§ 9-17-1.Definitions

Chapter 17 spends its opening section on vocabulary because everything that follows — who can claim a privilege, what counts as a protected communication, when a mediation communication loses its shield — depends on words defined here. Reading the privilege sections without this one risks missing distinctions that carry real weight in a dispute over what a court can hear.

The definition of “mediation communication” reaches past the mediation session itself. It covers a statement, oral or written, verbal or nonverbal, made during a mediation or made for the purpose of considering, conducting, participating in, initiating, continuing, terminating, or reconvening one, or for retaining a mediator. A phone call setting up the first meeting, an email asking a mediator to take the case, and a remark made mid-session all fall inside the same definition.

Three roles get separate definitions because the chapter later gives each one a distinct privilege: the “mediation party,” whose agreement is necessary to resolve the dispute; the “mediator,” who conducts the mediation; and the “nonparty participant,” a catch-all for anyone else who takes part, including a party’s representative. Code Section 9-17-3 hands each of these three a privilege scoped to match its own communications, so distinguishing among them decides who can invoke what.

The remaining definitions — “person,” “proceeding,” “record,” and “sign” — do quieter work. “Proceeding” reaches beyond courtrooms to administrative and arbitral hearings and legislative hearings, which is why the privilege in this chapter can come up outside ordinary litigation. “Sign” covers both a handwritten signature and its electronic counterpart, laying groundwork for the chapter’s later treatment of electronic records in Code Section 9-17-11.