Small Claims courts are designed to handle cases, which can be expressed in a dollar amount and are the true "people's court," where litigants represent themselves.

For example, a Southern California Small Claims Court recently dealt with two bloggers in a libel case.  One of them claimed the other engaged in a campaign of cyber-bullying by posting false statements and the respondent asserted defamation and malicious prosecution.

The parties were offered mediation but no settlement was reached.

In court, the burden of proof is on the plaintiff to provide evidence the postings on the blog are false. The defendant, however, is not required to prove the postings are true. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff awarding $5,000 in damages. The defendant said he would not pay the judgment. The plaintiff said it was never about the money; it was about clearing her name.

While I have not been able to verify this, I have been told the parties later ended up on a nationally television court show.

Could mediation have helped the parties resolve this issue?  It would have been difficult.  Mediation is not about "proving" one party or the other is correct. And mediation works best when both parties are motivated to resolve their matter. 

NFL players and owners have been in a dispute over protests occurring during the national anthem at games, which recently led to league representatives and players meeting face-to-face. After the owners conferred, they announced that the NFL would not require players to stand for the anthem. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the owners hoped that support for the players' activism would lead to standing for the national anthem voluntarily. 

Recently, San Francisco 49ers player Eric Reid invited the league to participate in a mediation to resolve the issue. The response from the NFL was that it was not interested in having a mediator participate in their meetings.

Joe Lockhart, NFL executive vice president of communications and public affairs said, "The real strength of the dialogue going on is that it is direct." Lockhart also said that there are no future face-to-face meetings scheduled.

What would mediators say to this response? Of course, we have no "inside" information from the owners. However, given that limitation, mediators say that mediation cannot work unless both parties want to resolve the issue. And, oftentimes, the party who does not want to mediate perceives themselves as having greater power.

As mediation becomes more and more known, disputants are becoming aware that they may request it as a method towards resolution. But in my opinion, the owners won't mediate until they perceive that it is in their best interest to do so. 

The dispute does not appear to be at that point yet.