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From: werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig)
Newsgroups: net.legal,net.mail
Subject: Liability in the Information Age (InfoWorld, 86/8/18)
Message-ID: <3890@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 27-Aug-86 15:31:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.3890
Posted: Wed Aug 27 15:31:30 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Aug-86 21:12:49 EDT
Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas
Lines: 17
Keywords: article [on some] legal aspects [and] actual cases
Summary: If your corporation is part of an 'information chain', you may find yourself in court someday for providing, processing, or even passing on incorrect information
Xref: mnetor net.legal:3390 net.mail:1065

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.