Michigan Corporate Meeting Minutes

[mpb329]

I am a board member of a Nonprofit Michigan Corporation. At our annual meetings we both take written meeting minutes and tape record the meeting. We are in litigation with one of our members and his attorney has requested to listen to the tape recordings for the past 3 years with our attorney present. Obviously we have to pay our attorney for the time she spends listening to them.

Can we refuse and provide the written minutes instead?

 

[Zigner]

I am a board member of a Nonprofit Michigan Corporation. At our annual meetings we both take written meeting minutes and tape record the meeting. We are in litigation with one of our members and his attorney has requested to listen to the tape recordings for the past 3 years with our attorney present. Obviously we have to pay our attorney for the time she spends listening to them.

Can we refuse and provide the written minutes instead?

Ask your attorney.

 

[PayrollHRGuy]

You can refuse any request including having your attorney present. That doesn't mean he can't get a subpoena for them.

 

[zddoodah]

At our annual meetings we both take written meeting minutes and tape record the meeting.

Really? In 2022, someone is still using a tape recorder?

We are in litigation with one of our members and his attorney has requested to listen to the tape recordings for the past 3 years with our attorney present. Obviously we have to pay our attorney for the time she spends listening to them.

Can we refuse and provide the written minutes instead?

So...the litigation has been ongoing for three years? Or he's been making the request for three years? What is the litigation about?

Has the member simply requested this, or did he serve a formal discovery request? What do the corporations by-laws say, if anything, about members having access to meeting minutes? Why not give him copies of the recordings?

Pending answers to these questions, depending on how thorough your corporate secretary is, I doubt anyone would agree that written minutes are a good substitute for actual recordings.

 

[Zigner]

So...the litigation has been ongoing for three years? Or he's been making the request for three years?

OR, the attorney has requested to listen to the recordings that have been created during the time period that covers the last 3 years. In fact, this option seems the most likely.

 

[adjusterjack]

I am a board member of a Nonprofit Michigan Corporation.

Is that your homeowners association that you featured in your last two threads?

(1) Making a copy of my insurance papers | Forum.FreeAdvice.com

(1) Judgement in Michigan | Forum.FreeAdvice.com

What is the litigation about?

Ditto.

We are in litigation with one of our members and his attorney has requested to listen to the tape recordings for the past 3 years with our attorney present.

I suspect that the attorney wants to run up your attorney fees until you cave.

Why not just dupe the tapes and send them to him?

Meantime, hire a steno to transcribe them. It'd be a darn sight cheaper than having your attorney sit through 3 years of recordings.

Or, you can just say no, and wait to see what the judge says about it.

 

[Litigator22]

I am a board member of a Nonprofit Michigan Corporation. At our annual meetings we both take written meeting minutes and tape record the meeting. We are in litigation with one of our members and his attorney has requested to listen to the tape recordings for the past 3 years with our attorney present. (?) Obviously we have to pay our attorney for the time she spends listening to them.

Can we refuse and provide the written minutes instead?

(As has been duly noted compliance is optional unless formal discovery requests are submitted.)

But most illogical is your assertion that it is the attorney for the member at odds with the board who is asking that the board's lawyer baby-sit while he listens to the recordings. For what purpose? It makes no sense.

Although foolish in itself the board (unmindful of the option of submitting duplicates) might impose such a condition, but why opposing counsel?

Hopefully there are wiser voices on the board than yours.