Court ADR News

Union Groups Join Detroit's Mediated Grand Bargain

Two unions have agreed to participate in the "grand bargain" being negotiated in Detroit's bankruptcy mediation, led by US District Judge Gerald Rosen.  The Michigan Building and Construction Council  will make "material contributions" to health care costs for Detroit's retirees. Though not contributing money directly, the United Auto Workers agreed to help raise contributions toward the health care costs.  Before these pledges, the Bankruptcy Court had secured 660 million dollars in contributions toward bankruptcy relief, much of it from donations by nonprofit organizations gathered through the mediation process. Governor Rick Snyder has called for the state to contribute a 200 million dollar lump sum towards the grand bargain, which is designed to aid Detroit pensions and the Detroit Institute of Arts. However, some legislators had expressed reluctance unless the city's unions also participated. The Michigan Building and Construction Council and the UAW are the only two unions to participate so far. The mediators ' statement about their agreement expresses hope that other labor organizations will participate, but notes that the trade unions' participation is "contingent upon full funding of the grand bargain by the foundations, the state and the Detroit Institute of Arts."

Five-Figure Sanction for Contempt Related to Settlement Conference

A Nevada judge found an insurance company in contempt and ordered it to pay fifty thousand dollars for failing to send a representative with full settlement authority to a settlement conference. Plaintiff James Moberly suffered serious injuries from a fall after a dog bite; the animal had bitten several people before. The relevant policy from defendant American Family Insurance covered up to one million dollars. When Judge Janet Berry ordered the conference, she required the company to send a representative who was authorized to settle for the full amount of the policy, if necessary. However, late in the settlement conference the company's representative requested permission to delay for several days while he sought permission to make a settlement below the policy limit. After other irregularities revealed that the representative had never had full authority to make a settlement, the judge found that the insurer had acted in bad faith and cited the company in contempt. For more discussion on this topic, see this blog post by Mary Novak >>

Georgia Settlement Week Encourages Child Support Payments

Georgia's Settlement Week, held in late May, allows selected noncustodial parents the opportunity to avoid court penalties or other enforcement by making arrangements for overdue child support payments. The program is run by the Division of Child Support Services, a state program. Parents can make outstanding payments in full or establish a repayment plan. Approximately 9,000 parents were chosen for the initiative and informed by mail of their ability to participate. If invited parents do not respond, the DCSS informs state vehicle authorities to proceed with driver's license suspensions. While Settlement Week is a state program, it alleviates some of the burden on the courts that would otherwise need to act on these cases. 

New Research

Agreements in Child-Centered Mediation Found to Better Promote Child Well-Being

A study by Robin H. Ballard, et al, of Indiana University-Bloomington found that child-focused (CF) and child-informed mediation (CI) led to significantly different agreements than those reached in normal family mediation (mediation as usual-MAU). In the two child-centered mediation processes, a children's consultant attended mediation and figuratively brought "the child into the room". In both, discussion focused on issues based on research into children's well-being. In CI mediation, the consultant also interviewed the child and summarized for the parents what the child said. These two processes led to provisions that were seen to be more likely to promote the well-being of the child.

The study, summarized in "A Randomized Control Trial of Child Informed Mediation" (Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, August 2013), looked at the parents' and mediators' satisfaction with the process, settlement rate, and elements of the agreements reached. It included 69 mediations conducted over two years. Parents who agreed to participate in the study were randomly assigned to one of the three processes (parents with children under the age of 5 were not assigned to child-informed mediation). After the mediation, parents and mediators completed surveys about their experience. The content of the 57 agreements for these cases was coded for legal and physical custody, parenting time and child support. Other items coded were future communication between the parents, provisions for child safety and child-related rationales for items in the agreement.

Ballard et al. found no difference in parental satisfaction between the three processes, and no difference in settlement rate. Mediators were more satisfied (though not significantly) with CF and CI mediation than MAU. The agreements, however, were very different in CF and CI mediation as compared to MAU. CF and CI mediation agreements included more parenting time for the non-residential parent. They were also more likely to address communication between the parents and to prohibit fighting and conflict in the relationship. Agreements in CF and CI mediation included more child-related rationales, included more aspirational language for the child-parent relationship, and more provisions to improve the relationship between the parents as well as to help children adjust to the divorce. These provisions are connected to research showing that children's well-being is enhanced by more time spent with the non-residential parents and by a positive relationship between the parents.

The authors do discuss the statistical limitations caused by their small sample size. With relatively few participating families, it is possible that some results would not remain statistically significant in a larger study.

From Just Court ADR Blog

Mediation "Theology"

"A mediation colleague in Chicago, Bob Berliner, recently used the term "theology" to describe the various schools of thought regarding mediation, such as evaluative, facilitative and transformative. He was using the term somewhat tongue-in-cheek and as shorthand for the idea of belief systems that individual mediators hold, as well as the debates among those mediators." Read the rest of this post by Susan M. Yates >>

Maryland and Illinois: A Tale of Two States

"As someone working to develop and improve court ADR in Illinois, I have long been envious of the comparatively vast resources available to do this in Maryland. And I've also been very interested in what Maryland's multi-year statewide evaluation of ADR will find.  Recently, the research team involved in the evaluation published its report on Maryland's ADR landscape. To some extent, the report was eye opening. Despite a Supreme Court that is highly supportive and a statewide organization with ample funding, in some ways the landscape looks very much like Illinois', where the Supreme Court has not taken a leadership role and funding has been limited and unreliable." Read the rest of this post by Jennifer Shack >>

Foreclosure Mediation May Be Good For Your Health

"While we can all imagine that going through the foreclosure process can be stressful for homeowners and their families, now there is a study that concludes it may also be stressful for the neighbors. A new study released in the May 12, 2014 edition of Circulation, a journal of the American Heart Association, found that individuals experienced an average 1.71 millimeters of mercury increase in systolic blood pressure for every foreclosure within 100 meters of their home. While that may not seem like much, such a rise in blood pressure is roughly equivalent to the increase a person experiences as a result of three years of aging." Read the rest of this post by Shawn Davis >>

Settlement Conferences and the Price of Contempt

"In a settlement conference, what is the value of having someone present with full authority to settle? If one party lacks the authority, it can result in aggravation, wasted court fees, and lost time for trial preparation. American Family Insurance (AFI) recently learned this to their cost in a dog-bite case in Washoe County, Nevada. Because Judge Janet Berry did not believe the insurers had complied in good faith with her rules on authority to settle, she found the company in contempt and sanctioned them fifty thousand dollars." Read the rest of this post by Mary Novak  >>