Legal Question in Legal Ethics in Kansas
Wrong Author on Product Specification
I am a contractor who was hired to write specifications on products that the company is outsourcing overseas. I was given specific instructions as to how they were to be written. The lead spec writer took possession of my specifications and proceeded to make numerous changes (under my name) without informing me. These revised specifications would be for USA made, not overseas. A copy was then made of my specifications and a prefix number was added to identify it as an overseas vendor. Major changes and errors in part numbers, grammar, test procedures and QA requirements were added. My boss agrees that there is a clean up problem. The overseas specifications carry my name as the author, even though I never wrote them. Am I legally responsible for a document I didn�t write, but carries my name?
My job ends next week. Thanks for any help.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Wrong Author on Product Specification
No, but if your company is involved in a lawsuit, you will be called as a witness.
I suggest that, since your job is ending anyway, that you cover your posterior and write a letter of complaint/clarification about the changes made to the document and reject authorship. If you do it in a nice enough way, you can cover yourself and yet not get your check held up. Simply say that many changes were made and you cannot vouch for them. You might seek counsel on this who can preserve your confidentiality.
By all means, however, make sure that you keep a copy of your work and the iterations that changed it. At the end of the day, if there is liability attached, it's going to be your word against theirs and you need to be able to document what you did and didn't do.
Everyone signs confidentiality agreements, but you need to be able to defend yourself, if you are later accused of something you didn't do and the company seeks to hang you out to dry. Keep them somewhere safe.
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