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> I learned that before that clause had been part of the standard contract, there had been a manufacturer who decided unilaterally that half of the noise suppre
by zyxley 11y ago
> I learned that before that clause had been part of the standard contract, there had been a manufacturer who decided unilaterally that half of the noise suppression capacitors in the schematic were "unneeded."
I don't understand how putting that in the contract is supposed to help if the manufacturer being used is pulling stupid "you didn't say the product actually had to work" semantics games that would get them smacked in any reasonable court anyway.
- Lawtonfogle 11y agoWelcome to the world of law. Often I've seen it said that thinking like a software developer, looking for edge cases and such, will get you smacked down by a judge who doesn't let you just use loopholes. There is an XKCD about insurance law on this topic. But the reality is that a lot of loopholes do work, and have a better chance of working if you have a really good lawyer. Part of the equation is how charismatic a lawyer is and if they can pull up records of the loop hole happening in the past (assuming you are in a court that allows past rulings to have impact). From what I've seen it is extremely arbitrary and is extremely frustrating. I was on a jury once, where one witness was told to tell only what they had heard/seen/etc. They would try to say "I heard so and so say such and such", and the other side would object. The judge would then say to tell only what you saw, heard, etc., not what other people did or said. And I'm sitting there thinking "But what that is exactly what they were trying to do!" (of course I couldn't say a single word for risk to my own safety).
- sciurus 11y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearsay
- gherkin0 11y agoI'm totally speculating, but it could be that such clauses make the breach of contract case easier and cheaper to win. It could also be that such clear terms are useful in other jurisdictions where shenanigans like that wouldn't be smacked down without them.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoThis is exactly right. When you disagree with a supplier you can only disagree based on the contract, and if someone could reasonably (and there is a wide latitude here for "reasonably") argue their interpretation was within the constraints of the contract than your remediation options are limited. If you read contracts a lot (and over the years I've probably read a couple of thousand and negotiated maybe 100 or so) you will begin to see clauses that are in the contract which specifically prevent what was clearly a problem before that had not been decided as being in breach, so the added clause insures that in future contracts it would be decided as being in breach. My lawyer once told me that every contract tells a story if you know how to read it. The more I've read, the more I have come to appreciate that sentiment.
- the-octagon 11y ago> what was clearly a problem before that had not been decided as being in breach These are the signs that I always have a good chuckle with, thinking, "that sign is there because someone did that."
- SiVal 11y agogames that would get them smacked in any reasonable court You're talking about a Chinese court, right? The guy you're planning to sue lives in China and is a long-time business "associate" of the judge who will decide your case.
- biot 11y agoWhy would you take an untested schematic to a manufacturer and ask them to build a product based off of it? If you are asking the manufacturer to both devise the schematic and build the resulting product, then it behooves you to ask for a prototype built from their schematic in order to evaluate the production's performance.