Florida Mediation Rules: Attendance, Sanctions, and Costs

Florida’s mediation rules give any party in most civil lawsuits the power to force the case into mediation, require everyone at the table to have full authority to settle, and protect what is said during the session with one of the strongest confidentiality statutes in the country. The framework comes from Chapter 44 of the Florida Statutes and Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.720, and the judge who orders your mediation will enforce both. Showing up without the right person, without real settlement authority, or not at all can cost you attorney’s fees, costs, and the mediator’s bill on top of whatever you were already fighting about.

When Florida Courts Send a Case to Mediation

Under Florida Statute 44.102, a court must refer a civil case to mediation when any party asks, so long as that party will pay the costs or the parties can divide them fairly.¹ Judges can also order mediation on their own, and most circuit courts do exactly that early in the case as a routine part of the pretrial schedule.

A few categories of cases are exempt from the mandatory-on-request rule:

Landlord-tenant disputes that do not include a personal injury claim
Debt collection actions
Medical malpractice claims
Cases where the parties have already agreed to voluntary binding arbitration

Even then, the court still has discretion to send the case to mediation. The exemption only removes the automatic referral that would otherwise follow a party’s request.¹

Family cases run on a separate track. In circuits with a family mediation program, the court must refer custody, visitation, and parental responsibility disputes to mediation once it finds a dispute exists. One significant limit: the court cannot refer any case to mediation if it finds a history of domestic violence that would compromise the process. A party can raise that concern by motion, and the judge rules on it before any referral.¹

Who Has to Attend and Who Can Settle

Rule 1.720 requires every party either to attend in person or to send a representative with “full authority to settle without further consultation.” That language has teeth. The person at the table must be the final decision-maker on every issue in the case and must have legal capacity to sign a binding agreement on the spot. Sending someone who has to phone a supervisor for approval does not meet the rule.

Insurers face a sharper version of the same requirement. The carrier must send a representative with authority to settle up to the plaintiff’s last demand or the policy limits, whichever is lower. The rule exists because mediations used to stall when insurance representatives arrived without meaningful authority. Now carriers have to send someone who can actually close.

Having authority does not mean you have to use it. Nothing in Rule 1.720 forces anyone to accept a deal. A party who attends with full authority can still walk away if the numbers do not work. The rule only requires that the person in the room has the power to say yes.

Sanctions for No-Shows and Bad-Faith Participation

Skipping a court-ordered mediation without good cause exposes you to sanctions under Rule 1.720(f). The court can award the other side’s attorney’s fees, costs, and the mediator’s bill for the wasted session. These sanctions hit quickly because the losses are easy to document.

Showing up but refusing to participate in good faith creates a parallel problem. Courts have sanctioned parties for sending representatives with absurdly low authority, arriving hours late, or refusing to negotiate at all. Treat the mediation order the way you would treat a court hearing, because the judge who issued it will enforce it.

What Mediation Costs and Who Pays

Section 44.102 puts the cost on the parties unless the court orders otherwise. The requesting party must be willing to pay, or the expense must be “equitably divided” between the sides.¹ A 50/50 split is the most common arrangement in practice.

What you actually pay depends on the forum. Some circuits offer free mediation for certain case types, including small claims, residential landlord-tenant disputes, and juvenile dependency matters. County civil cases handled through a court’s in-house program may run around $120 per one-hour session, split between the parties. Private mediators typically charge $200 to $250 per hour for standard civil matters, with complex commercial or construction cases running higher. Most sessions last two to four hours, though they can go longer when there are more issues or parties.

Court-appointed mediators must be certified by the Florida Supreme Court. You can usually agree on a mediator with the other side or ask the court to appoint one from the circuit roster. Whoever runs the session is a neutral facilitator: no decisions, no legal advice, no imposed settlement.

Remote Mediation

Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.700 allows mediation by communication technology, either by agreement of the parties or by court order. Video sessions became common during the pandemic and have largely stayed that way, especially when parties or insurance representatives are in different cities.

The substantive rules do not change when you log in from a laptop. Confidentiality applies in full, so you should not join from a public space or over an unsecured network. Recording the session by audio, video, or screenshot is prohibited. Each participant must disclose at the start of the session who else is in the room, and anyone who joins later must be identified immediately. The representative attending remotely still needs the same full settlement authority Rule 1.720 demands in person.

Confidentiality and Its Exceptions

Section 44.405 makes mediation communications confidential by default. Everything said during the session, documents exchanged, and even nonverbal conduct fall within the shield. Participants cannot disclose what happened to anyone who was not there, and they have a statutory privilege to refuse to testify about mediation communications in any later proceeding.²

The mediator carries the same protection. A court cannot compel a mediator to testify about what either side said or offered. The reason is practical. If parties thought their concessions might end up in front of a jury, nobody would negotiate honestly.

The shield has important exceptions:

Signed settlement agreements are not confidential unless the parties specifically agree otherwise
All parties can waive confidentiality and privilege together
Communications used to plan a crime, commit a crime, conceal ongoing criminal activity, or threaten violence are not protected
Mandatory reporting obligations under Florida’s child abuse and adult protective services statutes override mediation confidentiality

One trap catches people off guard. Information that was already discoverable or admissible before mediation does not become protected just because someone brought it up at the session. You cannot launder damaging evidence by mentioning it at the table.²

Violating the confidentiality rules has real consequences. In a court-ordered mediation, the judge can impose sanctions including costs, attorney’s fees, and mediator’s fees. The aggrieved party can also pursue civil remedies such as compensatory damages and equitable relief.²

If your case has a federal dimension, Federal Rule of Evidence 408 adds a second layer by barring evidence of settlement negotiations to prove or disprove the validity or amount of a disputed claim.³

Signing an Agreement or Declaring Impasse

If the parties reach a deal on some or all of the issues, the agreement must be written down and signed by every party and their attorneys. This is not a formality you can skip. An unsigned oral agreement at mediation is not enforceable, no matter how clearly the terms seemed set at the table. Once signed, the agreement works as a binding contract that the court can roll into a final judgment.

If a party later backs out of the signed agreement, the other side can file a motion to enforce. The court can award costs and attorney’s fees and enter judgment on the agreement’s terms, effectively forcing the deal the resisting party already agreed to and making that party pay for the enforcement effort.⁴ Always ask that the settlement terms be made part of the court’s order, because enforcement becomes harder once a case is dismissed outright.

If no deal is reached, the mediator declares an impasse and reports it to the court. The report says only that the parties did not settle. The mediator cannot comment on who was reasonable or what the case is worth. Once filed, the case returns to the standard litigation track toward trial.⁴ A partial impasse is also possible. The parties might resolve three of five issues, sign on those, and declare impasse on the remaining two, narrowing the trial and cutting costs even without a full settlement.

Taxes on a Mediated Settlement

Most parties focus on the dollar amount and never think about what they will owe the IRS. The general rule is that settlement payments are taxable income unless the Internal Revenue Code specifically excludes them. The main exclusion covers damages received on account of personal physical injuries or physical sickness. Under 26 U.S.C. § 104(a)(2), those payments, including lost wages caused by the physical injury, are excluded from gross income as long as they are not punitive damages.⁵

Payments for emotional distress not tied to a physical injury, discrimination claims, breach of contract, and lost business income all count as gross income.⁶ Punitive damages are taxable regardless of the underlying claim. Severance and dismissal pay in an employment settlement are treated as wages.

How the agreement allocates the payment matters. The IRS looks at what each dollar was intended to replace. A lump sum with no breakdown gives the IRS room to treat the entire amount as taxable, while an agreement that separately identifies the physical-injury portion, emotional-distress portion, and any punitive portion gives both sides a cleaner tax position. Raise this with your attorney and a tax professional before you sign, not after.⁶

1
Justia Law. Florida Code 44.102 – Court-Ordered Mediation
2
Florida Senate. Florida Code 44.405 – Confidentiality; Privilege; Exceptions
3
Legal Information Institute. Federal Rules of Evidence Rule 408 – Compromise Offers and Negotiations
4
Florida Courts. Reporting Mediation Outcomes
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 104 – Compensation for Injuries or Sickness
6
Internal Revenue Service. Tax Implications of Settlements and Judgments