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A party may not share confidential mediation materials, and giving such materials to experts will result in the experts being disqualified from testifying, a federal court in Michigan held.
In Irwin Seating Company v. International Business Machines Corporation, No. 1:04-CV-568, 2006 WL 3446584 (W.D. Mich. Nov. 29, 2006), Irwin and IBM participated in a voluntary mediation in an attempt to settle their dispute.
At trial, Irwin presented two expert witnesses to testify as to IBM’s liability and Irwin’s damages. However, IBM asked the court to throw out the testimony of both experts because Irwin provided the experts with confidential documents from the mediation proceeding.
The Court agreed with IBM and held that the experts could not testify. The Court noted that all the documents in question were subject to the settlement confidentiality privilege. Additionally, although the experts claimed to have relied on the documents only for background information, the Court noted that there was no way to tell if the confidential mediation materials impacted their assessments.
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