California Court of Appeal

In plaintiff's operative complaint, he alleged that defendants, his former attorneys, committed legal malpractice by causing him to execute a settlement agreement that converted his company's corporate obligations into personal obligations without advising plaintiff that he had little to no risk of personal liability in the underlying litigation. Defendants moved for summary judgment citing plaintiff's undisputed admission that all advice he received from defendants regarding the settlement agreement was given during a mediation. Defendants argued that plaintiff therefore could not obtain evidence to support his claims, and defendants could not produce evidence to defend themselves, because the disclosure of such evidence was barred by the mediation confidentiality statutes. Summary judgment in favor of defendants is affirmed, where: 1) the mediation confidentiality statutes (Evidence Code section 1115 et seq.) preclude plaintiff from obtaining and presenting evidence of the acts or omissions by defendants that purportedly caused him to execute the settlement agreement; 2) even after mediation ends, communications and writings protected by the statutes are to remain confidential; 3) a malpractice plaintiff cannot circumvent mediation confidentiality by advancing inferences about his former attorney's supposed acts or omissions during an underlying mediation; and 4) there is a near categorical prohibition against judicially crafted exceptions to the mediation confidentiality statutes.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/18/2015
• Published 03/18/2015

Judges

• Kitching

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel