Lawsuits from Assoc. Members
 

Hello,

Has anyone on here been a member of an association that has been hit with a lawsuit by:

1) A member of the Association

2) Board member of Association

3) Training Chair

What was the basis of such a claim?

I ask because the association I am a member of has been threatened with legal action.:mad:

Sorry to hear.

Hasn't happened here.

Is your association a member of NASO-ON, through which legal assistance is available?

Reference your past issues of Referee magazine. Though not actual legal advice, there's a lot of good legal advice that is given about every other issue regarding similar situations.

It was threatened here...when the school districts were audited by the State and told to stop paying officials by check at the game site, we went to a billing system and officials are paid periodically throughout the season. One angry member threatened to sue the Assoc., the Districts, and the State Auditor's office. It went nowhere, fast.

We also were threatened when a member stopped receiving assignments after having multiple reports from different game sites of alcohol on his breath. He stopped getting assignments...he knew about the reports and threatened to sue. Again, it went nowhere, fast.

What are the reasons for this threatened litigation?

Really? Why?

Something about not being District Employees and the RCW's (Revised Code of Washington)...I was on the Board, and we had a lawyer come in and "explain" it to us, but I know my eyes glazed over after about 10 minutes of lawyer speak...

Interesting. It's so varied here. Some give us a check on site. Others mail it. A few use refpay. At least three schools pay us cash on site.

The associations aren't always without blame in these situations, so I'd love to hear why the OP's association is being sued.

To provide more detail...The situation involves are former head of training and instruction. This person held this spot for a few years and a change was made 2 years ago whereby he was removed from being the head and was assigned to deal with 1st year officials only. He was irked by what he felt was a slap in the face and has told the association board that he has retained a lawyer.

Not sure on what grounds he feels has a legal beef since the director of training serves at the pleasure of the board of directors.

Happened to catch the headline of this thread....

Softball umpire here, who is a member of our groups Exec Committee, and our group got sued for discrimination by a member - along with the local basketball AND baseball groups he was a member of.

Needless to say, it was quite a mess, as it brought because we claimed he was not eligible to work, as he had not made enough required meetings, and he had claimed he had gone to some meetings at a different area's board, etc etc. I do not know the details of the claims against the other groups, but it would be logical to assume they had similar cases.

The net result of everything was: The basketball and baseball groups ended up 'winning' - if you can call six months of legal wrangling winning - we had a particularly crummy lawyer, and ended up settling with him. Baseball and basketball ended up expelling him, and amazingly he is still with our group! We did, however, tighten our bylaws up, and also added to our constitution a bylaw expelling any member who sued the group.

An 'interesting' experience to say the least!

Interesting.......
 

I must admit, I am always fascinated by these discussions. I ref in four leagues with three different associations and every one sends me a check at the end of the yr - and I don't mind at all.

Only once, a tournament, was I paid in cash. Shrugs.

Is this a big deal to any others?

The non-school stuff here gets paid through the association, but they don't wait til the end of the season. They typically pay within a month or so in a check.

All of the schools, however, pay the officials directly in one form or another.

The school games I do for softball and volleyball here (lower NYS) are assigned by, and paid by a cooperative all the schools belong to that pools resources for supplies, vo-tech education, etc. This body also administers all sports - they schedule all the games, and schedules officials . We get (electronically now) a paysheet the first of the month for the previous month, we sign and submit (usually electronically also), and in a couple of weeks we get a check. We USED to get checks from individual schools, but it got ridiculous trying to chase down checks from some districts, so this cooperative took it all over,

This is why local officials associations really need to stop assigning games. It has all kinds of liability if someone is not hired to their liking.

Peace

When Stepping Down Could Be Considered Up
 

Heck, some with a civil understanding would consider that a step up! That's where we as a group need some of our better veteran officials.

What does the association assigning have to do with liability. Someone will always be subject to being liable if someone wants to sue. Even if the assigning were separate, they could still sue the association.

Are you suggesting the assignor and association be split? Can't be done here in Oregon. It is just not an option with the state bylaws...maybe even laws. Associations here all do the assigning. There is no reason for an association to exist if they don't assign.

Training and networking. Our associations don't assign, but we have them. I sit on the board of two of them, matter of fact.

And that's the way it is here in Washington also...the WIAA by-laws say that all WIAA competitions must be officiated by sanctioned WIAA/WOA officials - and the sanctioning is done by and thru the local Associations. The State laws say something about school districts paying money directly to the officials makes us district employees...so we use some other group to do all the billing of the schools, and that group then pays us and the assignors. Kind of a pain, but it works out pretty well.

In VA all public school games must be assigned by a sanctioned commissioner. A sanctioned commissioner must belong to an association that has contracts for at least 6 public high schools. Officials, however, can pay their state dues and get certified through a non-sanctioned association or as an indepedent.

So if there is, for instance, a public school Christmas tournament, the organizer is not allowed to just go out and hire officials on his own, even if the officials are certified by the state. The games must be assigned through an association commissioiner.

It's a bullcrap rule that was put in place after my association lost its public school contracts but was still hired to work the big in-season public school tournaments.

In Illinois, officials are sanctioned/certified by the state, specifically the IHSA, not through local associations. In the Chicagoland area, there are no assignments made by officials associations. Officials associations are for training and developing purposes only. Each conference hires their own assignment person who is responsible for assigning officials to games for that conference. We do not pay any of the assignment people dues to be part of their staff. The assignment chairs can hire any IHSA certified official they want to do their games. This is great for us as officials because there are multiple people to work for, thus minimizing politics and the good ole boy networks. I think it also minimizes the likelihood if not the liability of anyone being sued over games or lack thereof since as an official you havent paid any money to belong to a club you cant really have any expectation for getting games from any particular assignor.

I dont like this bylaw
 

Although I agree our society is way too litigious, there is still a need for civil lawsuits. An association that expels its members for exercising a constitutional right is troubling to me. Does not this trouble you or any of your members? Why have this bylaw? Assume a black official is prevented from calling varsity ball just because of his race and assume there is a paper trail (emails) that can prove this. Are you telling me you will expel him from your association if he brings a lawsuit against the association? You are basically telling your group, don't blow the whistle on us or you will be expelled. I understand wanting to prevent frivolous lawsuits, but this is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

You might want to check with a lawyer (not the crummy one, someone else). I don't believe such a statute is legal. If your group has done something wrong (hypothetically), a member cannot be threatened with expulsion for suing to rectify it.

I have one assignor who's particularly difficult to work with. So I stopped dealing with him and just fill up my schedule with other assignors. Easy peasy.

Perhaps (???) the actual wording in the bylaws only expels the person if the ruling went against them.

There are also contracts everywhere wherein a person gives up their right to sue...so this really isn't that far out there. A person doesn't have to join the organization if they don't like the Bylaws.

A lot of associations are also just small collections of people trying to cover games for the schools in their area. They're not getting rich off of it. Even just one frivolous lawsuit would destroy them and hurt everyone in the community.

Some people just like to be a pain in the neck and make stuff up in their own minds. I can see this as a way to filter out those while no real issue would be blocked by this. The courts, in a valid complaint, would likely also rule that this clause was invalid or not applicable.

Organizations also have stipulations that are not enforceable legally, no matter that they are written into a contract.

See You Later Litigator ...
 

A few years ago my local board tried to forbid members from officiating AAU games, in the off season, that were not assigned by our local assignment commissioner. A few members, and a few local AAU organizations, started throwing around words like "independent contractor", and "restraint of trade", which very quickly ended that short-lived experiment.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4123/4...5ef05648_m.jpg

Yet, they can discourage certain actions even if not legally enforceable.

I don't think, however, that it would be unenforceable for a private membership organization to exclude someone who was disruptive to there purpose from membership...as long as that exclusion isn't itself unconstitutional.

And suing just because you didn't like your schedule (without a discrimination claim behind it) would be disruptive (costly) to the organization. If there was discrimination behind it, then, if it were found to be a valid complaint, the exclusion based on being sued would probably be ruled invalid. However, it there were no discrimination found, then the exclusion may be left to stand.