§ 9-17-7.Limited disclosures of mediation and mediation communications

Where Code Section 9-17-3 builds a privilege that particular people can invoke or waive, this section works differently. It states a blanket rule — mediation and mediation communications, and the conduct that goes with them, are not admissible or subject to disclosure — and it opens with “notwithstanding any provision of this chapter to the contrary,” signaling that it operates as its own bar rather than as a restatement of the privilege elsewhere in the chapter.

The rule reaches further than “mediation communication” as defined in Code Section 9-17-1. It covers the mediation itself and the conduct connected to it, not only the statements exchanged during it. And it comes with its own short list of exceptions, separate from the ones built into Code Sections 9-17-4 through 9-17-6: disclosure is allowed to the extent the parties agree to it in writing, or as Code Section 24-4-408 — Georgia’s evidence rule on compromise offers and settlement negotiations — or other law or a court-required rule permits.

The section closes with a limit on its own reach: none of this protection applies to a mediation communication that Georgia’s Open Records Act, in Article 4 of Chapter 18 of Title 50, makes available to the public. A mediation communication that would otherwise be an open record does not gain new protection just because it also passed through a mediation.