Are E-mails, Instant Messages (IM), & Twitter Transcripts "official" records of the Association?
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On March 30, 2009 the Division issued a Final Order in Humphrey v. Carriage Park CAI a case involving among other things a request for records where the owner sought “all correspondence, e-mails to or from the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.”
In its ruling the Division stated that there was no violation for failing to produce e-mails which never became the official records of the Association. The Division explained:
- The property of an individual director does not become the property of the Association because of his office on the Board.
- Even if directors communicate among themselves by e-mail strings or chains, about the operation of the Association, the status of the electronic communication on their personal computer would not change.
- An e-mail to an individual or all directors as a group, addressed to their personal computers, is not written communication to the Association because there is no obligation for a director to turn on a personal computer with any regularity, or to open and read e-mails before deleting them.
The Division in a footnote to its opinion stated a different decision could be reached “if the Association owns a computer on which management conducts business including e-mails…; or if e-mails are printed up and passed around for discussion at a board meeting.”
Given the ever changing trends in technology and the manner in which Associations conduct business, a Board needs to be wary that the status of e-mails as official records despite the Humphrey decision is still in flux. In other words, tomorrow, these very same e-mails which today are not official records could be. Also while a link has never been made equating IM or Twitter transcripts to e-mails this too could change as these forms of e-communication become more and more popular amongst Board members.
For more information on the role of e-communications and Association look at my May 12, 2009 post or the recent article by the Sun-Sentinel titled Boards a-Twitter about laws.
