LoCo governance and incorporation policy?

[Jan Claeys]

Op dinsdag 11-09-2007 om 21:57 uur [tijdzone +0100], schreef Matthew
East:
> You really need to identify with a lot more precision what the
> potential liability you have in mind here is.
> 
> Let's take this back to basics. I'll do my best to keep what follows
> legal-system independent, although I've used terminology that may be.
> If this sounds patronising, it isn't meant to be, I just want to
> clarify the issues here.
> 
> Liability (whether private or public) doesn't just jump out of
> nothingness, it arises out of a duty that gets broken. For example, if
> somebody negligently caused the electrocution, and they owe a private
> law duty to people, then they may incur liability for the damage.
> Equally, if someone intentionally or recklessly causes electrocution
> to another, they might be in breach of a criminal law duty.
> 
> These are normal everyday duties that we owe one another and it's
> inappropriate for local teams to worry about them on behalf of their
> members: members can and should be responsible for themselves.

True, if the neglect/mistake/accident is clearly attributable to only
the people directly involved (and in case of accusing someone of doing
something intentional that would be clear).

> The only possible reason to start worrying is if a particular legal
> system attributes liability to individuals where they are not the
> individual responsible for breaking the duty.
> 
> There can only happen where both (a) and (b) below are satisfied:
> 
> (a) The local team is classed as a "non-incorporated association",
> either because the jurisdiction automatically classes the local team
> as such; or because the local team has concluded some arrangement
> (e.g. a contract) to that effect; and
> 
> (b) The law imposes criminal or civil liability on non-incorporated
> associations.

No, a "non-incorporated association" is not a legal entity, so it can't
be held liable as such, but each individual person in a group of people
that e.g. organise an event can be held accountable for the *whole*
damage resulting from organising that event.  If that happens, the
person(s) who had to pay all the damage, can ask (part of) his/her/their
money back from the other people in the group involved.  If something
like that ever happens (involving a significant amount of money), you
can be almost sure that there will be no LoCoTeam anymore, and a bunch
of happy lawyers...

BTW: the law in The Netherlands seems to be very alike to the one in
Belgium on this.


-- 
Jan Claeys