Assembly Bill 1755  (AB 1755) became law on September 29, 2024. It significantly amends California’s Song-Beverly Consumer Warranty Act (ACT), initially adopted in the 1970s. The Act is designed to provide motor vehicle owners with the remedy of restitution or replacement against automobile manufacturers when their vehicle proves to be defective.

As one might imagine, especially in California, where driving is a must, this created a cottage industry of lemon law civil lawsuits. According to one legislative analysis of AB 1755 :

Since the lifting of the COVID-19-related emergency procedures governing California’s civil litigation system, the number of annual lemon law filings in California courts has nearly doubled.

In fact, in 2023, nearly ten percent of all civil filings in the Los Angeles County Superior Court were lemon law-related cases. The influx of lemon law litigation and the accompanying increases in discovery disputes, dispositive motions, and protracted settlement negotiations is resulting in growing case backlogs across the entire civil justice system. The backlogs are now delaying justice for millions of Californians. (Analysis)

 As a result, AB 1755 was enacted to lessen the impact of so many lawsuits by creating three streamlining procedures in civil lemon law lawsuits. The first was to require that the consumer make pre-litigation demands for repurchase or restitution to the manufacturer. This would allow the manufacturer to resolve the issue without a lawsuit. The second was to institute some initial streamlined discovery, including exchanging all pertinent documents and allowing for taking shortened depositions.

The third is to require that all cases be mediated within  150 days after the answer or other responsive pleading is filed.  This requirement has created a flood of mediations. Now every single case must be mediated within its first five months.

Mediations are supposed to be voluntary and predicated on “self-determination,” in which each party is able to make free and informed choices about the process and outcome. Is this new law removing this self-determination?  Is this new law an implicit sledgehammer “forcing” parties to settle? I do not know.

However, what concerns me more is that mediation has become just another box to check off in the litigation timetable. And because it is mandatory, I am finding that the only way counsel and their clients can comply with the tight time requirement is to conduct several mediations at once using an Excel spreadsheet to keep each case and each offer and demand in each case straight. Mediation has sometimes become simply a process of trading numbers or amounts of money.  The “true” mediation process we teach is gone; it has become merely an assembly line process.

While the requirement to mediate undoubtedly helps the courts manage their caseloads and get rid of the backlog, I wonder if it has done a disservice to the field of mediation by mechanizing it.

… Just something to think about.

 

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