software licensing – Attorney Evan Brown

January 26, 2024 Contracts, Licensing

Disclaimer in software license agreement protected vendor from liability

software license disclaimer

A recent federal court case alleging breach of contract over failure of software to perform highlights the importance of careful drafting and review of disclaimer and other language in technology contracts.

Loss of livelihood

In 2021, a federal court entered an order that permanently barred plaintiff from preparing tax returns for other people. The court’s order apparently addressed past deficiencies in plaintiff’s past tax filings. In 2017, when using TaxWise software, plaintiff did not attach certain required forms to the tax returns.

No doubt this caused extreme hardship for plaintiff, so he sought to recover by blaming the software company – the defendant in this case – for a malfunction in the software that caused the required forms to be omitted.

He sued for breach of contract. Defendant moved to dismiss. The court granted the motion.

The lawsuit was too late

It held that plaintiff’s suit was untimely because the software license agreement contained a provision saying that any such claim had to be commenced within one year from the date such claim or cause of action first arose. The court rejected plaintiff’s argument that by bringing suit in January 2023, he was within the one year period because his first payment of a fine to the IRS was due in January 2022. Instead, the court held that the one year period for bringing suit began to run when the alleged breach occurred, i.e., in 2017 when the software allegedly malfunctioned.

Disclaimers knocked out the complaint

The court also held that certain disclaimer language in the software agreement served to defeat plaintiff’s claims as to the software’s performance. The agreement stated that plaintiff “expressly disclaim[ed] any representations or warranties that [his] use of the Products will satisfy any statutory or regulatory obligations, or will assist with, guarantee or otherwise ensure compliance with any applicable laws or regulations.” Moreover, the contract stated that plaintiff bore “THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PRODUCT(S), INCLUDING ELECTRONIC FILING” and so the court found that this eliminated plaintiff’s ability to shift that responsibility to the software provider.

Diedrich v. Wolters Kluwer, 2024 WL 291156 (S.D.N.Y., January 25, 2024)

See also:

February 9, 2019 Contracts, Copyright

Failure to pay software license fees was breach of contract, not copyright infringement

As part of a larger business dispute that found its way into litigation, counterclaimant DDS sued counterdefendant EGS for copyright infringement after EGS allegedly used DDS’s software without paying required license fees. EGS moved to dismiss the copyright infringement claims, asserting that there was no copyright infringement occurring, only a breach of the license agreement. The court granted the motion to dismiss.

The court found that the provision of the agreement between the parties, requiring EGS to pay license fees, was a covenant and not a condition that must be met for use of the software to be authorized. The finding was critical because whether the failure of a non-exclusive licensee to pay royalties constitutes copyright infringement turns on the distinction between a promise subject to a condition and a covenant or contractual promise. Broadly speaking, the promise to pay royalties in a license agreement is generally considered a covenant, not a condition.

In this case, the agreement between the parties provided that:

Upon [EGS’s] payment of [a one-time fee], and subject in each instance to [EGS’s] subsequent timely payment of the applicable [recurring] licensing fee, [DDS] hereby grants to [EGS] a limited, nonexclusive license . . . .

The court determined this language established that DDS would install its software and then EGS would pay for the right to use the software. Under this line of thinking, the duty to pay fees did not accrue until the software was installed, meaning that payment could not be a condition on the rights to use the software (and that nonpayment would not be a failure of that condition).

Eclipse Gaming Systems, LLC v. Antonucci, 2019 WL 3988687 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 31, 2019)

Limitation of liability clause in software license agreement did not excuse customer from paying fees

Customer did not like how software it had bought performed, so it stopped paying. Vendor sued for breach of contract, and customer argued that the agreement capped its liability at $5,000. Both parties moved for summary judgment on what the following language from the agreement meant:

NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY, THE TOTAL DOLLAR LIABILITY OF EITHER PARTY UNDER THIS AGREEMENT OR OTHERWISE SHALL BE LIMITED TO U.S. $5,000.

Customer argued that the sentence meant what it said, namely, that customer would not be liable for anything over $5,000. But the court read otherwise, holding that construe the language as excusing customer’s payment of fees would render those provisions calling for fees (which were much more that $5,000) meaningless.

The court observed that when parties use the clause “notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained herein” in a paragraph of their contract, they contemplate the possibility that other parts of their contract may conflict with that paragraph, and they agree that the paragraph must be given effect regardless of any contrary provisions of the contract.

In this situation, the $5,000 limitation language was the last sentence of a much longer provision dealing with limitations of liability in the event the software failed to function properly. The court held that the rule about “notwithstanding anything to the contrary” applies if there is an irreconcilable difference between the paragraph in which that statement is contained and the rest of the agreement.

There was no such irreconcilable difference here. On the contrary, reading in such difference would have rendered the other extensive provisions dealing with payment of goods and services meaningless, which would have violated a key canon of construction.

IHR Sec., LLC v. Innovative Business Software, Inc., — S.W.3d —, 2014 WL 1057306 (Tex.App. El Paso March 19, 2014)

Evan Brown is an attorney in Chicago, advising clients on matters dealing with software licensing, technology, the internet and new media.

When the “entire agreement” isn’t the entire agreement

EULA Software licenses are often complex documents comprised of multiple exhibits, schedules, and terms and conditions, co-authored by lawyers, sales people and engineers. And when disputes over the use of software arise, it is, accordingly, often not simple to sort out what the agreement says. I have written a post over at my law firm’s blog about a recent software copyright infringement case where although software’s end user license agreement (“EULA”) said it was the entire agreement, the court held that it could consider evidence outside the agreement about the term of the license (how long it was for). It’s a noteworthy read to remind us that clear drafting in software and technology agreements (and any kind of agreement for that matter) is crucial.

Read the post here.

And while you’re at it, follow me on Twitter, and follow my law firm InfoLawGroup as well.

October 27, 2010 Contracts

Customer violated software license by letting attorneys use application

The Compliance Store v. Greenpoint Mortgage Funding, — F.3d —, 2010 WL 4056112 (5th Cir. October 18, 2010)

A federal court in Texas has decided a case that could have notable implications for both providers and users of software. The court took a narrow view of the rights that licensees of software have to authorize third parties (i.e., independent contractors) to use software on behalf of the licensee.

Plaintiff software provider sued its customer for breach of the software license agreement after plaintiff learned that the customer allowed its attorneys to input data using the software. Plaintiff claimed that the use was not permitted by the terms of the license agreement.

Customer moved for summary judgment on the breach of software license claim and the district court granted the motion. Plaintiff software provider sought review with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. On appeal, the court reversed.

The appellate court held that the license agreement should not be read to permit use of the software by a third party not expressly provided for in the agreement, even though such third party’s use of the software was on behalf of or for the benefit of the licensee.

The district court had relied on two earlier Fifth Circuit cases — Geoscan v. Geotrace Technologies and Hogan Systems v. Cybresource International — to look beyond the express language of the license agreement and hold that use of the software by defendant’s attorneys was permitted. The district court found such use to be permitted because it was done on behalf of or for the benefit of defendant.

But the appellate court distinguished Geoscan and Hogan Systems, finding that neither case stands for such an expansive proposition. Unlike the agreements in those cases, the license in this case contained no provision that permitted use by third parties on behalf of the licensee. Moreover, among other things, defendant was expressly prohibited from transferring or sublicensing the technology and was prohibited from assigning its rights under the license agreement. The software license agreement also contained a provision that served to excluse all third party beneficiaries to the agreement.

Photo courtesy Flickr user coiax under this Creative Commons license.