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RSPCA criticised for shunning mediation
Mon 08 Feb 2010
The RSPCA has been criticised for being unwilling to accept mediation in a dispute regarding a will.
Dr Christine Gill was disinherited from her mother's will, in which £1.3 million worth of assets were bequeathed to the animal charity.
However, Dr Gill successfully challenged the document on the grounds that her late father had coerced her mother into donating to the RSPCA, as she had a firm dislike of the group.
The RSPCA rejected the challenge and failed to seek out of court mediation regarding the dispute, a move which Judge James Allen this week described as unreasonable.
He said Dr Gill had sought to settle the matter out of court and persevered in her attempts to persuade the RSPCA to adopt such a course.
Judge Allen stated that the animal charity responded with an attitude that was "out of step with the expectation of the court" and the "underlying spirit of the modern procedure".
The RSPCA, which was founded in 1824, has now been ordered to pay legal costs adding up to £1.3 million.
Jim Rai, a partner with Winckworth Sherwood, said: "The difficulty in rejecting offers to attend a mediation is how one can distinguish between parties who genuinely are seeking to settle a dispute within mediation and those who wish to obtain some form of tactical advantage from it to assist in the main litigation proceedings.
"The courts run the risk of wrongly penalising a party who rejects an offer of mediation due to a genuine belief that their opposite number is only offering mediation to obtain information they would not necessarily extract within the litigation proceedings.
"In those circumstances how does a court determine what is or is not reasonable when rejecting to participate in an out of court mediation."
