Notice to Mediate Process
The notice to mediate process enables any party to an action in the Supreme Court to compel all other parties to attend a mediation session. It was first introduced in 1998 for motor vehicle personal injury cases.
The notice to mediate process does not impose a blanket obligation to mediate. The notice process is party driven. It allows any party to a particular case to make an informed assessment that mediation would be productive and then to compel the other parties to attend a mediation session.
The Notice to Mediate Regulation was developed by the Dispute Resolution Office of the Ministry of Attorney General through consultation with justice system stakeholders, including the Law Society of BC, the BC Branch of the Canadian Bar Association, the Coalition Against No-Fault in BC and the Insurance Corporation of BC.
The process was evaluated in 1999 and the findings include:
- in 71% of the mediated cases, all issues were resolved and in 75% all or some issues were resolved,
- in cases where there was not complete resolution of issues, 64% of respondents still felt that there were positive outcomes, and
- 88% of respondents felt that the notice to mediate process could usefully be expanded to include other types of civil, non-family matters.
By December 2006, the notice to mediate process had been used in over 17,000 motor vehicle personal injury cases.
For more information, see the Notice to Mediate Regulation (Motor Vehicle) bulletin and the Notice to Mediate Regulation on the Dispute Resolution Office website.
To read the evaluation report of the Notice to Mediate process for motor vehicle personal injury cases, please see "Notice to Mediate Regulation: An Evaluation of the under the Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act."
