Annual tirade #422

[dsrtao]

Email disclaimers. Do not use. Bad idea. Your company looks foolish, not professional.

If you are an exception, you are a lawyer.

If you send one to a mailing list, it looks particularly stupid to have a "you must immediately destroy this information and report it to me" disclaimer.

If you are in sales, having "The statements and opinions expressed in this e-mail do not necessarily represent those of $COMPANY" at the bottom of your message looks really foolish. Yes, I mean you.

If your company is doing this, find out why. Persuade the person who made this decision to work for a competitor. Your company will prosper.

Comments

[dsrtao]

Case 3 is a contract case, in which the contract is going to be scrutinized, almost certainly according to the UCC article 2, and the warranties and representations clauses will be considered. At worst, your off-hand comment will be taken as an inducement to sign the contract, not part of the contract itself.

Case 4: how is this different if the disclaimer exists, but the defendant points to all the other email that sent from the company
which bears the same disclaimer but implicitly or explicitly tells the receiver to ignore said disclaimer? Because that's what's going to happen.

Using them on all email is stupid. Placing them at the bottom is stupid. Pretending that they ensure confidentiality is stupid. Hoping that they will keep you out of court is stupid.

And making the company look stupid is not very clever.

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

I'll agree that putting the disclaimer on every piece of mail is silly, unless you *never* have anyone speaking on behalf of the company via email. And at that point, why have email connectivity.

For better or worse, these disclaimers are the standard. You know the companies I deal with; every single one, without exception (as far as I can tell), uses a disclaimer of some form. I've heard tell (though I can't point you at a specific instance) where these disclaimers *have* tipped the balance. Doesn't mean it makes sense, doesn't make them right. It just means that they have a reason for being there. The *lawyers* I deal with aren't bandwagon types; they really do know their jobs and have reasons for doing the things.

But I still think they're stupid in reality. Sadly, the law is not reality.