Passengers have duty to aid crash victims in N.J.

Two passengers who witnessed their intoxicated friend crash his car into the back of a motorcycle and then be hit by another car had an obligation to help the injured man, a New Jersey appellate court has ruled.

The driver and his passengers made 44 cell phone calls within two and one-half hours, but none for emergency assistance, court records show. Instead, they agreed to keep quiet and fled, and the rider was struck by another driver and died.

“It is the degree of defendants’ involvement, coupled with the serious peril threatening imminent death to another that might have been avoided with little effort and inconvenience, suggested by the evidence, that in our view creates a sufficient relation to impose a duty of action,” the court found.