Guess Getting Arrested for Underage S*x is a Real Grind(r)

March 27th, 2015. By LucyC

A 52-year old man who was cruising through his hook-up app—Grindr—came across the love of your life (well, at least for the next 30 minutes), arranged a meet-up, and then found himself being arrested for engaging in an app-assisted sexual encounter with a 13-year-old boy. An app-assisted sexual encounter? How very 21^st century.

William F. Saponaro Jr., from New Jersey, got a little more than he bargained for—when he and another 24-year-old Grindr guy, who also met up with the boy, were arrested for having a “three party sexual liaison” with a minor. They were both charged with aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child.

Sapanaro’s response? Sue Grindr. He claims that because the child accepted Grindr’s terms of service somehow the company failed to ensure the boy was of age—or legal, let’s just call a spade a spade. The actual claim is negligence for allowing a minor to utilize the app. Uh? How do you stop that? What about personal common sense—or is that optional now?

For those dating app neophytes, Grindr works similarly to other hook-up apps like Tinder, which is also being sued—but over charging its users, not its users being charged, if you follow. Short version, Grindr uses a person’s smartphone’s geolocation capabilities to allows its users, particularly gay and bisexual men, to communicate with other similarly inclined folk in the local vicinity. Because the nature of the conversation and encounters that are facilitated through Grindr are adult in nature, the company restricts use of the app to those 18 and over. But in this case, the boy lied, the adults got busted and—the company gets off the lawsuit. Why?

Grindr owed Saponaro no “duty of care,” according to the court ruling, because it could not foresee Sapanaro becoming a victim, and therefore was and is not liable to Saponaro under New Jersey law. Caveat emptor baby! And, since Sapanaro communicated with a third member of the three-party tryst, and not directly with the boy, there really was no way Grindr could have known what was going down. If they could, you would wonder how, and that potential scenario is even more worrying.

Also interesting, the court barred Sapanaro’s claim under the Communications Decency Act. According to the CDA’s “Good Samaritan” clause, providers of interactive computer services are prevented from being treated as the publisher of the information disseminated on them. Think about it, Facebook, Twitter et al, responsible for the content of all their users’ posts? Never mind email service providers.

Perhaps what’s most disturbing is the lack of resonance around a 13-year old using the app. Gotta wonder what happened to him.

This was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2015 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Crazy Sh*t Lawyers See . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.