Legal Question in Civil Litigation in New York

I operate an online dating site for adults with mental illness. This is a very vulnerable population and I worry about them falling for scams from bad intentioned people on my site. I am vigilant about accepting new users...I check every incoming IP...I have blocked dozens of suspicious countries (i.e. all of West Africa)...if an IP does not match the address on their profile indicating use of a proxy server I either outright delete or email the user requesting confirmation of their good intent. Despite all this scammers do get on the site and I have had reports of people falling for scams and losing money. Am I liable if a scammer gets on the site and pilfers money? Am I liable if something bad happens between two users of the site (assault, rape, murder)? I am registered as an LLC. I have very few personal assets.

Worried in White Plains, NY


Asked on 3/08/11, 2:33 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Kaiser Wahab Wahab & Medenica LLC

One of the most critical means a site operator of any stripe insulates itself from liability due to conduct on the part of or between users is a robust "terms of service agreement." That agreement sets forth the ground rules for how the users can impose liability on the operator with the most critical sections being a limitation on liability and disclaimer of warranty section.

If you look at any dating site from Match to PlentyofFish, you will see language of that nature in their user agreements. That said, because you are catering to a population that may not be able to enter into contracts legally in the first place, you may want to seriously investigate how this approach can or can't work for your operation.

I hope that helps.

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Answered on 3/08/11, 2:38 pm


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