the water iconic hedgehogs
This may , indeed , be the rational way to behave . The word among publishers and the Society of Authors is that no publisher , so far , has invoked this clause to seize any unfortunate author ' s assets , house and pension pot . This clause is in the contract at the insistence of their own insurance company . ( Multiple Exclusions Corp , remember them ?) its purpose is , to terrify the poor author .
It may , on the other hand , be not rational at all . We can all think of things that never happened at all right up until the day that they did . What Mrs Tiggywinkle ' s accusing me of is negligence : speci�ically of negligent misstatement . What is negligence ? It ' s what a judge or a magistrate or even in extreme cases a jury can be persuaded by lawyers to think it is .
Some years back a walker ( let ' s call him Mr Walker ) got into trouble trying to descend the North Ridge of Tryfan , and had to be rescued . Who got the blame ? The guidebook . The guidebook writer had described the Llyn Bochlwyd as being the ' easy way up Tryfan '. Mr Walker had found it not easy at all , decided the guidebook was rubbish , and set off down the north ridge . And then blamed the guidebook that he hadn ' t even been using . Concerningly , even the mountain rescue joined in the condemnation . The MR are scrupulously nonjudgemental over walkers and climbers who get into dif�iculties . But this doesn ' t extend to poor old authors who write ' easy ' when they should have written ' less dif�icult '.
Luckily , Mr Walker wasn ' t seriously hurt , and the case didn ' t end up in court . Earlier , one fell race organiser had a similar escape , after an inexperienced runner got lost and died of hypothermia . The organiser was an unpaid volunteer . Everybody knows fell races are at your own risk . The race had rules about being capable of navigating , carrying a map , and being equipped with lightweight waterproofs , and the victim had broken them all . It was still suggested that the organiser had been negligent in not checking everybody ' s kit at the start – though after six months of suspense , this one didn ' t end up in court either .
What to do about the warranties ?
There are a number of things you should and should not do …
1
One is not putting a disclaimer in your book : Cat Bells is a jolly dangerous place and Derwent Water is full of water ( yes ,
2
3
4
5
6 there ' s a clue in the name ) so if you fall in and get wet we don ' t accept any liability . When you ' re accused of negligence , you might just as well have used the space for dedicating the book to your fellwalking auntie .
For starters , I get the publishers to acknowledge , either within the contract or in a separate letter , that fellwalking is an adventure sport and the warranties do not cover its normal risks . This is because I don ' t go in for signing stuff that ' s simply not true . ( Just one of the reasons why I ' m not a Cabinet Minister .)
Carefully read through the Society of Authors ' advice note on ' Negligent Misstatement ', found among the OWPG ' s advice notes . ( Also their blog post on negligent misstatement – search " SOA negligent " [ www . bit . ly / soa-before-sign ])
I ' ve always managed to get a contract amendment that I get informed and consulted over any decisions to settle any negligence claim before they come to take away all my money . Then at least I could get my own lawyers on the job before it ' s too late .
Enquire whether your risks may be covered by the Publisher ' s own liability insurance . Oddly , in some cases it seems that they can . Multiple X Corp , after demanding the right to retrieve any settlement money off the poor old author , then agrees to pay the author back again .
Get the publisher to con�irm , in writing , what editing , proofreading and checking they will be doing . We all want everything carefully checked anyway . But evidence of such thorough and careful checking is the best defence against claims of negligent mis-statement . There might still be a mistake , but it wouldn ' t be a negligent mistake .
So as well as messing up your punctuation , changing all your ' onto ' s into ' on to ', and taking out the jokes , the editor is performing another very valuable function . Saving your pension pot and your house from the clutches of your publisher ' s insurance company ' s lawyers ….
Photo : Cat Bells / Ronald Turnbull Inset illustration : Beatrix Potter ( Wikimedia Commons )
outdoor focus / autumn 2022 9