werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) (08/27/86)
InfoWorld of 86/8/18 contains a feature article written by Alice LaPlante with the headline and abstract cited above, which may be of interest to this group. In it she describes how some people try to protect themselves from legal hassles, describes some (relatively) famous court cases (bad credit rating due to incorrect SSN# - plaintiff won; 4 lobster-fishermen drowning due to bad weather-forecast - US govmt was held responsible; '73 crash of military charter in Alaska due to incorrect Jeppeson map - Jeppeson was held 'strictly responsible' even though the FAA had provided the deficient information to the chart maker (approach procedures) which had to be reproduced exactly . In a separate section titled "On-Line Services Are Worried About Liability" she addresses growing concern among information providers, focusing on a recent case (Greenmoss vs Dun & Bradstreet) where D&B, which reports companies' financial information to its online clients, accidentally listed Greenmoss as bankrupt. G won libel suit that was heard by the US Supreme Court in June 1985.
campbell@maynard.UUCP (Larry Campbell) (08/31/86)
In article <3890@ut-ngp.UUCP> werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) writes: >InfoWorld of 86/8/18 contains a feature article written by Alice LaPlante ... > >In it she describes how some people try to protect themselves from legal >hassles, describes some (relatively) famous court cases (bad credit rating >due to incorrect SSN# - plaintiff won; 4 lobster-fishermen drowning due to bad >weather-forecast - US govmt was held responsible; ... The fishermen/weather service verdict was recently overturned on appeal. -- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. ARPA: campbell%maynard.uucp@harvard.ARPA 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109 UUCP: {alliant,wjh12}!maynard!campbell (617) 367-6846
ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (09/04/86)
What is even more disturbing is that you may sued even if your incorrect information is irrelevent. The US government was sued for having a radio tower drawn a quarter of mile off on an aeronautical map. A man's estate sucessfully sued the government when he struck the tower even though FAA regulations were violated if he were indeed using the map to avoid the tower (even during instrument flying there are minimum altitudes that are above all obstructions, you are not permitted to fly around things using a map). It was further found that he had the map folded up and in the back seat of the plane and was using a different map that had the tower indicated in the correct place when he crashed. -Ron