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From: sasaki@harvard.ARPA (Marty Sasaki)
Newsgroups: net.ai
Subject: liability
Message-ID: <89@harvard.ARPA>
Date: Sat, 13-Oct-84 04:17:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: harvard.89
Posted: Sat Oct 13 04:17:50 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Oct-84 01:47:04 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Aiken Computation Laboratory, Harvard
Lines: 19

The world of Data Processing has already solved the kinds of problems
outlined in the various articles about the liability of expert systems.
Contracts for things like DBMSs always have a clause that specifically
says that the company is not liable for any damage to the client even
if the problem is obviously the fault of the software. The most that a
client can claim is the cost of the software package.

This has been tested in court several times and the decision is connected
directly with how the contract was written. If the contract was written
in a way which truly removed the liability from the software company, then
they won, otherwise the client won.

The legal issue is one entirely of legalese. This doesn't solve the moral
or ethical side though, which is what this group is really discussing.

-- 
			Marty Sasaki
			Havard University Science Center
			sasaki@harvard.{arpa,uucp}