One of the things that I remember from my 'Introduction to Insurance' class
that I took over 20 years ago, was the discussion of the parking garage
warnings. You have all seen them. It's a big sign that states that the
garage will not be liable for any loss or damage to your car or its
contents. What they taught us in class was that the existence, or lack, of
such a sign had no impact on the liability of the garage. If the damage or
loss was due to their negligence, then they were liable, even with the sign
posted. If the damage or loss was not their fault, then they were not
liable, even if they had no sign. The only purpose of the sign was to
dissuade the public from claiming damages.
I have always suspected the same with the warning about e-mails. The
existence or absence of that paragraph at the end of an e-mail should not
have any effect on your liability for disclosure. If you can be held
liable for disclosure of non-public information that you received, even if
inadvertent, then you are liable whether or not such a note exists. The
only purpose of the warning is to dussuade you from doing things the sender
( or more accurately the senders lawyers ) don't want you to do.
I suspect that you see these notes on fax and e-mail and not on snail mail
because people have come to trust the snail mail in ways that they do not
trust electronic communications. If you are among the trusting, give me a
call and I'll tell you the story of the snail mail that my dad received at
his brother's in NJ even though it was correctly addressed to him in NC!
Rich
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