Having worked with SPLC on records issues before, I feel it should be noted that their efforts are focused on government. Governments have legal protections that nonprofits (as corporations) do not, so the considerations are rather different.
I'm not commenting on the topics beyond that, just wanted to point out that important distinction. ;) -greg _______________ Sent from my iPhone - a more detailed response may be sent later. > On May 10, 2016, at 12:00 PM, Ben Creasy <b...@bencreasy.com> wrote: > > Luis Villa <luis@...> writes: > >> >> tl;dr: the board did not effectively perform one of their most important >> roles (managing the ED); the board (and board candidates) should be talking >> about how they will fix that. > > I think one of the key takeaways from this affair is that people should be > careful about talking the law. There are bright line rules > written in statute and then there are "duties" (duties of loyalty, duties of > care). In this case, it appears that the bright line rule of law (absolute > right of directors to inspect corporate books and records) was probably > violated while more tenuous legal rules were given heavier weight. I'm also > not sure that a few board members discussing something together unofficially > without the entire board is a "conspiracy" as Denny described it, although > I suppose that opens up a grey area about whether that's some sort of > official meeting and the rights of board members to know about > corporate business. > > As far as I'm aware, there aren't too many bright line rules regarding > abstract > duties, although some statutes provide some good guidelines (e.g., Uniform > Prudent Investor Act). After spending several years as a fiduciary for a > couple different nonprofits and reviewing directors & officer's liability > insurance as a regulator, I've found that it's no joke that the business > judgment rule provides significant protection for board members from > liability. > Board members should be thinking more about right and wrong and what makes > sense rather than abstract legal notions. > > Any good legal opinion should be written and cite specific statutes and case > law. And finding a case where a jury found someone, somewhere, in some > specific > situation was found to be liable for doing or not doing something is not > necessarily persuasive. > > I winced a bit when I saw a while back that Anne/Risker responded to a > request > for more details on the Executive Director's performance by saying that such > information was basically sacrosant and something to the effect of how it > might > even be protected by some sort of UN human rights law. Maybe she knows > something > more than me, and certainly it is typical for these to be kept private, but > many, many Americans have their performance evaluations subject to public > scrutiny. See > [http://www.splc.org/article/2015/04/accessing-personnel-records > Accessing personnel records: A balancing act between privacy, public’s right > to know] (2015) for some examples. It is true that California is > aggressive about employee rights; when I was looking at actuarial analyses > for > employer's liability, California received a multiplicative factor of 3 versus > the rest of the country. > >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l <at> lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request <at> lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
