Re: Warranty disclaimers and yelling

[Glenn Maynard <g_deb@zewt.org>]

On Tue, May 18, 2004 at 11:02:17PM -0400, Adam Kessel wrote:
> My understanding is that this just provides you with evidentiary support
> that the warranty disclaimer is unequivocal.  As a counterexample,
> imagine a product with the warranty disclaimer in 4 point font on the
> inside of the packaging -- a court would likely find the disclaimer
> ineffective and impose an implied warranty of merchantability.  If you
> want to disclaim this warranty, it's in your interest to set it up to
> make it harder for a consumer to argue that she wasn't aware of the
> disclaimer.  
> 
> I'm not aware of any particular case that hinged on mixed case versus
> all caps, but it does seem to be the standard way to make the
> disclaimer.  
> 
> Note that Uniform Commercial Code � 2-316 requires any disclaimer of the
> implied warranty of merchantability to be conspicuous: 

(I thought SCREAMING CAPS was a standard way of saying "this text isn't
important; skip it, it's hard to read anyway".)

Hmm.  I tend to skip warranty disclaimers when reading licenses--not a
very good habit, but I'm probably not alone.  It makes me wonder if any
licenses have snuck restrictions in by placing them in caps near the
warranty disclaimer, so nobody would actually read it.

-- 
Glenn Maynard