Court Opinion

ID: 9582987
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:33:35.688174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:36:20.389012
License: Public Domain

Justice Edmunds
dissenting.
Although the majority acknowledges North Carolina’s strong and consistent policy favoring settlement of contested cases, I believe this opinion undermines that policy. The mediator who conducted the settlement conference reported to the trial court that plaintiff and defendants had reached “agreement on all issues.” Specifically, the parties agreed that defendants would pay plaintiff $20,000 in exchange for a voluntary dismissal with prejudice and a full and complete release mutually agreeable to the parties. Thereafter, defendants sought to add to the release a hold-harmless provision in order to address our holding in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hosp. Auth. v. First of Ga. Ins. Co., 340 N.C. 88, 455 S.E.2d 655 (1995). Both parties agree that this provision was not discussed during the settlement conference even though it arose from an opinion published long before the mediation and presumably was known to the attorneys for the parties. Plaintiff objected to the provision, then filed a motion to enforce the settlement agreement, but the trial court denied plaintiff’s motion.
The Court of Appeals apparently realized that it could not determine from the record whether defendant’s proposed provision was *694material to the settlement agreement. Accordingly, that court remanded the case to the trial court with instructions to conduct a hearing to determine whether the contested provision was material under the circumstances of the case. The majority of this Court concludes that the release is material as a matter of law and that because the parties failed to agree as to the “terms” of the release, there is no enforceable contract. However, only a single release term, the hold-harmless provision, remained unresolved.
I agree with the majority that an agreement between the parties to mediate does not imply a surrender of their rights to a trial. Nevertheless, I do not believe that every hitch encountered in ironing out the details of a mediation nullifies that mediation. A contract survives if the parties differ over a term that is not material. MacKay v. McIntosh, 270 N.C. 69, 153 S.E.2d 800 (1967); Millis Constr. Co. v. Fairfield Sapphire Valley, Inc., 86 N.C. App. 506, 358 S.E.2d 566 (1987). The majority’s result permits a mediation to be derailed whenever either party elaborates on the particulars of their mediated agreement. I believe that the Court of Appeals’ resolution was proper and that the trial court is better able than we to determine whether the sole contested term in this case is material. Because I believe the majority opinion is inconsistent with the long-standing policy favoring settlement of contested cases, I would affirm the Court of Appeals. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.