At 09:19 PM 1/2/97 -0500, Penn Jennings wrote:
>I have talked to 2 attorneys about this subject. I also sent mail to a
>friend at the State Attorney General Office but have not gotten a reply yet.
>Here is the conclusion from 2 attorneys as it relates to negligence.
>
>As the List MANAGER (Note the word manager) you MAY be negligent if you fail
>to protect members from dangers that are foreseeable and avoidable. If
>several users complain that one of your members has threatened to kill them
>and you do nothing you may be "knee deep in the doo-doo" if that member does
>kill or harm someone. Why? Once you were notified of the danger future
>damage was definitely foreseeable the next question is was it avoidable from
>the perspective of a ordinary, reasonable and prudent person. Since we all
>remove users when their mailboxes fill or their accounts are removed, member
>removal is a valid action.
This makes *no* sense. If one of my users is threatening to kill another,
what duty do I have to unsubscribe the threatening party? That will not
prevent his threatening other users. I may have other duties, but I think
taking the offending party off the list is not really aimed at the real
problem. The issue, as you state, is whether the danger is avoidable.
Maybe, but it likely won't be headed off by taking someone off a mailing
list, unless I've missed something.
>
>PLEASE: Do not send me lay person opinions of law. My mail box is folding
>under the weight people telling me that list managers have no legal duties.
>After receiving legal advice from people who have passed the bar I think I'm
>all set. :)
Well, this is the opinion of someone who *has* passed the bar. I don't know
what kind of scenario you laid out for those attorneys, but this really
makes no sense. It's like saying, "You know that X is stalking Y with the
intent to kill him/her, so you have a duty to immediately have X's car towed
for being in a loading zone."
Tracey McCartney, Esq.
fair_housing-owner@majordomo.pobox.com
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