[26450] in bugtraq
Re: It takes two to tango
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Riad S. Wahby)
Wed Jul 31 16:56:14 2002
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 15:19:06 -0400
From: "Riad S. Wahby" <rsw@jfet.org>
To: bugtraq@securityfocus.com
Message-ID: <20020731151906.A21385@positron.quux>
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In-Reply-To: <49ffkuo4l41cbgq47gufgt3upsssmsfoju@4ax.com>; from ivegotta@tombom.co.uk on Wed, Jul 31, 2002 at 11:34:57AM +0100
Chris Paget <ivegotta@tombom.co.uk> wrote:
> Does V still have the right to sue R?
Let's put this a different way:
Ford makes a car that seems to sell pretty well. Unfortunately, it
has a fatal design flaw: if the car suffers a rear-end collision while
it's in third gear during a rainstorm at night while the moon is
waxing, the car explodes, killing its passengers. Consumer Reports
discovers that this is the case and publishes a warning to its readers
concerning this car. Ford is unable to reproduce the vulnerable
configuration and ignores the warning, assuming it's a hoax.
Two weeks later, a story breaks in the national news that a psychopath
has taken it upon himself to rear-end all Ford cars on rainy moonlit
nights. So far, five people have died.
Who is responsible, Ford or Consumer Reports? Do you think Ford could
successfully prosecute a lawsuit against Consumer Reports?
Extra credit: if you said "no" to the second question, but think V
should win a suit against R in Chris's hypothetical situation, please
explain how the two situations are so substantially different as to
result in completely opposite conclusions with regard to liability.
--
Riad Wahby
rsw@jfet.org
MIT VI-2/A 2002
