Timeline for Is there a Stack Exchange site for Law Questions? If not, why not?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
33 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jun 15, 2015 at 17:53 | comment | added | user1228 | @bgfriend0 I'm not an attorney, but I play one on the internets. | |
| Jun 15, 2015 at 17:28 | comment | added | bgfriend0 | Lol, @Won't, I think that's another extreme argument. By no means is this asking for sweeping immunity. It's established law that some disclaimers can discharge liability--in our case, disclaimers that warn not to use the forum for legal advice. You'd be asking for a declaratory ruling validating the disclaimer--no more, no less. It's not even immunity. Either the disclaimer is valid, or it's not, and the disclaimer is scoped to discharging liability accrued for misusing the forum as legal advice. Again, I'm no attorney, so if you are I'd give your opinion more weight. I'm just curious. | |
| Jun 15, 2015 at 17:07 | comment | added | user1228 | @bgfriend0 If you can find citations where it has been used to provide a service sweeping immunity from any and all lawsuits brought by users of that service, then add an answer to the question and make an argument that it's totally risk-free. I'm not really interested in it otherwise, as it does not provide adequate protection in this situation. | |
| Jun 15, 2015 at 16:56 | comment | added | bgfriend0 | @Won't I think that's reductio ad absurdum. I think we have to assume the justice system is not broken and corrupt, otherwise we could come up with counterexamples for everything. Anyway, I was curious so Google'd declarative relief and found this on Wikipedia: "A declaratory judgment... is the legal determination of a court that resolves legal uncertainty for the litigants. It is a form of legally binding preventive adjudication by which a party involved in an actual or possible legal matter can ask a court to conclusively rule on and affirm the rights, duties, or obligations...." | |
| Jun 15, 2015 at 12:51 | comment | added | user1228 | @bgfriend0 I have no idea if the concept of declarative relief exists and if it is accepted in America. I'd doubt it highly. Consider--my horribly corrupt friend is a judge. He gives me DR that I can walk into banks and rob them. Does it hold? | |
| Jun 14, 2015 at 7:24 | comment | added | bgfriend0 | Sorry, typo in first line. "Should not be" should be "should be." Time to edit has expired. Also, that was a fun line to type. | |
| Jun 14, 2015 at 6:19 | comment | added | bgfriend0 | So here's my digest so far: An SO for law should not be prohibited because SO/others could be liable for bad law advice. Counter: Post up a disclaimer/make everyone agree to something that limits such liablity. Counter to counter: A disclaimer may not adequately discharge such liability. So this is what I'm wondering (I am no lawyer!): in such a case as this, where someone reasonably fears a palpable liability, can't one ask a court for declarative relief? I.e., go to the court, say here's what we want to do, here's our disclaimer, here's what we're assuming it protects us from--IS THIS VALID? | |
| Feb 3, 2015 at 3:04 | comment | added | candied_orange | I once got some very bad legal advice in written form. I'm suing the company that manufactured the paper it was written on. Gotta love this system. Wish me luck. : ) | |
| Nov 16, 2014 at 8:38 | comment | added | tripleee | Of all places with a legal system in the world, don't run the site in the United States of America. Problem solved (at least until the U.S. corporate juggernaut machine forces something like the <del>PITA</del>TTIP on the civilized world). | |
| May 5, 2014 at 16:44 | comment | added | Ben Collins Mod | I don't think it's so much "pooping in the Bear's woods" as it is the "reasonable expectations" that come into play when you represent yourself as an expert on the law because such representations are regulated by licensing boards. This is also true of medicine: you get in trouble if you give medical advice not because you piss off doctors, but because you represent yourself as an expert under a regime that has a legal framework for such representation. | |
| May 5, 2014 at 15:38 | history | edited | LauraStaffMod | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
removed a bit implying sexual assault, which was unnecessary to the point being made
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| Sep 4, 2013 at 18:35 | comment | added | Jonathon | Yes, but that is for everything. Bad advise in any discipline can cause you be to killed, maimed, or suffer horribly. If we took this argument as correct, advice on how to operate a chainsaw would be the riskiest advise to give, not legal advise. | |
| Jun 7, 2013 at 5:49 | comment | added | isaacparrot | I need some legal advice about software for myself. I'm not so much asking 'will I get in trouble for doing this' as much as I'm asking 'what can you tell me about this, and what else should I think about/consider.' | |
| Apr 30, 2013 at 7:26 | comment | added | Slipp D. Thompson | @Won't: And we're all here for you if you need further emotional support. Also, don't sue Stack Exchange, Inc. You won't win, and you'll just be wasting yet more of your own and others' precious and wonderful lives. | |
| Apr 30, 2013 at 7:24 | comment | added | Slipp D. Thompson | @Won't: You did?! That was a stupid mistake now, wasn't it. Hopefully now you've learned your lesson, and won't be so gullible as to take things you read online on non-government websites as infallible fact. Also, be thankful you were only in prison for a relatively short time, and that you're out now and can move on. | |
| Mar 19, 2013 at 16:25 | comment | added | user1228 | @ToddR: giving legal advice is 100% different than everything else, as you are ... pooping in the bear's woods, so to speak. And medicine is a close second, for obvious reasons (I took your advice and blarg). Yeah, you can get in legal trouble everywhere, but the risk is not equal in all fields. | |
| Mar 19, 2013 at 14:30 | comment | added | ToddR | Isn't every contributor on every StackExchange site (and SE itself, for that matter) open to this same kind of risk? If I give someone advice on StackOverflow and their acting upon it somehow costs them their job, couldn't they sue me and SO over that? Why does it seem like only doctors and lawyers are paranoid about this sort of thing? Is it just that the crazy amount of litigation in their industries make a suit much more likely? Or is there some other fundamental difference? | |
| Mar 11, 2013 at 11:03 | comment | added | Shea | "disclaimers! disclaimers as far as the eyes can see!!" even then, I don't think that keeps people from trying to sue you, and wasting yours and everyone else's time. | |
| Jan 8, 2013 at 16:58 | comment | added | Philip Couling | Am I the only one who feels that there is something terribly wrong with a legal system that makes it impossible for people to safely discuss the law "to the best of their knowledge". How are people supposed to learn about the law and how are they expected to know it in order to keep it, if we can't openly discuss it? | |
| Jul 18, 2011 at 12:16 | comment | added | user1228 | @hippietrail: Nobody has gone to jail for suggesting the wrong GoF pattern, but plenty are in jail now for providing and taking incompetent legal advice. | |
| Jul 18, 2011 at 9:10 | comment | added | hippietrail | Is this an argument against law questions or an argument against all advice? | |
| May 13, 2011 at 19:16 | comment | added | Nicole | @Will Your argument in the second comment: The absurdity of a disclaimer announcing you intend to break the law. Bobby didn't suggest a disclaimer that would allow you to break the law. That's a straw man argument, then. | |
| May 13, 2011 at 19:09 | comment | added | user1228 | @Renesis: If you believe the disclaimer is a straw argument, you should have atted-Bobby, not me. | |
| May 13, 2011 at 18:22 | comment | added | Nicole | @Will - Don't misconstrue my point. All I'm saying is that a straw man argument doesn't really add anything to this discussion. | |
| May 13, 2011 at 18:16 | history | edited | user1228 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
BigSchween01 and 02 were already taken.
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| May 13, 2011 at 18:15 | comment | added | user1228 | @Renesis: Disclaimers may save you from legal liabilities in some cases but it won't save your ass from having to prove it in court. And, again, you are creating a website specifically to share legal advice. How can you claim that you are protected by a disclaimer stating that the legal advice given on the website should not be taken seriously? | |
| May 13, 2011 at 16:25 | comment | added | Nicole | @Will A disclaimer stating you intend to break the law is not what is under discussion here. | |
| May 13, 2011 at 13:37 | comment | added | user1228 | @Bobby: If you have a website who's sole purpose is to answer legal questions can you possibly suggest that a disclaimer saying "don't take our advice, consult your lawyer, lol" will work in a court of law? | |
| May 13, 2011 at 13:37 | comment | added | Time Traveling Bobby | If the user hits agree when he gets told that "we can't guarantee anything and Stack Exchange had nothing to do with it" then that's his problem. I mean, Microsoft never got suit for all the havoc their software caused. Neither got General Motors. I've also never heard that a forum user got suit based on their advice to anyone. | |
| May 13, 2011 at 13:33 | comment | added | Time Traveling Bobby | @Will don't give a ♦: If I'm allowed to quote Wikipedia: "The courts may or may not give effect to the disclaimer depending on whether the law permits exclusion of liability in the particular situation..." But I understand your point absolutely, a disclaimer is of course not an allround-always-working excuse, but I think (and by that I mean that I have no idea about U.S. jurisdiction whatsoever) that it is in this case. tbc | |
| May 13, 2011 at 13:24 | comment | added | user1228 | @Bobby: On your advice, I placed a disclaimer on my door that any female who enters may be molested. I was subsequently arrested and spent the next five years in jail. I am now going to sue you for everything you have owned, wanted to own, have seen, your family members have owned or thought about owning, and stuff you couldn't possibly want or afford. | |
| May 13, 2011 at 13:21 | comment | added | Time Traveling Bobby | That's what disclaimers are for. ;) | |
| May 13, 2011 at 13:16 | history | answered | user1228 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |