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Subject:Liability for manuals? From:geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA Date:Thu, 13 Nov 1997 16:50:22 -0600
Tim Altom told us <<... about Paladin Press being sued for
publishing its book on techniques for being a hit man.
Somebody bought it and used the techniques to kill a woman.
Her estate's suing Paladin.>>
Tim went on to wonder if a specific warning message such as
<<Mixing these two chemicals could result in an explosion,
toxic gas, and attendant death of bystanders>> was equally
suspect in a court of law.
There's a huge difference between the two. I'm not a
lawyer, not even on this list, but what I _have_ read about
the law is that the judge rules on such cases based largely
on intent. If the people at Paladin had written a clear and
detailed book on ways to avoid accidentally killing people,
and someone died anyway, they would almost certainly win
the case. Since they instead produced a book that
specifically breaks the laws of every civilized society I'm
familiar with, it's not rocket science to see why a judge
would throw out their first amendment protection. "Free
speech" has almost never been interpreted as the right to
break the laws of the land, particularly well-known and
time-tested laws that judges have already ruled an
acceptable way to constrain free speech.
In your example, liability will generally only result if
the injured party could prove that your warning was
inadequate, misleading, inaccurate, or otherwise likely to
lead to an injury. Of course, given the stories we hear
occasionally about the U.S. legal system, that's not to say
that a judge couldn't find just about anything actionable.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)} geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Disclaimer: Speaking for myself, not FERIC.
