COMMERCIAL CASE STUDY

James is an architect who was chosen to design an extension to accommodate a new, larger music rehearsal room at a school, so that the school orchestra, for which the school is known nationally, could rehearse together, at a cost of £300,000. The sound proofing for the room was especially important.

The room was built by a reputable local builder Ron chosen by the school, but once open it quickly became apparent that the sound proofing was not good enough, and the orchestra could again only practice at evenings and weekends which was very inconvenient, due to the disturbance if they played during school hours.

A independent sound proofing expert estimated that the remedial work to resolve the sound problem would cost £50,000. When the mediator was appointed, the trust who run the school were planning to take James and Ron to court to get them to pay the £50,000 split equally between the two of them.

The mediation process showed that whilst James and Ron bore some responsibility for the poor soundproofing, the trust had ‘watered down’ the original plans from James, against his advice, regarding the type and therefore the cost of sound proofing materials to be used to cut costs, and had also pushed Ron to complete the project to allow a ‘grand opening’ ceremony to be held before sufficient testing of the sound proofing could be carried out.

After some interesting discussions, the parties reached a mediated agreement where James and Ron each contributed £10,000 and the school paid the remaining £30,000 to upgrade the soundproofing.

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