused by the accident. The law is provided to you as follows: Texoma Penal Code §62.101: 2. A person may not use a cellular device while operating @ motor vehicle unless it is ‘equipped with a hands free device and the communication may be done in @ hands free b. An offense under this section is @ Class C misdemeanor, unless the use of a cellular device results in an accident, then the offense under this section is 2 Class B ‘misdemeanor ‘The fact that a party has settled a claim or offered to settle a claim is not admissible ina civil action, This ease isa civil action “Preponderance of the evidence” means the greater weight and degree of credible testimony or evidence introduced before you and admitted in evidence inthis case. “Proximate cause” means that which produces an event, without which the event would not have occurred. To be a proximate cause, the act in question must be one that 2 person using ordinary care would have foreseen that the resulting event or one similar to it might reasonably result. “Ordinary Care" means that degree or care which would be used by a person of ordinary prudence under the same or similar circumstances. “Negligence” means the failure to use ordinary care, that is, failing to do that which a person of ordinary prudence would have done under the same or similar circumstances, or doing that Which a person of ordinary prudence would not have done under the same or similar circumstances‘The jury will be asked to answer the following special questions: Question No. Did the negligence, if any, of the persons named below proximately cause the occurrence In question? ‘Answer "yes" or “no! for each of the following (1) Andy Her (2) Quinn Turner () Casey Jones Question No.2 ‘What percentage of the negligence causing the occurrence do you find to be attributable to those for whom you answered “yes” to in your answer to question number one? ‘The percentages you find must total 1009%. The negligence attributable to a person named ‘below is not necessarily measured by the number of acts or omissions found, (1) Andy Hertz @) Quinn Turner (3) Casey ones Total 100%Statement of Andy Hertz: My name is Andy Hertz, am 34 years old and have lived inthe city of Republic my whole life. 1 {am a certified public accountant. On September 3, 2021, | was traveling home after being at the lake all day. It was about midnight. 1 was very tired that night. 1 was traveling southbound on €, Forrest Street nearing the intersection with €, Oakland Street and a vehicle crossed aver the centerline and hit my vehicle with tremendous force. Itturned out the vehicle that hit me was being driven by Jones. Just prior to the collision with Jones, ! had lost control of my vehicle and collided with the curb. It jogged something loose under my hood and | could not get my headlights to come back on. | did pull over and work on the car for about 5 minutes trying to get the lights to come back on However, | don't believe the lack of headlights on my part caused the accident or realy had ‘anything to do with it although that area was very dark. After the accident, | was able to get out of my car, but I was pretty banged up. It was obvious something was wrong with my right arm. | talked with Jones at the scene of the accident. Jones had a cell phone stil in his/her hand and made some comment about Turner leaving him/her alone. | guess Turner and Jones had just had an argument and Jones was texting at the time of the accident. | believe Turner is as responsible as Jones because Turner knew that Jones had just left and was texting while knowing it was likely that Jones would read and respond to the texts, Since the accident, | have ost the use of my right arm. The nerves have been damaged and ! will never have use of it again. | want both Jones and Turner to accept responsiblity for the injuries they have caused Ater the officer completed the investigation, | decided it would be appropriate to sue Turner in ‘addition to Jones for the damages | have suffered, | believe Turner knew or should have known that Jones would be driving while Turner was texting, The last message on Jones’ phone Indicates that. If that is really how Tumer felt, then Turner's hopes came true and I have to suffer now. Sworn and signed this CD. doyot September, 202 ‘andy Hertz‘Sworn statement of Pat Sull [My name is Pat Sully, Lam 47 years old and neuroscientist and expert inthe field of texting and Griving, | have a Ph.D. from Texoma State University and have been conducting research about the effects of texting and driving for over 15 years. 1am a member of the State Safety Council | have used virtual-reality driving simulators, eye trackers, and measured brain activity to further understand neuroscience and distracted driving, | have appeared before various governmental agencies and ! encourage legislation to prevent distracted driving. | believe no one should be permitted to use a hand held telephone device while operating a motor vehicle. My studies show that a person texting and diving is as dangerous as any person who has consumed aleoholic beverages and is above the legal mit, In fact, a person texting and driving is 23 times more likely to rash than an intoxicated person at ‘the 0.08 blood alcohol limit The human brain isn't equipped to concentrate on two things simultaneously. In brain scan studies, Ihave found that the prefrontal cortex lights up fora longer time in people performing ‘wo mental tasks at the same time. This illustrates how the brain slows down reaction time. Despite employing 100 billion neurons to process information at rates as high as 1,000 times a second, the human brain has a crippling inability to do two tasks at once. Small wonder that the Texoman College of Emergency Physicians reports a rise in texting-related emergency room visits Social experts also warn about an eerie disconnect when we're out with our BFFS while texting friends, family, and the office. There isa certain degree of absent presence! associated with the Use of mobile phones and other personal media in the presence of others. People disengage, ( pay more attention to the person on the phone than to the people who are physically present. When a person sends or receives a text message, that person takes his/her eyes off ‘the road for an average of 4.6 seconds according to most studies. That means a person traveling 55 miles per hour will take their eyes off the road for almost the length of an entire football fied | have been asked by the Plaintiff to review the text messages sent and received by Jones during the moments around the accident. It appears that Jones and Turner were not getting along. This increased the distraction for Jones. By Turner sending the number of text messages almost instantly after Jones had left the Turner house, makes me believe that Jones was completely distracted while driving home. | believe that Turner's actions were @ proximate cause ofthe accident that injured Hertz Jones violated the law by texting while driving. Turner, the text sender, should have known that Jones was driving home and had to know texting while driving was 2 violation. Therefore, it's hard to argue that a text sender isn't substantially assisting in the creation of a text message conversation that violates Texoma’s driving laws. When a driver takes his eyes off the road to type, send or read a text or dial or answer the phone, the driver suffers from a lack ofsituational awareness about the roadway and the surrounding trafic. When the driver's eyes return to the road, the driver has impaired situation awareness that must be re-established, almost lke re-bocting 2 computer. During that period of time, the driver can suffer from inattention blindness and impaired visual scanning causing him to be unable to perceive and properly react to other vehicles, pedestrians or objects in the roadway. Moreover, the act of talking on a cell phone, hands-free or hand held, causes attention to be diverted from the act of driving, causes drivers to have reduced scanning ability and causes inattention blindness — looking but not seeing up to half the information they would normally see and process as they drive down the roadway. Crashes involving cell phone use are often mace severe because cell phone use delays a driver's reaction time ~ their ablity to brake or turn to reduce the severity of an impending crash. No one would drive with a blindfold over their eyes, but that is what many cell phone and texting drivers do every minute on our roadways with disastrous consequences. | did not personally interview Jones or Turner, but based upon the investigation by the police officer and the statements I have read, | believe Jones and Turner are equally responsible for the accident, 5! Sworn and sted this 3 dy of aor, 2022 Pat SullySworn statement of Casey Jones: My name is Casey Jones. | am 18 years old and a student at Republic High School. | am a classmate of both Quinn Turner and Jordan Rivers. On the night of September 3, 2021, Iwas at Quinn's house. We were playing poker and I guess Quinn thought 1 was cheating. Id a mirror on my shoe but that doesn’t mean | was cheating. | was just seeing i it would work. Truthfully, the mirror was hard to see anything. | was just testing it out and it really didn’t work. Don't tell the mighty Quinn that. Quinn went cra. Quinn was losing and I was mouthing off and rubbing itn. After awhile, | guess it just made Quinn so mad he/she could not take it anymore. | wasn't beating Quinn because | was cheating, | was beating Quinn because | am better at poker. Jordan was there too. | was beating Jordan too. Sometimes the card just go your way. {Quinn flipped over the table, stomped on my foot and threw us out. You don’t have to tell me twice to leave. I left quickly. I sent Quinn a text message after | left and then Quinn proceeded to “blow up” my phone with the hateful messages you see in the screen shots, | was distracted by the text messages that Quinn sent to me. I think Quinn was trying to make me wreck. | think Quinn i just as responsible as Iam for this accident. | had the phone in my hand at the time of the accident because | was getting ready to respond to the string of messages. | know the screen shots don’t show that | had typed anything in, but | was getting ready to, It was Quinn’s fault that I hit Hert’ car. | do have a prior conviction for assault, bt Iam not a bad person. Because of the accident, 1 ‘was charged with violating the texting while driving laws. 1 pleaded guilty to the offense and was sentenced to 90 days in jail. 1 started my sentence on November 1" The accident was simply caused by my inattention while driving. Quinn had to know | was driving and should have left me alone. signed this day of tanuary, 2022.‘Sworn Statement of Quinn Turner: My name is Quinn Turner. | am 18 years old and I am the defendant in this lawsuit fled by Hertz. do not accept responsiblity forthe injuries to Hertz because | believe my former fiend, Jones, is solely responsible. (On the evening of September 3, 2021, Casey Jones, Jordan Rivers and I were hanging out at my hhouse on S. Harrison Street, in the City of Republic. We had been playing poker and I caught Jones cheating. We had some words and eventually | showed Jones the door. Apparently, hile Jones was driving, he sent and ! received the first text message. The rest of them Isent in response to his text. Jones did net need to read them. It was not my faut that Jones read them while driving. We attended the seminar that was put on by Richards from the TPO. What | understood from the seminar was that we were all very inexperienced drivers and that everything is distraction, rom people in the car ta oud musie to cell hones. The seminar had so much Information and warnings that most of what Officer Richards sald went in one ear and out the fother. I do not remember hearing Officer Richards tell us nat to text a person that we knew would be driving @ vehicle. How are we really supposed to remember all ofthe information they share ata seminar ike that? {just chink that this whole thing was Jones faut Jones was cheating. sent Jones out the door and | am actually really glad he/she isin al now because that is where cheaters belong. | feel sorry for Hertz because he/she did nothing ‘wrong. Jones left quickly and is just a bad driver. Jones’ inattention was not caused by text messages but by Jones’ own mental deficiencies. | was not with Jones, and | could not control how that vehicle drove once i left my house. This accident isnot my fault. Jones di tell me that he/she never wanted to hear from me again and to lose his/her number. That we were no longer fiends and we had nothing ese to say to one another. [Ater Jones left, | did send a few text messages because | was mad, | didnt think Jones would read them while driving. That thought never crossed my mind. All was thinking was that Jones was a sorry person and I was glad tobe done with that relationship. svor and snes ins! 7” coy October, 2 2 Quinn Turner‘Sworn Statement of Tracy Richards: Revised: [My name is Tracy Richards. | am 32 years old and | am employed as a certified police officer for the City of Republic. | have worked in this capacity for over 10 years. In that capacity, I have had experience to qualify me as an accident reconstruction expert. Part of my training included investigation of accidents and drunk driving cases. 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