2 Board members bring Injunction suit without voting

1.
Are you saying that two directors had the HOA attorney file suit against a member, without the knowledge of the third director? If so, then here are my thoughts:

2.
When a lawsuit is filed, it is public record at the courthouse. Unit owners should have been informed by the board, if only in financial statements in a footnote. Unit owners do not get a vote on whether to file suit against a member. Filing suit is a board decision. I cannot say that any major law was broken by the board's not informing members. Or at least I do not think this will be relevant in the member's defending him- or herself in the lawsuit. No formal HOA vote having been done to bring suit may be relevant.

3.
The member never having been cited and never having received a formal letter is a denial of "HOA due process." It's a big no-no. Judges expect HOAs to try to be fair and reasonable. Judges also expect HOAs to try to keep disputes out of their courtrooms. Court time is precious and expensive to the taxpayer. I think a competent HOA attorney would not have filed suit without first trying to settle this dispute via the procedures in the HOA's governing documents. If the governing documents are vague, then this does not excuse the HOA attorney from not trying to settle this matter on behalf of the HOA via communications with the member.

4.
If others have violated the same Bylaw and have not been cited, then what is being done to this one member is selective enforcement. The courts do not want to see this either. Still, proving it can be hard. To comment intelligently, I would need more information about what Bylaw or rule has been violated. Can you elaborate about the nature of the violation?

5.
I think a judge would not be happy about seeing this dispute in his or her courtroom, due to 3. and 4. in particular.

6.
Costs for the initial steps of preparing the court complaint, filing, and getting it served would be around $5000 where I am. I am not in Ohio but nor am I on the coasts. What happens next will determine the remaining costs.

Guy mentioned he had an attorney so at this point, I think he's better off letting the attorney do his/her job and see how it goes, then come back with an update. Any legal questions he has regarding what's legal or not should be addressed to his attorney. We aren't attorneys and conflicting information can muddle things up

Guy, as I said before, it's ok to come here and vent, but remember, you never know who's reading this website, and what might happen if a board member or other neighbor happens to come across it, read all your conversations, put two and two together and figure out it's you? That may or may not bite you in the behind, especially since relations between you and the board appear to be at subzero temperatures, so be careful

Guy,

thanks for the update and the congrats on the win.

It's a shame the issue had to go to court. However, when a Board doesn't comply with governing documents and refuses to acknowledge that they failed to do so, there sometimes isn't another option.

You need to check and see if your State Statutes are similar to mine. In Colorado if an owner wins a lawsuit against the HOA they cannot be assessed any of the HOA attorney fees. Unfortunately everyone else can ... but they should have stood up to the BOD who was violating the one owner.

Thanks, My Lawyer is filing for Attorney Fees, court costs, damages and I did tell him that I saw other states rule that the Association can't assess because it harms the winner.

That was great! The sad thing is Attorney firms that represent Associations really don't care about the people in the Associations it's the money. Firms try and stop Legislation that would help Association members have more rights and push for Association boards to have more Hitler like power. This is what is destroying HOA Associations by turning owners against other owners. In my opinion, Boards have to much-uncontrolled power which can lead to dividing Association members which in turn destroys the harmony of the Association. In my opinion, Boards need to work with all owners before heading to a court and if necessary Lawyers should give advice to all members on Litigation pros and cons. Lawyers should tell boards they are stepping over the line and stop them because they work for all members, not the Board or Individual members. If my state of Ohio doesn't have the Assessment rule I'm going to try and set precedence for this for the rights of all unit owners here in Ohio. Boards need to be Transparent and Owners need to be more involved which I would think that just like this case it would have never gone to court and would have been handled in-house as they would say.