United States Ninth Circuit

In an action to enforce a settlement agreement, which was mediated and accepted by the parties via email, the District Court's denial of plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, on grounds that the California Evidence Code's mediation privilege barred introduction of settlement emails, is reversed where at the time the parties engaged in mediation, their negotiations concerned (and the mediated agreement settled) both federal and state law claims, the federal law of privilege applied; and thus 2) the district court erred in applying California privilege law to resolve the dispute.

Appellate Information

• Published 2016/09/01

Judges

• GRABER

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel