volunteer committee members under the HOA board

If I am volunteering on a fun and games committee and the committee answers to the HOA board and the committee helps the board pay for insurance. If someone gets hurt at a function can I be sued individually?

Hi Deborah - i would recommend that you find out the contact information for the Association's master insurance policy and ask the question. It is my impression that Association volunteers may (or may not) be named as insured parties under master insurance policies. Good luck!

oljim, in texas

Can you explain this a little more?

I expect that you charge a fee to participate in the committee activities.
Are those fees earmarked to pay for insurance or are they simply placed into the general operating fund?

If you are charging fees, are you aware that those fees would be considered taxable income to the Association? Hopefully, the Association is aware of this.

Regarding the use of D&O insurance for protection of our volunteers - when we checked out our D&O insurance for this (may be different for others), the response was that D&O insurance applied only to those volunteers with Director and Officer titles. What was suggested to us was - for those certain volunteers who were acting on behalf of our Association in their duties - that we assign the title of "officer" to them. Interesting stuff...huh?

oljim, in texas

Jim,

Perhaps you need to check with other insurance carriers.

Our insurance company recently changed the title of the D&O insurance to "Community Association Management Liability Coverage"

Per our policy: "Executive Officer means . . . or any duly appointed member of a
legal committee of the Insured Entity."

Tim,

Most of the links you provided are not case law; they are merely the opinions of attorneys (maybe) and lack any citations to authority. In most lawsuits the parties are each represented by attorneys, one of whom is nearly always found to be wrong, meaning that at best an attorney's opinion has only half a chance of being right.

In Kashani v. Rochman, the issue of the Volunteer Protection Act was raised but the court sidestepped the issue:
"We need not determine whether the Volunteer Protection Act applies because we conclude the Kashanis failed to produce evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could conclude that Harvey breached his fiduciary duty or acted negligently as alleged in the complaint, causing damage to the Kashanis."

In footnote 4, the court noted that:
The Act defines “nonprofit organization” as a tax-exempt organization described in 26 U.S.C. § 501(c)(3) (hereafter, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit) or “any not-for-profit organization which is organized and conducted for public benefit and operated primarily for charitable, civic, educational, religious, welfare, or health purposes and which does not practice any action which constitutes a hate crime” under the Hate Crime Statistics Act (28 U.S.C. § 534). (42 U.S.C. § 14505(4)(B).)

I do not see Homeowners Associations listed there. The first requirement is a "public benefit" and HOA's deal exclusively with private property ownership. Congress could have added HOA's to the list of organizations and chose not to do so.

At this point, it is still debatable as to whether the Volunteer Protection Act is applicable to an HOA.

I think someone would have a very difficult time overcoming the requirement for a "public benefit" inside a gated community, where the public is excluded. (The Kashani case did not involve a gate community.)

Nit picking and bickering over the fine print is my new hobby.

Our HOA insurance specifically covers committee volunteers but states that such member may not engage in any risky (my word) activities like climbing ladders, going into electrical or mechanical rooms, etc.

Our HOA is a non-profit mutual benefit corporation, and I cannot see how it would be defined as a public benefit corp.

nope - the vast majority of HOAs are NOT 503(c) as per IRS

the referenced law (imo) relates only to 'civic organizations'