[Gllug] Legal precedent for email disclaimers

[NorthLondon John]

On 27 May 2004, at 12:21, Tethys wrote:

>
> Does anyone know of any legal precent for the validity or otherwise of
> email disclaimers? I'm not looking for the opinion of laymen here -- 
> I've
> already tried that approach, and the legal people aren't having any of 
> it,
> and without anything to back up my position, future email from me may 
> well
> have 27 billion lines of legal boilerplate attached, a situation I'd 
> rather
> avoid...
>
> I'm looking for specific cases that have gone before a judge in a UK 
> court,
> so I can point the them and say "In Foo vs Bar, the judge said XYZ".
>

IANAL.

To the best of my knowledge, this is a legal gray area - no precedent 
has been set, so it is impossible to give a definitive answer.

Furthermore, this question covers a lot of different legal areas: 
privacy, company record keeping, whistleblowing, laws of evidence, 
employment law, etc.
It will also depend on whether the email is being cited in a civil or 
criminal case, how it was obtained, etc.
So there won't be one definitive case.

Frankly, in your position, I'd make the legal people justify their 
decision. You may not be able to point to case Foo vs Bar, but nor can 
they. Make them give their reasons, setting out exactly how a 
disclaimer will protect the company, and what it will protect the 
company from.

John

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