The Donovan Hatem LLP Professional Practices Group and DH Consulting Group LLC, a subsidiary of Donovan Hatem, presented a mock mediation to facilitate the resolution of responsibility for technical issues that the Owner believes were caused by the Design Professional.

The case involved alleged damages from errors and omissions by the Designer, which were discovered by the Owner when the building was being repaired for unrelated damages several years after the building was constructed. The mediation objective was to sort out the responsibility and damages.

The audience decided the outcome.

The mediation participants are:

Mediator Sue Yoakum, AIA, Esq. Of Counsel, Donovan Hatem
Owner Gwen Weisberg, Partner, Donovan Hatem
Owner's Attorney Bill Gillis, Partner, Donovan Hatem
Owner's Expert Mike Landry, P.E., DH Consulting Group
Architect Amanda Sirk, Associate, Donovan Hatem
Architect's Attorney Eric Howard, Associate, Donovan Hatem
Architect's Expert Dave Ponte, P.E., DH Consulting Group
Architect's Monitoring Counsel Justin Jagher, Associate, Donovan Hatem

• We kicked off the mediation with an introduction of the parties and the rules of mediation.
• Each side - the Owner and the Architect - then, respectively, presented the facts and the defenses, including the damages they were each seeking.
• Next, the parties "adjourned" to private session wherein the Mediator met with each party to review the facts, including any weaknesses in their case/defense, to evaluate their damages, and to discuss demand and offer from the parties.
• The Mediator then turned to the audience to review the demands and determine where we should go next. We looked to our audience (each table) to recommend a settlement amount.
• Finally, we tabulated the audience settlement amounts, compared the audience recommendations, and settled the case. The final numbers were fairly even, on behalf of the Owner and the Architect, falling within the $123,000 range.