Quote:
Originally Posted by kanuck
So you are saying that Brent should not be looking out or having the backs of the forum members?
There are members who contribute to this site, are advertising dollars more valued then members dollars?
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You're misinterpreting what I wrote.
Fiduciary responsibility is a much higher standard than one applicable to the normal conduct of business and, as such, is therefore not applicable to owning and managing a website - even if that includes receiving money for advertising and membership.
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Fiduciary duties in a financial sense exist to ensure that those who manage other people's money act in their beneficiaries' interests, rather than serving their own interests.
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A fiduciary duty is the highest standard of care in equity or law. A fiduciary is expected to be extremely loyal to the person to whom he owes the duty (the "principal") such that there must be no conflict of duty between fiduciary and principal, and the fiduciary must not profit from their position as a fiduciary (unless the principal consents). The nature of fiduciary obligations differs among jurisdictions."
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When a fiduciary duty is imposed, equity requires a different, stricter standard of behavior than the comparable tortious duty of care in common law. The fiduciary has a duty not to be in a situation where personal interests and fiduciary duty conflict, not to be in a situation where their fiduciary duty conflicts with another fiduciary duty, and a duty not to profit from their fiduciary position without knowledge and consent. A fiduciary ideally would not have a conflict of interest. It has been said that fiduciaries must conduct themselves "at a level higher than that trodden by the crowd" and that "[t]he distinguishing or overriding duty of a fiduciary is the obligation of undivided loyalty.""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary
I believe it's also important to refute your inference that those individuals or businesses paid to run advertising should somehow have a responsibility to guarantee the integrity and financial solvency of advertisers. First, there's no precedent I know of where the courts have held this to be a requirement. Second, this would be a massive 'slippery slope' in that the risk of so doing would then mean few would accept advertising and the costs of doing so would be astronomical - eliminating the advertisers.