Google Maps Tragedy: Lawsuit Claims Tech Giant's Fatal Directions Led To North Carolina Man's Death

The suit alleges that Google failed to update its mapping system to reflect the collapse of a bridge nearly a decade ago.

Philip Paxson, 47, was returning home from his daughter's birthday celebration in September 2022 when the fatal incident occurred. According to the lawsuit filed on Tuesday, September 19, Paxson's Jeep fell into Snow Creek in Hickory, North Carolina, resulting in his drowning.

On the fateful night, Paxson was navigating unfamiliar terrain in stormy weather conditions. Google Maps directed him across a bridge that had collapsed almost ten years prior and had not been reconstructed. The lawsuit claims that despite the presence of warning signs and barriers on the route, Paxson's Jeep plummeted 20 feet below, crashing into the creek. State troopers later discovered his body inside the overturned and partially submerged vehicle.

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The lawsuit further alleges that Google Maps had been notified about the collapsed bridge on multiple occasions in the years leading up to Paxson's death. However, no updates were made to the system. As recently as 2020, a local resident of Hickory used the "suggest an edit" feature on Google Maps to highlight the hazard, but no action was taken.

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September 22, 2023

The Hickory Record reports that the lawsuit also names James Tarlton and the companies Tarde LLC and Hinckley Gauvain LLC as defendants. These entities are identified as the owners of the bridge and the surrounding land, as the original developer has since dissolved, and neither local nor state officials maintain the bridge.

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During a press conference on Wednesday, Alicia Paxson, the widow of the deceased, expressed her grief and disbelief. "Our girls ask how and why their daddy died, and I'm at a loss for words they can understand because, as an adult, I still can't understand how those responsible for the GPS directions and the bridge could have acted with so little regard for human life," she said. The mother of Paxson's 7 and 9-year-old daughters added, "It still doesn't seem real."