@struggler said:
At our AGM those on the EC asked if they were covered by insurance. I feel they may believe that no matter what they do (or don’t) do, no matter how they come to a decision (without taking into regard the consequences) that they will be covered and will not be out of pocket in any way.
Whale is right and the way “common law” manifest in these situations is in the principle of culpable negligence. To give a hypothetical example, a resident complains that a wall looks unsafe, the EC hire a builder to look at at and he says that not only is it unsafe, it’s dangerous but he can fix it for, say, $10K. The EC thinks $10K is way more than they are prepared to pay and instead decide to do nothing. Right there, they have not only breached their legal duty to maintain and repair common property, they have probably breached the terms of their insurance by deliberately and recklessly ignoring professional advice. If the wall falls down and injures someone, the individual EC members could be paying damages out of their own pockets. If the injured person is working in the building then under the terms of the Work Health Safety legislation, they could even go to jail.
Finally, many insurance policies specifically exclude matters such as defamation and libel. So they need to be careful about what they do (or don’t do) and say.