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Steve Lehto raises an interesting question in a recent video here.

Suppose someone is abused, harassed, treated unfairly in a business deal, suffer from a defective product, etc. They seek recourse and get it, but part of the deal is a non-disclosure agreement so they do not disclose the injustice.

As a result, others are not warned of the injustice, and they too fall victim to it.

Do the later victims have any cause of action against the early victims who could have sounded warning, and under ordinary circumstances would have sounded warning, but kept quiet because they were paid to?

To the extent the pattern is criminal, could they be considered part of a conspiracy?

Harper - Reinstate Monica
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1 Answers1

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In most cases, these types of facts are not going to lead to any liability for the person who signed the NDA.

This essentially raises a negligence problem, and there's no negligence unless someone was injured because you breached a duty you owed them.

On facts like these, the person who signed the NDA isn't likely to have any duty to anyone else who would be in the same situation. The fact that the bank charged me too much in fees doesn't mean I have to protect the rest of the world from being charged with the same fees.

That's going to be the case in most common-law jurisdictions, including both Canada and the United States.

In the United States, that lack of duty is even more clear, because the First Amendment would protect your right to disclose or not disclose what had happened.

bdb484
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