Full Disclosure mailing list archives
Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached?
From: Nick FitzGerald <nick () virus-l demon co uk>
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:31:36 +1300
Kelly Robinson wrote:
It is common these days for email messages to contain a disclosure notice, which may include statements such as: - You must read the notice - The views expressed in the accompanying email are not necessarily those of the company - The email and any attachments should be checked for viruses. Do these notices carry any *legal* force? Why or Why not?
Do we look like "Lawyers'R'Us" ??? In which country's, or countries', legal system(s) are you going to apply the advice you get? In general though, the feeling here (from past discussions of such things) is that they seem unlikely to be at all enforceable if they try to enforce an action or liability _on the receiver_ (the typical "if you are not the intended recipient of this message, immediately inform us, delete all copies, etc, etc" type thing) _and_ there is not already some kind of relationship between sender and receiver that may make such terms in some sense "reasonable". However, if they are simple disclaimers of the _sender's_ responsibility they may well be meaningful (your typical "nothing in this message should be construed as legal [or financial] advice..." thing from law [financial/banking] firms, possibly your second example above though note the following point, etc). There are further issues surrounding wordings such as "may", "could possibly", etc conjoined with absolute conditions, that suggest most companies that include these kinds of "disclaimers", "terms enforcers", etc never bothered to run the idea and/or wording past their lawyers, or they did but ignored the advice they got, or they have grossly incompetent lawyers... Oh, and need I say IANAL ??? Regards, Nick FitzGerald _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.grok.org.uk/full-disclosure-charter.html Hosted and sponsored by Secunia - http://secunia.com/
Current thread:
- Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Kelly Robinson (Oct 10)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? gjgowey (Oct 10)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Nick FitzGerald (Oct 10)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable ifbreached? gjgowey (Oct 10)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable ifbreached? Kelly Robinson (Oct 10)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable ifbreached? Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 11)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Nick FitzGerald (Oct 10)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? gjgowey (Oct 10)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Ray P (Oct 10)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Troy (Oct 10)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Valdis . Kletnieks (Oct 11)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Troy (Oct 11)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Ray P (Oct 11)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Troy (Oct 11)
- Re: Email Disclaimers...Legally Liable if breached? Ray P (Oct 13)