Chung v. Intellectsoft Group Corporation
- Jon Tigar
- 4:21-cv-03074
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Chung v. Intellectsoft Group Corporation, Judge Tigar denied the plaintiffs’ motion to require mediation because the court lacked authority to order it.
Hope Chung, Picture Mandarin LLC, and the defendants in the case, because the court declined to require the parties to participate in mediation.
What happened
In Chung v. Intellectsoft Group Corporation, Hope Chung and Picture Mandarin LLC asked the court to require the parties to mediate. They said their contracts required an attempt to resolve disputes through mediation and that the defendants had refused their requests.
The court asked the parties to address whether it had authority to order mediation. The plaintiffs relied on the district’s alternative-dispute-resolution rules and requested mediation through the court’s mediation program. The court found that those rules required participation in one court-sponsored, nonbinding process, but did not authorize the court to compel mediation. The parties had already participated in early neutral evaluation.
The court denied the motion because it lacked authority to order the parties to mediate. Judge Jon S. Tigar issued the order on August 10, 2023.
The detailed version
- Chung v. Intellectsoft Group Corporation · No. 4:21-cv-03074
- Jon Tigar
- Aug. 10, 2023
Background
The court considered a motion by plaintiffs Hope Chung and Picture Mandarin LLC for an order directing the parties to mediation. The plaintiffs said that the contracts underlying their claims required the parties to try to resolve disputes through mediation and that the defendants had refused their requests to mediate.
Because the plaintiffs cited no authority for the requested order, and because the court found decisions suggesting that a court may lack authority to compel nonbinding mediation, the court ordered supplemental briefing on that issue.
Analysis
The plaintiffs argued that the court had authority under the Northern District of California’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Local Rules. They asked the court to order mediation through the district’s mediation program.
The court concluded that no provision of those rules authorized it to compel mediation. The rules require the parties to participate in one nonbinding alternative-dispute-resolution process offered by the court, such as early neutral evaluation, mediation, or a settlement conference with a magistrate judge. The plaintiffs acknowledged that the parties had already participated in early neutral evaluation. Because the court found no authority to compel mediation, it declined to issue the requested order.
Disposition
The court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for an order directing mediation. The order does not state that the motion was denied with or without prejudice.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.