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 -- loco-contacts mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/loco-contacts
