In serious commercial vehicle personal injury cases, a few seconds can decide everything. A tractor‑trailer drifts over the center line. A box truck brakes too late. A rideshare driver glances down just as traffic stops ahead. A privately owned car runs into the back of a trailer with no skid marks. Almost immediately, one question comes up:
Was the driver on their phone?
For both plaintiff and defense attorneys, cell phone records have become a key battlefield. They can validate or refute allegations of distracted driving, test the truth of driver logs, and illuminate a transportation company’s communication practices. But they can also expose a driver’s deeply personal life and drag in the privacy interests of people who never chose to be part of the lawsuit.
To frame the issue, last week I posted a LinkedIn poll for lawyers who handle these cases:
In commercial vehicle injury cases, what are the privacy implications of subpoenaing cell phone records?
The options included:
- Major privacy intrusion
- Limited, case‑specific impact
- Depends on consent/scope
- Mostly manageable risks
All four can be right, depending on how the subpoena is drafted and implemented. Below, we’ll walk through each of these perspectives with a focus on commercial vehicle cases, and then move into specific, practical tips for both plaintiff and defense attorneys.
Why Cell Phone Records Matter So Much in Commercial Vehicle Cases
Before getting to privacy, it’s worth grounding ourselves in why these records are so heavily contested.
What Attorneys Are Usually Looking For
In a typical commercial vehicle injury case, phone data might be sought to:
- Confirm or refute distracted driving
- Calls made or received shortly before the crash
- Texts or messages in the minutes leading up to impact
- Patterns of phone use while the vehicle was in motion
- Test logs and company narratives
- Whether the driver was truly off‑duty or resting when they claimed
- Whether dispatch or supervisors were calling/texting drivers at unsafe times
- Whether “no phone while driving” policies are actually followed in practice
- Identify broader safety issues
- A pattern of habitual cell phone use among drivers
- A dispatcher culture that encourages or tolerates calls and messages while on the road
This is why both sides care so deeply:
- Plaintiff attorneys see phone records as a way to turn suspicions of distraction into concrete evidence.
- Defense attorneys see them as a way to disprove exaggerated or unsupported claims and to show that a driver and carrier followed reasonable safety practices, or show a plaintiff was distracted.
The tension arises because the same data that answers those legitimate questions often contains far more than what’s actually needed to litigate the case.
When Subpoenas Feel Like a Major Privacy Intrusion
There are certainly scenarios where subpoenaing a commercial driver’s cell phone records is, in plain terms, a major invasion of privacy.
Mixed‑Use Devices and Long Timeframes
Many drivers use a single phone for both work and personal life. A broad subpoena—say, six months of call and text data, app activity, or location history—doesn’t just show what happened around the time of a crash. It also exposes:
- Patterns of communication such as the most frequently called numbers, maybe numbers that shouldn’t be called
- Areas frequented that could suggest medical appointments, religious affiliations, political activities, or something more personal and embarrassing
- Day/night and sleeping habits
Most of the time, very little of that is relevant to whether a company truck rear‑ended a car at 3:07 p.m. on a Tuesday.
When timeframes are long and data categories are broad, the process starts to look less like focused discovery and more like rummaging through someone’s digital diary. That’s when courts, clients, and juries may rightly see it as a “major privacy intrusion.”
Third‑Party and Location Privacy
Cell phone records also implicate third parties who never agreed to be part of the litigation: spouses, friends, doctors, clergy, support groups, or even confidential informants. Their numbers and interactions can show up in logs, and sometimes in content, purely because they interacted with a driver who happened to be in a crash.
Location data can be even more sensitive. Subpoenas that pull days or weeks of tower connections create maps of where the driver lives, worships, seeks treatment, spends personal time, and who they see. Used carelessly, that’s far beyond what’s needed to evaluate a single crash.
When obtaining records over a long period of time can’t be justified by the facts of the case, a complaint of intrusion is merited.
When the Impact Can Be Limited and Case‑Specific
On the other hand, the privacy implications can be much more restrained when requests are narrowly tailored to the issues and the event at hand.
Tight Windows and Targeted Data
Consider a case where the core dispute is simple: was the driver using their phone immediately before the collision?
A subpoena limited to:
- A 2-hour window before and after the crash, and
- Call Detail Records with voice, text, and data, and cell site location if justified
is far less invasive than one that seeks months of history.
In this scenario, attorneys still get what they truly need:
- Whether calls or texts occurred in the critical minutes
- The timing and frequency of communications
- Potential confirmation of focused or distracted behavior
- Location verification based on cell sites
But they are not cataloging the driver’s personal life over months or years.
Company‑Issued Devices and Policy Design
Some commercial carriers already operate in ways that naturally limit privacy issues:
- Issuing dedicated work phones used only for business communications
- Routing work communications through dispatch platforms or in‑cab devices
- Prohibiting personal use of work devices (and enforcing that rule)
When a subpoena targets these work‑only channels, the privacy burden is reduced. Counsel can credibly argue that the records are primarily business records tied to the driver’s professional role, not a cross‑section of their personal relationships.
In these better‑designed scenarios, the phrase “limited, case‑specific impact” fits well. There is still an intrusion, but it’s aligned with the actual needs of the case.
Note that the company must have a policy with safeguards that limit a driver’s ability to use a personal device while driving. Otherwise, if the driver does have access to a personal device, sending a subpoena for records from the personal device is reasonable.
Why “It Depends on Consent and Scope” Is Often the Real Answer
Between those two extremes sits a lot of gray area, which is why many lawyers instinctively answer: “It depends on consent and scope.”
Consent: Helpful, But Not a Cure‑All
Sometimes a driver genuinely wants records produced because they believe those records will prove they were not using their phone. They may sign authorizations, hand over devices, or cooperate with a forensic extraction. However, most phone companies will release only billing records at the request of the subscriber. These billing records are limited in usefulness as they generally show the time and duration of a call with an accuracy to the minute. When we stack the start time and the duration, the possible end time of a call would be within a two-minute window. In a commercial vehicle crash, that time window would be too broad.
The records we want for analysis are called Call Detail Records (CDRs) which are accurate to the second, contain cell site locations, and are considered proprietary information by the phone companies. Therefore, phone companies require a subpoena, court order, or search warrant to obtain CDRs regardless of the subscriber’s willingness to release the data.
Scope: The Real Battleground
In practice, scope is where courts and counsel spend most of their energy. Scope includes:
- Timeframe: Are we looking at 15 minutes, 24 hours, or 12 months?
- Data types: Just the phone records? Cell site locations? Device data? Third-party app data?
- Devices/accounts: Just the company phone? The driver’s personal phone? Dispatcher devices? Third‑party messaging apps? Other devices?
The narrower and more clearly justified the scope, the easier it is for a judge to say “yes,” and the easier it is for all involved to feel that the process is fair.
Frequently, the most defensible path is phased:
- Start with the least intrusive data (e.g., limited CDRs around the time of the crash).
- If that data raises legitimate new questions, ask for more—but explain why the incremental intrusion is justified.
In commercial vehicle litigation, this kind of staged, scoped approach often makes “it depends on consent/scope” not just a theoretical answer, but a practical roadmap.
How Risks Become “Mostly Manageable” with the Right Structures
Many experienced litigators would say that, while the risks are real, they’re mostly manageable when certain safeguards are in place.
Protective Orders and Confidentiality
Protective orders and Non-Disclosure Agreements are essential here. When courts enter orders that:
- Limit who can see phone data (e.g., attorneys, experts, the court),
- Restrict how the data can be used (only for this case), and
- Require return or destruction at the end of litigation,
they create a framework that contains most of the worst privacy outcomes.
Neutral Experts and Technical Filtering
In many commercial cases, the parties benefit from a neutral forensic expert or agreed‑upon vendor who:
- Obtains and analyzes the CDRs,
- Applies time filters tied to the crash, and
- Produces limited reports rather than full CDRs over time.
This reassures both sides—and the court—that no one is quietly sifting through unrelated data under the guise of a subpoena.
Corporate Design and Culture
Transportation companies can also reduce downstream privacy tension by how they operate:
- Keeping work and personal devices separate
- Training drivers on phone use and records expectations
- Designing policies that discourage any non‑essential phone use while driving
If those elements are in place and documented, defense counsel is in a better position to both protect privacy and show juries that their client takes safety seriously.
With these structures—protective orders, scoped subpoenas, neutral experts, and thoughtful company policies—the risks tied to phone records don’t vanish, but they become largely manageable in most commercial vehicle cases.
Practical Tips for Plaintiff and Defense Attorneys
To make this concrete, it helps to zoom in on how both sides can approach these issues in a way that is effective, credible, and respectful of privacy.
For Plaintiff Attorneys
- Tie your subpoena to a clear theory.
Before drafting, write down in one sentence why you need phone data: “I need to know whether the driver was using their phone in the 10–15 minutes before the collision.” Let that sentence shape the time window and data categories. - Narrow first, expand only if necessary.
Start with limited windows (e.g., 30 minutes before/after). If that data is clean and supportive, you may not need anything more. If it raises new questions, be prepared to show the court why additional data is justified. - Be prepared to explain proportionality.
Judges increasingly expect counsel to justify digital discovery requests under proportionality standards. Have a specific explanation ready for why each requested category and time period matters to liability or damages. - Handle sensitive information with restraint.
If you uncover highly personal but irrelevant information, resist the urge to use it just because it’s there. Judges and juries tend to notice when lawyers appear to exploit private details that have nothing to do with the actual claims.
For Defense Attorneys
- Push back on overbroad requests—constructively.
Don’t just say “no.” Offer alternatives: shorter timeframes, metadata instead of content, or the use of a neutral expert to limit and filter extractions. - Lean on policies and training.
If your client has clear “no phone while driving” policies and documented training, highlight them. If phone records corroborate compliance, they can be powerful defense evidence. - Protect your driver’s dignity.
Explain in plain language what’s being requested and how you plan to shield truly personal information. Advocate for protective orders and redactions where appropriate. - Think about optics at trial.
Even if you lawfully obtain broad data, ask whether introducing certain details will feel excessive to a jury. Sometimes a stipulation about limited facts—e.g., “there were no calls in the 15 minutes before the crash”—is better than introducing pages of raw logs.
For Both Sides
- Communicate with clients in non‑technical language about what is happening with their phone data.
- Document agreements on scope, deadlines, and technical protocols.
- Use sealing, redactions, and summaries where possible, rather than dropping full records into the public docket.
- Remember that behind every timestamp and phone number is a real person whose life is bigger than the lawsuit.
- Engage an expert early in the process.
Conclusion: In Commercial Vehicle Cases, the “How” Matters as Much as the “What”
Subpoenaing cell phone records in commercial vehicle
personal injury litigation is not inherently right or wrong. It can be:
- A
major privacy intrusion if drafted broadly and handled carelessly.
- A
limited, case‑specific tool when tied tightly to the event and the legal
issues.
- A
question that turns on consent and scope, especially when mixed‑use
devices and third‑party data are involved.
- A
source of mostly manageable risks when courts, carriers, and counsel build
appropriate safeguards.
For both plaintiff and defense attorneys, the real leverage
point is how you approach these records: how you define what you
actually need, how you explain it to your client and the court, and how you
protect the people behind the data.
In a world where nearly every commercial driver has a
powerful, data‑rich device within arm’s reach, striking the right balance
between evidence and privacy is no longer optional. It’s part of competent,
ethical advocacy—on either side of the “v.”
If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact
me at ben@braveinvestigations.com.