{"id":4236,"date":"2026-05-18T00:30:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T00:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/?p=4236"},"modified":"2026-05-18T03:51:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T03:51:50","slug":"you-can-still-blame-microsoft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/?p=4236","title":{"rendered":"You Can Still Blame Microsoft"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In one of my posts I said that Microsoft should be liable to all the parties that I subsequently damaged through use of their product. This means they would be liable as the proximate cause<\/em> rather than the actual cause<\/em>. In law school I read about a case (People v. Acosta<\/em>) in Orange County, CA involving a police helicopter that crashed into another police helicopter during a high speed car chase killing three people. The court held that the driver of the car was liable for the helicopter crash. The driver might not have been the actual cause (the other helicopter was the actual concurrent cause<\/em>), but it was “foreseeable” that this would happen as a result of the driver’s dangerous behavior so he’s the proximate cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In determining proximate cause, there is something known as a superseding cause<\/em>. In my case, I kept using the product even after being aware of the risks so that should break the chain of liability for Microsoft which means I would be liable instead. My liability would supersede<\/em> Microsoft’s liability. But what if I had no choice and couldn’t really stop using the product? Of course, I could’ve switched from Microsoft Windows to use another operating system such as Apple’s macOS but that would probably still cause damage so that’s not much of a choice. If I switched to macOS, that would just mean I would have two lawsuits on my hands. What does that solve? I suppose I could stop using computers altogether, but it’s a little difficult when you’re involved in the tech industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, if I’m liable it’s all really coming from Microsoft, but why let Microsoft get away with it when they could be the proximate cause? Perhaps we could both be held liable as shared concurrent liability<\/em>. I mean Microsoft did know this was happening for at least twenty years. They watched it happen day after day and didn’t really do anything to solve it except try to dodge liability by fiddling around with their Terms and Conditions. By the way Microsoft has been liable since this all started way back in 1999. That’s 27 freakin years!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In one of my posts I said that Microsoft should be liable to all the parties that I subsequently damaged through use of their product. This means they would be liable as the proximate cause rather than the actual cause. In law school I read about a case (People v. Acosta) in Orange County, CA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4239,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/unnamed-14.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4236"}],"version-history":[{"count":49,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4290,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4236\/revisions\/4290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vanjordan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}