eComments Terms of Use
Effective Date: January 1, 2016
Last Revised: January 1, 2016
1. General.
Thank you for visiting minnesotaoah.granicusideas.com (this “Website”). The Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings (“OAH”), by contract with Granicus (the “OAH”, “we” or “us”), operates this Website which is owned by Granicus. Your use of this Website and the information, content and services available through this Website are subject to these OAH Terms and Conditions (“OAH Terms and Conditions”) as well as the Granicus OAH Terms and Conditions posted at www.granicusideas.com. This platform enables members of the public and representatives of state or local governments to create, post and share comments to rulemaking proceedings filed at OAH pursuant to Minnesota Statutes Chapter 14. Unless we distinguish otherwise, the terms “you”, “your”, “user”, or “users” for purposes of these OAH Terms and Conditions, mean anyone accessing the Website for any reason, including you in your individual capacity, and the organization or other business entity that you represent and on whose behalf you use the Website under actual or apparent authority.
These OAH Terms and Conditions are current as of the effective date set forth above and were last revised as of the date set forth above. We reserve the right to change these OAH Terms and Conditions from time to time. Please consult this portion of the Website for important changes to the OAH Terms and Conditions as OAH may, at any time, and without notice, revise these OAH Terms and Conditions by updating this posting.
Please read these OAH Terms and Conditions carefully. By accessing or using the Website, you are bound by these OAH Terms and Conditions and any revisions; you should therefore periodically visit this page to review the current OAH Terms and Conditions. Access or use of the Website following any change to the OAH Terms and Conditions constitutes your agreement to those changes. If at any time you choose not to accept the terms of these OAH Terms and Conditions, you should not access or use this Website.
OAH may, at its sole discretion, and at any time, discontinue this Website or any part thereof, with or without notice, or may prevent your use of this Website with or without notice to you. You agree that you do not have any rights in this Website and that OAH will have no liability to you if this Website is discontinued or your ability to access the Website or any content you may have posted on the Website is terminated.
2. Authorized Users.
Subject to these OAH Terms and Conditions, you may not access or use the Website if you are unable to form a legal binding agreement with OAH.
3. Legal Notices.
We post legal notices on pages of the Website. You shall not remove these notices or credits, or any additional information contained along with the notices and credits. The Website may contain references to trademarks, copyrighted materials, technologies, products, processes and software and other proprietary rights of OAH or other parties. No license to or right in any such trademarks, copyrighted materials, technologies, products, processes, software or other proprietary rights of OAH is granted to or conferred upon you.
4. OAH Content.
Content on this Website that is provided by OAH, its employees or its licensors, including original art work, graphics, photographs, images, screen shots, text, music, digitally downloadable files, video clips, trademarks, logos, product and character names, slogans, and the compilation of the foregoing (“OAH Content”) is the property of OAH and its licensors, and is protected in the U.S. and internationally under trademark, copyright and other intellectual property laws.
You are authorized to access and use the Website and related OAH Content as set forth in these OAH Terms and Conditions, provided that: (a) you will not copy, distribute or transfer any portion of the Website or OAH Content on any media without OAH’s prior written or electronic approval; (b) you will not alter, adapt or otherwise modify any part of the Website or OAH Content other than as may be reasonably necessary to use that part of the Website or OAH Content for its intended purpose; (c) your use of the Website and OAH Content as permitted hereunder is solely for your personal, non-commercial use; and (d) you will otherwise comply in full with these OAH Terms and Conditions.
5. User Content.
This Website permits the submission of text, files, works of authorship, text postings and other materials and content (“User Content”) by you and other users on certain areas of our Website.
The nature of this Website is interactive and public. By posting User Content, you understand and acknowledge that any materials, ideas or other communications you transmit in any manner and for any reason will not be treated as confidential or proprietary and may be preserved or disclosed by OAH at our discretion.
You shall be solely responsible for any User Content you submit and the consequences of posting or publishing it. With respect to any User Content you submit, you affirm, represent and warrant that: (a) you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents or permissions to use and authorize OAH to use all patent, copyright, trade secret and trademark rights or other proprietary rights to enable inclusion and use of User Content in the manner contemplated by the Website and these OAH Terms and Conditions; (b) you have the written consent, release or permission of each identifiable individual person in your User Content to use the name, likeness or other personal characteristics of each such identifiable individual to enable inclusion and use of such User Content in the manner contemplated by the Website and these OAH Terms and Conditions; and (c) all user Content you submit is complete and current at the time of submission.
As between you and OAH, you shall retain all of your ownership rights in and to the User Content you provide through our Website. However, by submitting User Content on the Website to, you hereby grant OAH a worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, translate, reformat, prepare derivative works based upon, display publicly, and otherwise exploit the User Content, in whole or in part, including future websites or other electronic databases or technologies that OAH (or its successor) may otherwise own, control or utilize that do not yet exist, as well as new uses, media, means and forms of exploitation yet to be developed to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.
You also hereby grant OAH a worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to access your User Content through the Website, and to use, access, reproduce, distribute, transmit, forward, and display such User Content, in whole or in part, to the extent permitted by the Website under these OAH Terms and Conditions (the “User License”).
OAH will be entitled to use, reproduce, disclose, adapt, create derivative works from, publish, display and distribute any User Content you submit for any purpose allowed by Minnesota law, without restriction and without compensating you in any way. OAH is and will be under no obligation (1) to pay to user any compensation for any User Content or (2) to respond to any User Content. In addition, OAH will have the right to refuse, remove or delete any User Content which it reasonably considers to violate these OAH Terms and Conditions or to otherwise be illegal or objectionable.
6. Posting User Content.
Your posting of User Content is subject to these OAH Terms and Conditions, any additional terms posted for a specific feature, as well as the following submission rules, to which you agree to adhere through your use of the Website:
By contributing this content you are affirming that you are fully able and competent to enter into and comply with these OAH Terms and Conditions.
• You agree not to post any content that is unlawful, harmful, tortious, defamatory, libelous, obscene, invasive of the privacy of another person, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful, racist, infringing, pornographic, violent, or otherwise objectionable or inappropriate as determined by OAH.
• You will not post any content that contains personal information about any other individual, violates the privacy/publicity of any other individual or entity, or anything that you are under a contractual obligation to keep private or confidential. You agree that you will not impersonate any person or organization, including, without limitation, the personnel of OAH.
• You will not forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any User Content or other content transmitted through the Website.
• You will not misrepresent an affiliation with another person or organization, nor will you post any content that infringes any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or otherwise subject to intellectual property rights of a third party.
• You will not use this Website to harm minors in any way or to send any content that we deem in our sole discretion to be inappropriate for minors, offensive, or incompatible with the character or subject matter of this Website.
• You will not upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, “junk mail”, “spam”, “chain letters”, “pyramid schemes” or any other material that contains business solicitations of any type, including advertising a product or service, offering a product or service for sale, or directing readers to a location for more information about a product or service.
• You will not post any software to the Website, nor will you post links to online locations or post files that do not comply with these OAH Terms and Conditions, and you will not post any content that contains viruses, corrupted files, or any other similar software or programs that may adversely affect the operation or features of the Website.
• You will not modify in any way any specifications, technology, or application codes provided to you by OAH or as embedded in the User Content unless expressly authorized in writing by OAH.
• You will not intentionally or unintentionally violate any applicable local, state, national or international law.
• You will not collect any personal information about other users.
• You will not share or transfer passwords or other access information with any other party, temporarily or permanently as applicable.
• You will not use the Website or any OAH Content in any way that harms any user of OAH.
• You will not use the Website in any manner that could overburden, or impair the Website (or the networks or systems connected to the Website).
• You may not use any device, software or instrumentality to interfere with the proper working of our Website or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to the Website.
• OAH may delete all User Content associated with your account at any time without notice, if OAH deems in its sole discretion that you have violated these OAH Terms and Conditions, the law, or for any other reason.
• OAH assumes no liability for any information removed from our Website, and reserves the right to permanently restrict access to the Website.
7. No Infringing Use.
OAH respects the intellectual property of others, and we expect our users to do the same. It is our policy, in appropriate circumstances and at our discretion, to disable or terminate the use of the Website by users who infringe or repeatedly infringe the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of OAH or other rights owners.
8. Security.
You shall not violate or attempt to violate the security of the Website. Violations of system or network security may result in civil or criminal liability. OAH reserves the right to investigate occurrences which may involve such violations and may involve, and cooperate actively with, law enforcement authorities in prosecuting users who have participated in such violations.
9. Communications.
With respect to all communications with OAH, including but not limited to feedback, questions, comments, suggestions and the like: (a) you shall have no right to confidentiality in your communications and OAH shall have no obligation to protect your communications from disclosure; (b) OAH shall be free to reproduce, use, disclose and distribute your communications to others without limitation; and (c) OAH shall be free to use any ideas, concepts, know-how, content or techniques contained in your communications for any purpose whatsoever, including, but not limited to, the development, production and marketing of products and services that incorporate such information.
10. Privacy.
OAH’s use of this Website will comply with the provisions of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act, Minnesota Statutes Chapter 13. The privacy policy of Granicus, Inc., with which OAH contracts for the ownership and operation of this Website, is currently located at
https://minnesotaoah.granicusideas.com/privacy-policy or the applicable subdomain: http://”AccountHolder”.granicusideas.com/privacy-policy.
11. Indemnity.
If you are not an employee or representative of a state or local government with authority to post comments on behalf of a state or local government (“Public User”), your use of this Website is subject to the indemnification terms set forth in the Granicus Terms and Conditions posted at
www.granicusideas.com. If you are a Public User, you are specifically exempt from and not covered by the indemnification terms set forth in the Granicus Terms and Conditions, which exemption is specifically agreed to and acknowledged by Granicus in writing maintained by OAH.
12. Warranty Disclaimer.
YOUR USE OF THE SITE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. OAH MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT THE SITE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS. ALL SITE INFORMATION IS PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, STATUTORY OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OF A THIRD PARTY, TITLE, CUSTOM, TRADE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, ACCURACY OF INFORMATION CONTENT, OR SYSTEM INTEGRATION. OAH DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SITE WILL BE AVAILABLE OR OPERATE IN AN UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE OR COMPLETELY SECURE MANNER OR THAT ERRORS OR DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED.
13. Limitation of Liability.
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL OAH BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY OTHER PERSON FOR ANY DIRECT, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, COSTS OR ATTORNEY’S FEES ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR USE, ACCESS TO, USE OF OR THE OPERATION OF THE WEBSITE. YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY AND OAH’S SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY REASON SHALL BE FOR YOU TO DISCONTINUE YOUR ACCESS TO OR USE OF THE WEBSITE.
14. Miscellaneous.
You agree to comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations when using the Website.
Both you and OAH acknowledge and agree that no partnership is formed, and neither of you nor OAH has the power or the authority to obligate or bind the other.
These OAH Terms and Conditions will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Minnesota without regard to conflicts-of-laws principles. By using this Website, you hereby agree that the exclusive jurisdiction for any and all disputes regarding these OAH Terms and Conditions shall lie in the federal or state courts located in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
These OAH Terms and Conditions operate to the fullest extent permissible by law. If any provision of these OAH Terms and Conditions is unlawful, void, or unenforceable, that provision is deemed severable from these OAH Terms and Conditions and does not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.
If OAH fails to act with respect to your breach or anyone else’s breach on any occasion, OAH is not waiving its right to act with respect to future or similar breaches.
The failure of OAH to comply with the OAH Terms and Conditions because of an act of God, war, fire, riot, terrorism, earthquake, actions of federal, state or local governmental authorities or for any other reason beyond the reasonable control of OAH, shall not be deemed a breach of these OAH Terms and Conditions.
Sections 4, 7, 12, 13, and 14 shall survive any termination of these OAH Terms and Conditions.
These OAH Terms and Conditions constitute a binding agreement between you and OAH, and are accepted by you as a condition for your use of the Website or your account. These OAH Terms and Conditions constitute the entire agreement between you and OAH regarding the use of the Website and your account and supersedes all previous or contemporaneous agreements, representations, understandings, or terms, written or oral.
