Copyright as protection against liability (Take II)

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Kevin McLauchlan reports: <<I seem to be receiving the impression that, even
as a salaried tech writer for a network security and encryption products
company, I should go out and find myself some professional liability
insurance>>

Probably not. If you're an employee, and you take reasonable pains to
produce safe, correct information (i.e., persuade the SMEs whose job it is
to be expert to take responsibility for using that expertise), you're likely
safe. As Bruce already noted, the odds of someone successfully sueing you
(rather than your company) are slim; most people wouldn't even try to do so.
However, if your company doesn't already have its own liability insurance,
and doesn't cover your work with that insurance, then I'd be much more
concerned about protecting myself.

<<anybody suing my employer would naturally cast the net as widely as
possible, in hopes of strip-mining any pocket that comes within reach>>

Let's hear it for the American legal system! <gdr> I can't speak with
authority on this, but my understanding is that "piercing the corporate
veil" is sufficiently difficult that this approach would be unlikely.

<<if my company was successfully sued (or even spent a lot of money fending
off a suit...) they might in turn sue me to recover some of their costs?>>

Again, although that's possible, it's extremely unlikely they'd try or
succeed; more likely, they'd have long since decided that you were
incompetent and would use this as an excuse to fire you. Let's put it this
way: as the writer, you are _not_ the expert on the product you're
documenting, even if that might seem to be the case to readers of the
documentation who know much less than you know. Since you're not an expert,
it would be unreasonable to expect you to take responsibility for accuracy
and safety information that only the experts could be expected to know. If
they don't provide that information, how could you be expected to discover
it--telepathy?

<<Between a salaried/employee tech writer and a contract tech writer, should
an insurer prefer (or give preferential 
rates to) the salaried one?>>

I'd assume so, given that a salaried should already be covered by their
employer's insurance. If you want a reliable answer, though, talk to your
personnel department about the company's insurance, then call your local
insurance broker to supplement your info.

<<I'd be interested to know how many contractors do have professional
liability insurance.>>

This issue has come up various times since the creation of techwr-l, and
there are always some writers who report that carrying "errors and
omissions" insurance was the requirement for one or more contracts they
accepted. I personally don't carry any such insurance for the freelance work
that I do, but primarily because I'm editing basic scientific research.
Although I have a fair bit to say about the science in some cases, there's
an entire journal peer-review process to catch really serious problems, and
the subject matter is generally several steps removed from anyone being able
to use it to harm themselves or others. Were I documenting work processes,
machinery, policies and procedures, or software with the potential for
causing serious financial or other losses, I'd have to reconsider this
approach. Ditto were I editing financial and marketing information that I
knew to be deceptive, though in that case due diligence would likely make me
drop the contract or insist that the client change things (for the company's
own protection against perpetrating a fraud). In fact, I did walk away from
one contract way back when for similar reasons.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
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"The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is
by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause
accidents."-- Nathaniel Borenstein

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