Liability of products that are inherently risky (e.g. skateboard) How do manufacturers of products that necessarily imply risk deal with liability? Are they only liable if the product malfunctions in an unexpected and unpredictable way (e.g., the board breaks)? Does liability only apply when a product injures a user, but not when the users injures themselves using a product where harm cannot be excluded? Can they absolve themselves of liability by simply warning the user about risks?
united-states Theories Of Product Liability In Tort There are three basic theories of product liability in tort (setting aside breach of warranty claims) under state law in most U.S. states. Defective manufacturing. In this theory, there was a flaw in making the product that caused it not to conform to an otherwise good design, causing harm to the claimant. For example, if a fire alarm is designed to have a trigger that actives at a certain temperature, but the noise maker in the alarm melts and becomes inoperative at a temperature below the trigger temperature because the manufacturer uses plastic instead of the design requirement of metal for a part because of a temporary shortage of that metal, the manufacturer is liable for harm that results from the fire alarm's failure to activate at the trigger temperature. Defective design. In this theory, there was a flaw in the design of the product and that flaw caused harm to the claim and would have done so even if the product was perfectly manufactured consistently with the design. What constitutes a defective design? A company's liability for a design defect occurs when there was a foreseeable risk posed by the product when the product was manufactured as intended and used for its intended purposes. In many states, plaintiffs also have to show that the risk could have been reduced or avoided by the adoption of a reasonable alternative design, which was: Feasible, in other words, the manufacturer had the ability to produce it; Economically feasible, in other words, it would not cost too much to make the product with the modification; and Not in opposition to the product's intended purpose, in other words, the product would still perform the function for which it was created. (Source) For example, if a whiskey distilling vat generates high internal pressures that could cause it to explode if not alleviated, and the manufacturer does not include a pressure release valve in the design to prevent that explosion, the manufacturer would be liable for the harm caused by an explosion that occurs because there is not a pressure release valve in the design making it defective. Also, failure to comply with a regulatory standard intended to enhance safety in a design when that non-compliance causes harm (e.g. designing a car without seat belts), may be a design defect as a matter of law. Likewise, failure to comply with widely recognized non-legally adopted design standards in an industry intended to enhance safety in designs of particular kinds of products, when that non-compliance causes harm, will usually constitute open and shut proof of a design defect without further proof or analysis. Failure to warn. In this theory, the design of the product presents risks of harm to the user that are not obvious, which would be mitigated or eliminated if the user was given an adequate warming of the risk and followed that warning. For example, while the risk of harm from a knife is obvious and does not trigger a duty to warn, if a knife is made from a material that creates a toxic cloud of chlorine gas when exposed to bleach, the maker of a knife with this non-obvious risk needs to adequately warn potential users of the knife of the importance of not exposing it to bleach or the maker of the knife will have liability for bleach related harms to users that occur. Observations Product liability in tort is &quot;strict&quot; in the sense that there can be liability even if the manufacturer was not negligent. For example, in a defective manufacturing case, even if the manufacturer had the best quality control system in the world, if one item in a billion is defectively manufactured and causes harm as a result, the manufacturer is still liable. Similarly, in a defective design case, it is not a defense that a reasonable product designer took reasonable care to identify defects (e.g. holding brain storming sessions and reading any relevant studies) that didn't actually reveal the potential problem, if the design defect was foreseeable but the designer just didn't think of it anyway. And, in a failure to warn case, there can be liability even if the manufacturer was &quot;reasonable&quot; in the sense of providing the warnings customarily used by others in the industry but still fails to warn of a non-obvious risk that causes harm. Application Are they only liable if the product malfunctions in an unexpected and unpredictable way (e.g., the board breaks)? Not exactly. But if the product is causes harm while carrying out its intended purpose, that isn't a malfunction or defect. A gun isn't defective because it can be used to intentionally kill someone or commit suicide. Does liability only apply when a product injures a user, but not when the users injures themselves using a product where harm cannot be excluded? There is not liability if the user is not injured. If the user injures themselves using the product for the intended purpose this is also not a product liability issue unless the harm could have been avoided with a design change or warning of a non-obvious risk. Can they absolve themselves of liability by simply warning the user about risks? If a product has a design defect, merely warning a user of the design defect will usually not relieve the manufacturer from liability. For example, stating that the whiskey vat doesn't have a pressure relief valve and could explode, when it could have been designed with them with a $2 manufacturing cost change, won't relieve the manufacturer from liability if someone is harmed by the vat exploding because it doesn't have a pressure relief valve. In reality, there are gray areas where an alleged design defect that can be fully mitigated with a warning is really a design defect, but that's why we have judges, juries, and expert witnesses to resolve close cases where there are arguments to be made either way. A skateboard does have risks even when used for its intended purpose, most of which are obvious, but some of which (e.g. getting clothing entangled in a wheel) might not be. When there is no feasible way to eliminate the risks that are present, and warnings are provided when there are non-obvious risks, then there is no liability on the part of the manufacturer of the skateboard.
united-states The argument you are making, restated in legal terms, is roughly as follows: Users have a duty to not reuse passwords. When a user reuses a password, and their password is subsequently stolen and used to fraudulently access the plaintiff's system, that password reuse becomes the proximate cause of the plaintiff's business injury. Therefore, our storage of plaintext passwords cannot be the proximate cause, and so we cannot be liable. This argument is mostly wrong. Leaving aside the fact that you're going to have a tough time convincing a jury of #1, a tort may have more than one proximate cause. Both the password reuse and the plaintext storage were but-for causes of the injury (i.e. if either had not happened, then the injury would not have happened). The injury was foreseeable, because it is well known in the security industry that many users in fact do reuse their passwords, professional advice notwithstanding. In most US states, that's enough to establish proximate cause. In the minority of states using the &quot;direct causation&quot; test, you might be able to characterize the user's password reuse as an intervening cause, and thereby avoid liability. However, there are other elements of tort law which must be established aside from proximate cause, and so by itself this does not resolve the question of liability. Other defenses might be applicable; for example, the terms of service might contain an indemnification agreement, which (if upheld) would make the user(s) responsible. The defendant might also argue that there is no duty of care, that it was not breached, or that the injury was or should have been de minimis (i.e. that the plaintiff should have taken greater care to prevent damages arising from account hijacking).
If you have a contract with another party, you can in principle sue them for damages if they breach the contract. Since you mentioned Stackoverflow, we would look at that contract, here. There is a bunch of stuff you can't do, and a bunch of stuff you can do. One thing that you will note is that their liability is highly limited (big print §9 Limitation of Liability). Also note in §4: Stack Overflow reserves the right to refuse, suspend or terminate your access to the public Network if it determines, in its sole discretion, that you have in any way violated these Public Network Terms or are otherwise ineligible to access or use the Network or Services. If your actions are determined by us to violate these Public Network Terms, Stack Overflow may, in its sole discretion, try to remediate that violation by working with you individually, but is under no obligation to do so, and if any such remediation efforts are unsuccessful (in Stack Overflow’s sole discretion), then Stack Overflow may revoke your rights to the Network. So they get to ban you, if they decided that your actions warrant. If you try to sue them, they will win because of this clause.
The EULA is in most jurisdictions a legally binding contract; there is plenty of case law that supports this. You can only be liable under a contract for breaching its terms and only to the extent that the other party suffers harm from that breach. Clearly, if you haven't read the terms then you are greatly increasing the chance that you will inadvertently breach them but not reading them would not, of itself, be a breach and I can't see what harm could flow anyway.
In the US, due to free speech protections (i.e. the first amendment), it seems that the majority of lawsuits for negligent publication fail. It's worth noting that the author might be more liable than the publisher, since the publisher typically isn't expected to have the expertise to catch such errors. More cases and details can be found here. The only case I've found where a publisher was held liable for negligent publication of a textbook is the following. Note that it's somewhat old, and standards for products liability have likely changed since. D. Wallis, &quot;Negligent publishing&quot; Implications for University Publishers: On September 4, 1980, a jury in the U.S. District Court in Springfield, Massachusetts awarded C. Carter $100,000 in her suit against Rand McNally Publishing Company. C. Carter, an eighth grade chemistry student had been severely burned during a chemistry class while attempting an experiment described in a textbook published by Rand McNally. This experiment called for the use of methyl alcohol, a highly inflammable substance. The plaintiff argued, and the jury agreed, that her injuries were caused, in part, by the publishing company's negligent failure to adequately warn students and teachers about the dangerous qualities of these experiments. Rand McNally did not appeal the verdict. This case is of special interest to publishing companies because it is the first time a book had been considered a &quot;product&quot; and the first time products liability theory has been used to impose liability upon a publishing house for an injury caused by technical information contained within a textbook. In this case it's not clear whether the disclaimer was present or not. However, there is nothing magical about a disclaimer that would stop lawsuits from occurring, nor do they automatically protect against liability: The &quot;disclaimer,&quot; although it will rarely be effective in shielding the publisher from liability if the court finds that the publisher breached its duty of care to the reader, is more likely to be effective by demonstrating that the publisher did not make any specific guarantees regarding the safety or reliability of the contents of the publication.
Maybe, Hence the Lawsuits In the absence of clear statute law these all circle around tort law. For the scooter companies, trespass to chattels, and for the affected landowners (who hire the removalists) trespass to land and nuisance seem applicable. In essence, I can’t take your stuff (trespass to chattels) but you can’t leave your stuff on my property (trespass to land) or impeding access to it (nuisance). If you do, I am entitled to the reasonable costs of dealing with it. Note that, as owner, you remain responsible for you stuff even if you rented it to someone else. Both sides are pushing hard into unexplored areas of law so we await the judgement with interest. Then we’ll know.
What happens is the same as if you were an employee in the office, staying with the company for another few years. You are an agent for the company, and everything you do is as if the company was doing it (except for extreme circumstances). A company employee broke your laptop. It's the company's problem. They should have insurance for this kind of thing. And they told you to work from home, so if something happened because you are at home, that's the company's problem as well. It could be different if your company had told their employees not to have any fluids anywhere near their computers, and you had acted against this. Or my company doesn't allow me to take my works computer with me on a holiday; if I did without explicit permission and it got damaged, that would be my problem.
First, lets look at the entire section: 4.4 IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH IN ISRG’S CERTIFICATE POLICY AND CERTIFICATE PRACTICE STATEMENT, LET’S ENCRYPT CERTIFICATES AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS-IS” AND ISRG DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY TYPE, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING AND WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, IN CONNECTION WITH ANY ISRG SERVICE OR LET’S ENCRYPT CERTIFICATE. BECAUSE LET’S ENCRYPT CERTIFICATES ARE ISSUED FREE-OF-CHARGE AS A PUBLIC SERVICE, ISRG CANNOT ACCEPT ANY LIABILITY FOR ANY LOSS, HARM, CLAIM, OR ATTORNEY’S FEES IN CONNECTION WITH SUCH CERTIFICATES. ACCORDINGLY, YOU AGREE THAT ISRG WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, ATTORNEY’S FEES, OR RECOVERY, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER SUCH DAMAGES ARE DIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR COMPENSATORY, EVEN IF ISRG HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. THIS LIMITATION ON LIABILITY APPLIES IRRESPECTIVE OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY, I.E., WHETHER THE THEORY OF LIABILITY IS BASED UPON CONTRACT, WARRANTY, INDEMNIFICATION, CONTRIBUTION, TORT, EQUITY, STATUTE OR REGULATION, COMMON LAW, OR ANY OTHER SOURCE OF LAW, STANDARD OF CARE, CATEGORY OF CLAIM, NOTION OF FAULT OR RESPONSIBILITY, OR THEORY OF RECOVERY. THE PARTIES AGREE THAT THIS DISCLAIMER IS INTENDED TO BE CONSTRUED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT ALLOWED BY APPLICABLE LAW. BY WAY OF FURTHER EXPLANATION REGARDING THE SCOPE OF THE DISCLAIMER, AND WITHOUT WAIVING OR LIMITING THE FOREGOING IN ANY WAY, ISRG DOES NOT MAKE, AND ISRG EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS, ANY WARRANTY REGARDING ITS RIGHT TO USE ANY TECHNOLOGY, INVENTION, TECHNICAL DESIGN, PROCESS, OR BUSINESS METHOD USED IN EITHER ISSUING LET’S ENCRYPT CERTIFICATES OR PROVIDING ANY OF ISRG’S SERVICES. YOU AFFIRMATIVELY AND EXPRESSLY WAIVE THE RIGHT TO HOLD ISRG RESPONSIBLE IN ANY WAY, OR SEEK INDEMNIFICATION AGAINST ISRG, FOR ANY INFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, INCLUDING PATENT, TRADEMARK, TRADE SECRET, OR COPYRIGHT. The first part that you notice is that in the first section is this sentence: LET’S ENCRYPT CERTIFICATES AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS-IS” AND ISRG DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY TYPE, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING AND WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, Which basically says that "we won't provide any statement to guarantee that our services/certificates don't infringe on another work, or that they are fit for your particular use". The real point of this indemnification section is in the second paragraph: BECAUSE LET’S ENCRYPT CERTIFICATES ARE ISSUED FREE-OF-CHARGE AS A PUBLIC SERVICE, ISRG CANNOT ACCEPT ANY [...] They are too poor to afford lawyers, so they are saying that you must agree not to sue them if you suffer any damages as a result of using the service/certificates. This is not a license granted by you to steal anything you don't expressly give them license to do so. Let's take an example: Let's Encrypt (LE) gives you (Customer) a certificate. That certificate, knowingly or unknowingly, infringes upon a patent owned by XYZ. XYZ sues LE and the judge orders LE to revoke all certificates using XYZ technology. Your site is now shown as unsafe and your payment process doesn't work. You lose $100k in revenue getting your site back up with another certificate company. According to this agreement, you cannot sue LE for that. XYZ could go even further and sue you, even though you unknowingly had been using that patent. Again you can't turn around and sue LE to recover anything XYZ recovers from you (or even the fees you spend to win). What you are not granting to LE is a right to "steal" any technology on any site/system that the certificate or service is used on. This agreement, in its entirety, is between LE and you for the use of LE services/certificates. Even if LE somehow steals from you, this would not indemnify them for that.