Need help with threatneing client

[web_business]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CA

Hello, I'm hoping someone can offer some advise about a sticky business/client problem. I am a web developer and I had been working with a particular client for some three years. I ended the working relationship recently and advised the client to find another developer that is better suited to do the work. His last email to me was, in summary, requesting all access codes to his sites and stating that if anything ever happens to his sites, he will sue me to the fullest extent of the law. He's implying that I would use the username and passwords that I had setup for myself to ruin his websites. I have no intentions of maliciously harming his websites, but things do happen to websites that are completely out of my control. The server could crash, he could develop corrupted database files, he could go over his bandwidth and have his site suspended temporarily, and any number of other things. He seems to be stating that if anything at all ever affects his site he will assume it's me wreaking havoc on this websites out of spite, and then sue me for whatever revenue he has lost, punitive damages, etc. I'm really freaked out about this. Is there anything I can do to release myself from responsibility for the future of his websites? Maybe like asking him to sign a release form stating that he will change all usernames and passwords and release me from any liability?

Thank you,
W

 

[Hot Topic]

I'm trying to figure out why, if you've had a good working relationship with the client for so long, and informed him in a reasonable fashion that it would be best for him to use someone else's services, he's responding so aggressively.

 

[web_business]

I'm trying to figure out why, if you've had a good working relationship with the client for so long, and informed him in a reasonable fashion that it would be best for him to use someone else's services, he's responding so aggressively.

That's exactly what's freaking me out about the whole situation. What it boils down to is that he didn't like the fact that I raised my prices, and so he started stating over and over how he knows a ton of other developers that would love to do the job for less. I finally got fed up with being undervalued, so I ended the business relationship by stating that I think it would be best if he hired one of these other developers to do the work that he was going to hire me to do. And I ended it professionally and politely. He's not my only client, so to me dropping him was not that big of a deal. Then he flew off the handle and resorted to petty namecalling, taking jabs at my personal life, and ended up threatening to sue me for any and all issues his websites may have in the future. I don't know if he's just trying to get under my skin and drag me into some stupid namecalling battle, but I feel very threatened by his comments. How can I possibly ensure the welfare of his websites when 1) I'm not working on them anymore, 2) There are hundreds of things that could affect his websites, none of which have to do with me being malicious towards him. In the three years I've worked on the sites, they have had all sorts of issues, which is normal for highly interactive websites: corrupted database files, parsing errors, and all sorts of other things. So, it's likely he will continue to have these issues, which is normal for what he's doing, and it's like he's saying that he's now going to sue me for stuff like that.