@Ziggy said:
Thanks Lady P because I have been defamed by both my SC and my SM. I assumed they were protected, unlike me.
Having been through this process (or seen it at very close quarters) I can assure you that there is no immunity but there is “qualified privilege”.
Basically, if in conducting its business committee has reason to be critical of an owner or resident’s actions, this may avoid being declared defamatory if the comments are not malicious and /or not generally broadcast or viewable by people who are not normally able to access discussions of the committee.
For instance, if your secretary writes something like “This resident is a known troublemaker and serial email pest who takes every opportunity to disrupt meetings with stupid questions and fake allegations of bad behaviour, and then wastes our time with ignorant and ill-informed emails, and it’s time we shut him up …” and puts that on a notice board or a website that is publicly accessible, that would possibly be defamatory because it is arguably malicious and goes beyond the normal management of the scheme.
If, however, the secretary wrote that the resident “has raised a number of issues in writing and in person at meetings, and dealing with those communications has disrupted the management of the building”, and those comments were available in the minutes which were not readily accessible to anyone who was not an owner in the building, then they would probably not be defamatory.
Having said that, I’m not a lawyer. Also, most issues like this would be somewhere on a scale between those extremes. However, defamation action is a game for people with deep pockets and plenty of time on their hands – and there is no guarantee of success.
That said, most strata insurances specifically exclude defamation as an insurable event, so if you have the time and the money and a watertight case, you might want to take a punt or at least issue a warning.