Saskatoon judge fined in B.C. for using cellphone

Court rejects defence that phone fell from console and was being picked up

Although a Saskatoon provincial court judge says he was not actively using his cellphone when he was holding it while stopped in traffic, a B.C. judge convicted him of the offence because the phone wasn’t properly secured to his van while its navigation was in use.

Brent Klause recently argued his case at a traffic court trial in Kelowna, where he was ticketed in April 2018 after an officer on a motorcycle “observed that the driver had a cellphone device in the right hand, held above the centre console,” according to a Sept. 18 court decision.

Klause testified he was picking his phone up off the floor. It slid out of the console when he hit the brakes in reaction to a person who abruptly stopped in front of him, Klause told court.

The Saskatoon judge also said he was not texting or communicating in any way during the approximately 10 seconds it took him to put the phone back in its spot.

However, the device was being used for navigational purposes, Judicial Justice Brian Burgess wrote in his decision.

He pointed to a section of the law that states a global positioning system on a hand-held device may be used while driving as long as the device is “secured to the vehicle in a manner that does not obstruct the person’s view” or interfere with the vehicle’s operating equipment.

“So simply having it in hand even momentarily is holding it in a position (in) which it may be used. Operating a device for navigational purposes, it must be securely fixed to the motor vehicle and was not,” Burgess determined.

Klause drove from Saskatchewan to British Columbia to go antique shopping and was using the phone’s navigation device to find a store, the document states.

He testified that he plugged the phone into a charger and entered the directions while he was in a parking lot.

The officer said Klause mentioned being lost when he was

pulled over. He could not say if Klause was actively using the cellphone.

“There are no notes of Mr. Klause texting and no notes of Mr. Klause’s lips moving,” according to the decision.

Klause, whose position as a judge was not referenced in the decision, was fined $275, which he agreed to pay by the end of October. When contacted, he declined to comment further on the case.