Can they prove that it was your tie? Can they prove you put that tie in incorrectly? Can they prove that it was your placing of the tie that was directly responsible for the roof coming off?
You are thinking to far ahead. Do you really think some people are going to blame a group for trying to help make things look better? I think about lawsuits all the time; I really don't see anything coming of us trying to help fix things. It is a great idea, in fact, as soon as I can confirm HDF's 501.c3 status I am going to start writing letters.
*** Please take pictures of broken stuff at Kokohead *** we will try and write a letter to people to see if we can get them to donate $$$ or supplies to us to repair it.
The counsel doesn't have to prove it was you to drag you in. Once you are in regardless of winning or losing the case you will need to expend money on legal counsel.
I'll share one cut and dried example (out of the tons that I've heard). 1st person account, the guy talking was the person being sued, no second/third hand stories (we'll call him The Boned). This guy makes lifting slings. There is a sling failure on the jobsite. There are three manufacturers of slings on the project. The Boned slings are colored so they are easily identified from the other manufacturers products. The failed product was of a different color so it's obviously not his. The sling that failed was obviously abused and should have been taken out of service immediately but it wasn't.
The Boned's wife says settle the suit. The Boned says hell no this thing will cost me nearly a million dollars. Guess what he doesn't settle, he gets sucked into the lawsuit with the other guys, he ends up paying out several million dollars. To me as a professional it's obviously user abuse and stupidity that caused the failure. The sling is obviously not The Boned's product, yet he lost big time.
I'm not trying to be a dick here, but I do want you guys to know that there are a lot of shady people out there and you need to watch out for yourself. Funtimes if you want to go ahead and help out, then so be it, but just be advised that everyone is not as nice as you are.