California

Supreme Court Limits California’s PAGA Law on Employment Claims, Preempting It in Part under the Federal Arbitration Act

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By Arjan Bir Singh Sodhi & Russ Bleemer

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this morning that employers may require their workers to arbitrate employment disputes under California’s Private Attorneys General Act, a 2003 law that allows Californians to file suit on behalf of the state for employment-law violations.  

The Federal Arbitration Act, the Court found today in Viking River Cruises Inc. v. Moriana, No. 20–1573, preempts at least in part the California state PAGA law, which had been the source of tens of thousands of court claims in the face of arbitration requirements, according to an industry interest group formed to fight the PAGA arbitration ban.

This morning’s decision is available on the Supreme Court’s website here.

The dispute traces to the controversial California Supreme Court case of Iskanian v. CLS Transp. Los Angeles LLC, 327 P.3d 129 (Cal. 2014) (available at https://stanford.io/3ILcTY5), where the state’s top Court held “that an arbitration agreement requiring an employee as a condition of employment to give up the right to bring representative PAGA actions in any forum is contrary to public policy.”

Today’s majority opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. does not fully invalidate PAGA, and takes issue with arguments on both sides. In fact, it leaves wiggle room for the California courts and legislature to tinker with PAGA to provide relief for what it terms “non-individual” claims that the original plaintiff no longer has standing to make under the decision.

But it strikes the Iskanian reasoning, and criticizes the PAGA statute’s orientation, noting that it isn’t clear on individual’s claims as opposed to representative actions.  Alito explains that representative actions under the law are not only those of the “individual claims” of employees who seeks to file suit for workplace claims under the state’s Labor Code, but also representative PAGA claims predicated on code violations “sustained by other employees.” The latter, under Iskanian, may not be subject to mandatory arbitration.

That didn’t sit well with the majority opinion, which contrasts PAGA’s single suit involving many claims but solely by an individual on behalf of the California Labor & Workforce Development Agency, as opposed to class-action cases which may involve many claims but also on behalf of many absent plaintiffs who are certified as a class. 

The bottom line is that the representative aspect of PAGA as it applies to arbitration was stricken in today’s Court decision, an 8-1 decision with two concurring opinions. There was a dissent by Justice Clarence Thomas, who maintained his longstanding view–a short dissenting opinion that he has issued on at least seven other occasions–that the Federal Arbitration Act doesn’t apply in state courts.

The results already are seen as a relief by California business interests, with the Iskanian arbitration bar eliminated.  Los Angeles-based Anthony J. Oncidi, a partner and co-chair, of Proskauer Rose’s Labor and Employment Department, writes in an email,

Employers all over California are rejoicing today with the news that this peculiar PAGA exemption from arbitration is finally gone. Employers should run, not walk, to take advantage of this significant new development by immediately reviewing and, if necessary, amending their arbitration agreements to encompass PAGA claims. And as for those employers who, for whatever reason, have not yet availed themselves of an updated arbitration program, this is just the most recent reason to consider doing so.

Another management-side attorney, Christopher C. Murray, an Indianapolis shareholder in Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart, P.C., writes,

Today’s decision is, for now, a victory for employers with well-crafted arbitration agreements containing class action and representative action waivers and severability clauses. However, it’s a nuanced decision that leaves open a number of issues.  One is whether the California legislature can amend PAGA to give a plaintiff standing to bring a representative PAGA action even if the plaintiff cannot pursue an individual claim in the same action. In short, it’s unlikely that today’s opinion will be the final word on representative PAGA actions and arbitration.

[Murray co-chairs the Employment Disputes Committee at the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution-CPR, which provides this blog.]

“While today’s decision is disappointing and adds new limits, key aspects of PAGA remain in effect and the law of our state,” noted California State Attorney General Rob Bonta in a statement this afternoon. He added: “Workers can continue to bring claims on behalf of the State of California to protect themselves and, in many instances, their colleagues all across California. At the California Department of Justice, we will continue to stand with workers to fight for their rights everywhere.” (The full press release is available here.)

Today’s decision may serve to derail efforts to enact PAGA-like statutes in other states. Had the law stood in its entirety and its arbitration end-run survived, labor likely would have reinvigorated pushes in blue states to add similar laws. See, e.g., Dan Walters, “The Fight Over the Private Attorneys General Act,” Orange County [Calif.] Register (April 5) (available at https://bit.ly/3MOO7s5).

The PAGA law, according to employers, negated the effects of the U.S. Supreme Court cases of Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 138 S.Ct. 1612 (2018) (available at http://bit.ly/2Y66dwK), which authorized mandatory predispute arbitration, and AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, 563 U.S. 333 (2011) (available at http://bit.ly/2VcI4mi), which permits mandatory arbitration backed with class waivers in consumer contracts.

The Court heard the oral arguments on March 30, the last of four arbitration cases argued in nine days at the nation’s top court. See Russ Bleemer, “Adding a Claim, and Avoiding Arbitration: The Supreme Court Reviews California’s Private Attorneys General Act,” CPR Speaks blog (March 30) (available at https://bit.ly/3NWMFoQ).

It’s also the last of the five arbitration cases the nation’s top Court has accepted and decided in its 2021-2022 term, following closely on Monday’s decision in consolidated international arbitration cases focused on cross-border discovery issues.  Links to reports on all of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions, as well as case previews and in-depth reviews of the arguments, can be found on the CPR Speaks blog here.

* * *

Under the PAGA law, employees may bring forth disputes on behalf of similarly situated workers who also allege employment violations. Angie Moriana, who worked as a sales representative for Viking River Cruises in 2016 and 2017, filed suit against the company in a representative action for alleged violations of California labor laws. Moriana alleged that Viking River Cruises violated California wage and hour laws. She had signed a pre-dispute agreement agreeing to file her claims in arbitration individually, and waiving her ability to bring a class action. As a result, Viking River Cruises sought arbitration.

In Iskanian in 2014, the California Supreme Court ruled that though PAGA suits are filed on behalf of the state, employees cannot forgo their ability to file these claims individually. The California Supreme Court decided Iskanian before the U.S. Supreme Court–showing its broad deference to the Federal Arbitration Act’s recognition of the enforcement of arbitration agreements–decided the Epic Systems mandatory employment arbitration case.

This Iskanian mandatory arbitration bar reasoned that PAGA plaintiffs represent the state as private attorneys general even though the state was not a party to the arbitration agreement. In Epic Systems v. Lewis, the U.S. Supreme Court held that mandatory arbitration agreements do not violate employees’ rights under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. 

PAGA supporters argued that the law supplements the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency’s limited enforcement capability by allowing employees to enforce the state labor laws.  Employers contended that the inability to arbitrate workplace disputes cost money and jobs.

During the March 30 Supreme Court oral arguments (full CPR Speaks coverage at the link above), the court’s liberal justices were more animated, and appeared to back the California Supreme Court prohibiting mandatory arbitration of PAGA claims. Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan questioned why the state’s choice to enforce its workplace regulations should be overridden by the FAA, a statute now nearly a century old.

The Court conservatives did not share the same doubts. Contrary to Moriana’s assertion that requiring arbitration essentially waives a PAGA claim, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stated that a PAGA plaintiff does have a right to pursue the substantive claim, although through a different means. Today’s opinion author, Justice Alito, appeared to imply that the court’s Epic Systems decision supported finding arbitration agreements enforceable in the face of PAGA allegations.

* * *

Alito continued that line of reasoning in this morning’s decision, invoking the Court’s arbitration precedents, and discussing the expected characteristics of arbitration as a bilateral process, not a representative or class proceeding.

Alito criticized the California statute’s structure—”a PAGA action asserting multiple code violations affecting a range of different employees does not constitute ‘a single claim’ in even the broadest possible sense”—and noted that the law prohibited dividing the matter into the constituent individual and representative claims.

The opinion focused on the definitions of representative claims in bilateral arbitration.  It states that while precedents don’t hold “that the FAA allows parties to contract out of anything that might amplify defense risks,”  the practice makes “it . . . impossible to decide representative claims in an arbitration that is ‘bilateral’ in every dimension.” Alito wrote, “[O]ur cases hold that States cannot coerce individuals into forgoing arbitration by taking the individualized and informal procedures characteristic of traditional arbitration off the table.”

The federal-state law conflict, however, was elsewhere.  The majority opinion–in a section where Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, did not join with the majority—finds a conflict between PAGA and the FAA in PAGA’s “built-in mechanism of claim joinder.”  The Court says that Iskanian’s mandate of joinder of “aggrieved” employees’ “personally suffered” Labor Code violations “as a basis to join to the action any claims that could have been raised by the State in an enforcement proceeding” coerced parties’ PAGA claims out of arbitration.

The majority invoked its historic view of arbitration, holding that “state law cannot condition the enforceability of an arbitration agreement on the availability of a procedural mechanism that would permit a party to expand the scope of the arbitration by introducing claims that the parties did not jointly agree to arbitrate.”

Alito adds that PAGA allowed parties to avoid their agreement to arbitrate their individual claims after the fact and demand court or arbitration that exceeds the scope of the original agreement: “The only way for parties to agree to arbitrate one of an employee’s PAGA claims is to also ‘agree’ to arbitrate all other PAGA claims in the same arbitral proceeding.” [Emphasis is in the opinion.]

That aspect of the California law did not survive. “We hold that the FAA preempts the rule of Iskanian insofar as it precludes division of PAGA actions into individual and non-individual claims through an agreement to arbitrate,” Alito wrote. The agreement’s severability clause, the opinion concludes, allows Viking River Cruises to compel individual arbitration of respondent Moriana’s claims.

The opinion also dismisses Moriana’s non-individual claims, holding that, with the dismissal, Moriana no longer had standing, leaving those claims–still valid in the majority’s view–in limbo. Instead of court or arbitration, however, the opinion targets the law. Alito concludes, “PAGA provides no mechanism to enable a court to adjudicate non-individual PAGA claims once an individual claim has been committed to a separate proceeding.”

* * *

In her concurrence, Justice Sotomayor picks up on the majority’s closing point as well as followed from her oral argument concerns about whether the FAA could eliminate claims chosen by the California Legislature for its constituents via PAGA.

First, she asserts that the majority “makes clear that California is not powerless to address its sovereign concern that it cannot adequately enforce its Labor Code without assistance from private attorneys general.”

But then, returning to Alito’s closing point that the nonindividual claims have no outlet due to Moriana’s apparent lack of standing under California law, Sotomayor agrees, noting that there are options:

Of course, if this Court’s understanding of state law is wrong, California courts, in an appropriate case, will have the last word. Alternatively, if this Court’s understanding is right, the California Legislature is free to modify the scope of stat­utory standing under PAGA within state and federal con­stitutional limits.

Viking River Cruises, says Washington, D.C., arbitrator Mark Kantor, who closely follows the Court’s arbitration jurisprudence and previewed the case for CPR Speaks here, “leaves considerable scope for the California legislature to rework PAGA to reestablish a representative action that could survive FAA preemption and make a waiver of PAGA unenforceable, although possibly enforceable in an arbitral forum if the relevant employment agreements calls for arbitration.”

* * *

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s additional opinion is brief but goes further–concurring in the judgment, at the same time stepping away from much of the majority’s discussion of representative and individual actions.

She concurs with Section III of the opinion, the FAA-PAGA conflict because of the California law’s mandatory joinder provisions that would bring representative claims to arbitration. Joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh, Barrett writes that she agrees “that reversal is required under our precedent because PAGA’s procedure is akin to other aggregation devices that cannot be imposed on a party to an arbitration agreement,” citing four seminal Supreme Court cases including Epic Systems and AT&T Mobility (see above).

But her one-paragraph concurrence concludes, and could add fuel to moves by the California Legislature to reform PAGA in light of today’s decision:

I would say nothing more than that. The discussion in Parts II and IV of the Court’s opinion is unnecessary to the result, and much of it addresses disputed state-law questions as well as arguments not pressed or passed upon in this case.*

That asterisk is to a footnote, in which Justice Barrett adds, “The same is true of Part I,” which described the PAGA, Iskanian, and case histories.

Chief Justice Roberts dissented from the footnote, and joined in the Alito majority opinion for Parts 1 and III.

* * *

Sodhi, a former CPR intern, last month received his LLM at the Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, at Malibu, Calif.’s Pepperdine University Caruso School of Law.  Bleemer edits Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation for CPR.

[END]

Claim Forfeited? California Appeals Court Upholds Exclusion of Estate Benefits for Non-Compliance with Court-Ordered Mediation

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By Mylene Chan

A recently filed petition for review pending before the California Supreme Court raises a controversial issue regarding the fairness of court actions related to non-compliance with court-ordered mediation.

Breslin v. Breslin, 62 Cal.App.5th 801 (Jan. 26) (available at https://bit.ly/3xI7ige), is a probate case for which a cert petition was filed at California’s top Court on May 6.

The case involves a probate dispute regarding interests in a trust, with potential beneficiaries including 24 charities. The court ordered mediation, but most of the nonprofit groups did not attend. The attending parties reached an agreement.

The opinion notes, “The settlement agreement awarded specific amounts to various parties, including the appearing charities, and attorney fees with the residue to the intestate heirs.” Other non-attending parties were not included.

The probate court approved the settlement and explained that appellants lost their interests in the trust by failing to file responses and objections to the initial trustee’s petition and failing to participate or appear in the court-ordered mediation.

The appellate court upheld the probate court’s decision on the ground that the California Probate Code gives courts discretion to order mediation. “A party receiving notice under the circumstances here, who fails to participate in court-ordered mediation, is bound by the result,” the opinion states.  

The appellants argued that the court’s decision conflicts with existing California laws that are designed to honor a decedent’s testamentary intent, protect beneficiaries, avoid forfeitures, and encourage charitable giving. “Under the label of ‘forfeiture,’ the majority opinion has established what amounts to a terminating sanction for beneficiaries who fail to attend private mediation,” the petition states.

In a reply to the cert petition, Kevin G. Staker and Brandon P. Johnson, of Camarillo, Calif.’s StakerLaw Tax and Estate Planning Law Corp., on behalf of respondent David Breslin, who is the estate’s trustee, argued that the appellants were never vested beneficiaries and lost their alleged rights in the trust because they failed to participate in the court-ordered mediation.

Mark A. Lester, Katherine H. Becker, and Eric A. Hirschberg, attorneys at Jones, Lester, Schuck, Becker & Dehesa in Camarillo, Calif., who filed a brief on behalf of intestate respondents Paul G. Breslin and Kathleen Breslin LaForgia, took a similar position, and also noted that affirming the lower court decisions benefits the trust and estate practice. Respondent counsel Lester indicated in an email with the blog’s author that using mediation early in trust and estate disputes means that the vast balance of the estate gets to the beneficiaries rather than the attorneys. 

The California attorney general submitted a six-page amicus curiae letter in support of the appellants’ request that the state Supreme Court grant review of Breslin. The attorney general argued that the case raises important questions concerning whether a court has discretion to waive a beneficiary’s objections to a petition for approval of a settlement agreement and presents significant policy ramifications.

It is uncertain what trends Breslin would set nationally because Breslin raises several challenging issues, such as forfeiture, due process, cost burdens, and bad faith. For now, it does not appear that New York, for example, would endorse a similarly harsh sanction for non-compliance with court-ordered mediation.

In the past five years, in New York state and federal courts, a court has sanctioned parties for non-compliance only in rare cases. For example, in Workneh v. Super Shuttle Int’l, Inc., 2020 WL 3492000 (S.D.N.Y. June 8, 2020), the court dismissed the case; in Kantor v. Air Atl. Med., P.C., 2020 WL 7130732 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 23, 2020), the court issued default judgments and recommended monetary sanctions, and in Rice v. NBCUniversal Media, LLC, 2019 WL 3000808, (S.D.N.Y. July 10, 2019), the court imposed a monetary sanction.

These three cases involved egregious behavior–such as repeated violations of court orders in a variety of contexts over the course of two years (responses to discovery requests, refusal to provide authorization, failure to appear as directed), and failure to communicate with the court and opposing counsel for almost a year–warranting serious sanctions. It appears, however, that New York judges might not quickly divest parties of rights for non-appearance as did the California court in Breslin.

If the California Supreme Court accepts Breslin and affirms the lower court rulings, it could signal a shift in the impact and effects of court-ordered mediation. The mediation community, as suggested by the cert petition, is watching closely.  Practitioners will want to monitor the case because of its potential to change the standards applied to parties in court-ordered mediation.

***

The author, an LLM candidate, at Yeshiva University’s Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York, is a 2021 CPR Summer Intern.

[END]

New California Law Prohibits Pre-Dispute Employment Arbitration Agreements

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By Andrew Garcia

California last week enacted a new law that prohibits employers from requiring job applicants, or any existing employee, to enter into pre-dispute arbitration agreements as a condition of employment.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill into law Oct. 10. It also criminalizes any retaliation against an employee who refuses to enter into a pre-dispute arbitration agreement.

Assembly Bill 5, introduced by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D., San Diego, says that a violation of the amended California Labor Code is a misdemeanor. Despite the law’s harsh prescriptions for violators, the bill clarifies that it does not purport to invalidate any existing arbitration agreement that is consistent with the Federal Arbitration Act.

The California Chamber of Commerce identified AB 51 as a “job killer.” (See the chamber’s press release ahead of the first major hearing on the bill in March at http://bit.ly/2pmYYEu.)  The chamber said that the new law conflicts with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Kindred Nursing Centers Ltd. Partnership v. Clark, 137 S.Ct. 1421 (2017), among many cited cases that it notes are part of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence favoring arbitration agreements. The chamber predicts that the law will be challenged and overturned, preempted by federal law. (You can read the chamber’s statement in opposition to the California Legislature, joined by 41 local chamber and specialized industry groups, at http://bit.ly/33zTLIz.)

As other jurisdictions wrestle with local restrictions, courts are beginning to see challenges.  A New York federal court last spring stuck down a New York state pre-dispute mandatory arbitration bar in a decision that was mirrored by the California Chamber’s view. See Latif v. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, No. 18-cv-11528, 2019 WL 2610985 (S.D.N.Y. June 26, 2019), where the U.S. District Court held that a newly enacted New York state law that invalidated pre-dispute employment arbitration agreements was preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. See also, Andrew Garcia, “Update: Legislatures on Invalidating Pre-Dispute Arbitration Agreements,” CPR Speaks blog (Aug. 1) (available at http://bit.ly/2IPg6dd).

AB 51 is one of three bills signed by Gov. Newsom, a Democrat who took office in January, that expanded California’s workplace protection laws.  “Work is about more than earning an income,” he stated, adding, “For many, a job can provide a sense of purpose and belonging–the satisfaction of knowing your labor provides value to the world. Everyone should have the ability to feel that pride in what they do, but for too many workers, they aren’t provided the dignity, respect or safety they deserve. These laws will help change that.”

That move is a big change from Newsom’s predecessor. The new law is a reintroduction of an identical 2018 bill that was vetoed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, also a Democrat–the second time Brown vetoed legislation restricting arbitration.  The California Chamber of Commerce opposition letter quotes Brown’s 2018 veto extensively, including the Kindred Nursing decision, which noted, “A rule selectively finding arbitration contracts invalid because improperly formed fares no better under the [Federal Arbitration Act] than a rule selectively refusing to enforce those agreements once properly made. Precedent confirms that point.”

An August California court decision, however, shares the new law’s skeptical arbitration view. In OTO LLC v. Kho, 447 P.3d 680 (Cal. 2019) (available at https://stanford.io/2ON8f3x), the California Supreme Court rejected the validity of an arbitration agreement because, among other reasons, the defendant required plaintiff Kho to sign the agreement as a condition of his employment.

The court found that the porter who delivered the agreement remained at Kho’s place of work until he signed the agreement, which created an impression that he had to sign it immediately. Therefore, the court ruled that since Kho had no choice but to sign the arbitration agreement or lose his job without an opportunity to review the agreement in his native language, it could not be enforced.

To view the bill in its entirety, click here.

The author, a Summer and Fall 2019 CPR Institute intern, is a law student at Brooklyn Law School.

 

 

A DOA Exception? California’s Law Revision Commission Looks to Reassess Mediation Confidentiality as Commenters Blast its Legislative Recommendation

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By Russ Bleemer

The prospects for a new California mediation confidentiality law that would provide an exception allowing parties to introduce evidence in a post-ADR malpractice case faded this week in the face of a frank report by the state commission that proposed the change.

“The opposition to the [California Law Revision] Commission’s tentative recommendation can only be described as overwhelming,” concludes Barbara Gaal, chief deputy counsel to the California Law Revision Commission, in a 36-page report released Wednesday.  She adds, “It is not unanimous, but it is deep and widespread. California’s mediation confidentiality statute may differ from those in other jurisdictions, providing greater protection in some respects, but a broad range of stakeholder organizations and many individuals appear to be well-satisfied with that approach and offer many reasons for their position.”

The new Sept. 27 report provides 155 pages of comments on a proposal to amend the state’s evidence that the commission has studied since 2012.  (The commission’s analysis is at http://bit.ly/2xQBnON; the comments are collected at http://bit.ly/2x2Dx9Y.) The amendment would add a new Section 1120.5 to the California Evidence Code, titled “Alleged misconduct of lawyer when representing client in mediation context.”

Because of an absolutist approach by the state’s courts, concerns have been raised for years over malpractice cases.  The state courts have barred the introduction of materials made in preparation for and used at mediation sessions in most cases.

The approach has provided a boost to California’s strong mediation culture, but has left victims of attorney malpractice with tough—some say insurmountable–paths to proving their claims.

The many comments submitted on the tentative recommendation “include scattered words of praise or appreciation for the Commission, its staff, its process, and its work on this study,” Gaal writes, but “[i]n general, however, they do not have much positive to say about the Commission’s proposal.”

Gaal urges the members of the commission to go back to the drawing board—not necessarily re-do the commission’s work (“Relationship Between Mediation Confidentiality and Attorney Malpractice and Other Misconduct – Study K-402,” available at http://www.clrc.ca.gov/K402.html), but re-examine the reasons the study was undertaken, and whether the commission wants to proceed with a recommendation to the legislature.

She writes that the staff urges the commission members to “re-read” the tentative recommendation’s “key policy considerations at stake” in the study in assessing the criticisms.  (Direct access to the tentative recommendation is at http://bit.ly/2x2ePqr .)

The 15-page policy section emphasizes that protecting mediation confidentiality “rests on four key premises”: confidentiality promotes candor in mediation; candid discussions lead to successful mediation; successful mediation encourages future use of mediation to resolve disputes; and mediation use in resolving disputes is beneficial to society.

“The preparation of a Commission recommendation is not a popularity contest, but rather a quest to develop an analytically sound proposal that will serve the citizens of California well,” Gaal advices. “Nonetheless, the degree of opposition to the Commission’s proposal suggests that careful reexamination of the competing consideration is in order.”

If the commission elects to go forward with the tentative recommendation, Gaal notes that the commission’s staff will prepare a memo—presumably on the reasons for the proposal to be forwarded to the legislature—for the commission’s December meeting.

The commission’s efforts were examined extensively in Jeff Kichaven, A California Correction? Legislature Will Consider Allowing Attorney Malpractice Proof from Mediation,” 35 Alternatives 97 (July/August 2017)(available at http://bit.ly/2sNUOm1), and “How California Intends to Recalibrate the Concept of Mediation Confidentiality,” 35 Alternatives 93 (June 2017)(available with a subscription or after login at www.cpradr.org at http://bit.ly/2sWyqr1).

Kichaven’s July/August Alternatives cover article, in which the Los Angeles mediator strongly backed the proposal, which will allow evidence from mediations pertaining to attorney malpractice to be introduced in litigation, was submitted as a comment.

The article also a comparatively rare show of support in the face of the avalanche of the “decidedly negative” reaction.  Among the reasons commenters opposed the proposal, according to the commission report:

  • It will undermine confidentiality;
  • It could harm mediation participants who are not parties to an attorney-client dispute
  • It will overburden the courts;
  • The proposed mediation confidentiality exception’s benefits are minimal compared to the downsides;
  • The exception “provides insufficient protection for mediator communications and will cause mediators to quit and mediator malpractice insurance rates to rise”;
  • It will threaten the stability of mediated settlements;
  • It would create the need to warn participants about the new proposed exception, “and that will create problems”;
  • It will hurt vulnerable groups;
  • It will affect attorneys disproportionately; and
  • It “is a trap for the unwary,” will yield unpredictable results, and unpredictable protection for mediation communications.”

“In light of the generally negative input on the tentative recommendation,” Chief Deputy Counsel Gaal writes, “the Commission should take a hard look at its options and consider how to proceed. While the Commission should not base its policy recommendations on political considerations, neither should it ignore practical reality. The goal of a Commission study is to achieve positive reform of the law. That requires the crafting of a balanced reform that has a realistic chance of enactment.” [Emphasis is in the original.]

The document lays out the Commission’s options: Proceed with the current proposal in the face of what likely will be strong legislative opposition; turn the tentative recommendation into an information report for the California Legislature without recommending or proposing legislation; limit the exception to the private attorney-client discussions in a mediation context, instead of allowing litigants to introduce communications from the proceedings itself, thereby shielding the mediator or its adversaries; develop an “informed consent approach” and circulate a revised tentative recommendation; or revisit all of the options raised in the study, including leaving the current law intact.

The author edits Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation for the CPR Institute. CPR Institute Fall 2017 Intern Angela Cipolla contributed to research.