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From: stevev@tekchips.UUCP (Steve Vegdahl)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: a new topic, perhaps ...
Message-ID: <35@tekchips.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 29-Aug-84 15:55:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekchips.35
Posted: Wed Aug 29 15:55:51 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 31-Aug-84 05:47:54 EDT
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 28

> I've been under the impression that if someone sends you something
> in the mail, it cannot place you under any obligation to reply
> or return or ... unless of course an obligation exists beforehand (eg
> you receive a bill for something that you bought last month ...)
> I also understood that this was a provision of Federal law and as such
> would supersede all state law.

My "People's Court" understanding of the law is that if someone sends you
a letter (particularly if it's certified) stating a legal position (e.g.,
that you are violating their rights, owe them something, etc.), the fact
that you receive it and do not respond can be interpreted by the court as
having implicitly agreed to its interpretation.

An example that comes to mind is that a certain graduate student had
developed a piece of software.  His understanding upon enrollment were
that he had rights to anything he developed there as a graduate student.
Certain members of the university administration, however believed that
they had marketing rights and began selling it.  The university was sent
a letter an from attorney of the company to which the graduate student
had transferred marketing rights stating that they had no business selling
it.  Had the university failed to respond, it would have been (almost?) as
bad as admitting that they did not have marketing rights.

(The graduate student won out in the end in this case, anyway.)

		Steve Vegdahl
		Tektronix, Inc.
		Beaverton, Oregon