Privileged Information Protected
In an action by individual homeowners’ association members to compel discovery of association documents, the court found that the condominium association was the holder of the attorney-client privilege and it was not required to disclose privileged information to the individual homeowners. Smith v. Laguna Sur Villas. As the court noted:
It is no
secret that crowds cannot keep them. Unlike directors, the residents
owed no fiduciary duties to one another and may have been willing to
waive or breach the attorney-client privilege for reasons unrelated
to the best interests of the association. . . . "[o]ne can only imagine the sleepless nights an attorney and the
Board of Directors may incur if privileged information is placed in
the hands of hundreds of homeowners who may not all have the same
goals in mind."