Mediation Case Law Teaching Videos
Foxgate Homeowners' Assoc., Inc v. Bramalea Cal., Inc., 25 P.3d 1117 (Cal. 2001)
Play time: 1:32 minutes
Vacating order for sanctions where trial court improperly considered motion and supporting documents reciting statements made during a mediation session in violation of state statute mandating mediation confidentiality; rejecting assertion of an implied statutory exception to confidentiality for mediator disclosures to the court regarding potentially sanctionable conduct.
Quote from the Court: “The mediator and the Court of Appeal here were troubled by what they perceived to be a failure of Bramalea to participate in good faith in the mediation process. Nonetheless, the Legislature has weighed and balanced the policy that promotes effective mediation by requiring confidentiality against a policy that might better encourage good faith participation in the process....[T]he Legislature has decided that the policy of encouraging mediation by ensuring confidentiality is promoted by avoiding the threat that frank expression of viewpoints by the parties during mediation may subject a participant to a motion for imposition of sanctions by another party or the mediator who might assert that those views constitute a bad faith failure to participate in mediation.” 25 P.3d at 1127.
