After retiring from the Los Angeles County Superior Court in the spring of 2021, Norman P. Tarle was looking to enrich his routine with a little additional purpose and meaning.
“While it’s great having time to see my grandkids up north and to just veg out,” Tarle explained with a laugh, “you can only do that so long before you start to rust.”
Tarle worked for 36 years as a commissioner and judge in Los Angeles County, handling hundreds of civil jury and bench trials involving everything from personal injury and medical malpractice to real property and landlord-tenant disputes. Tarle also ran a criminal court calendar for half his bench career, presiding over cases ranging from drug possession to sex assault and murder. And before the bench, Tarle spent six years as a deputy Los Angeles city attorney, routinely taking on slum housing and sweatshop cases.
“I sometimes saw myself as a witness to suffering,” Tarle said of his more than four decades as a jurist and attorney.
“I loved litigation because it paid for my mortgage and putting my kids through college,” he added with a chuckle. “But I have no illusions. Litigation produces so much anxiety, stress, frustration.”
Tarle said he joined Judicate West’s roster of neutrals in the summer of 2021, in part because he wanted to help disputants who are suffering through the long list of difficulties that are so frequently inherent in litigation.
“In my view, mediation is a form of rescue, and it takes people out of a place they really ought not be — in litigation,” Tarle explained. “Litigants get something they never thought they’d be signing up for, which is high cost, uncertainty, loss of control. It’s a highway of pain, and I think that settlements through mediation are an exit ramp.”
Tarle said he’s been handling a diverse range of personal injury, commercial and property-related disputes as a mediator since joining Judicate West, and he’s also tackled a variety of employment, medical malpractice and uninsured motorist matters as an arbitrator.
“I always want the attorney to look good to the client or look good to the insurance company. I work hard not to embarrass an attorney,” Tarle said of his approach as an arbitrator. “Even when I’ve thought they completely messed the case up, I’ve still always tried to make them look good. … And if they come to an agreement on anything during the arbitration process — unless it’s something illegal or I just can’t do it because of time constraints — I will always say yes. It’s their process, and I will let them work it out without interference from me.”
Before a mediation, meanwhile, Tarle said he likes to speak over the phone with attorneys and receive briefs from each side. He also encourages all the parties to exchange those briefs beforehand, so everyone can hit the ground running on the day of mediation.
Tarle noted that he will make use of joint sessions in situations where he feels the approach may be fruitful, and it’s agreed to by both sides. He’ll also use brackets and mediator’s proposals, but he emphasized that he prefers to facilitate solutions rather than suggest them.
“What becomes the final offer and demand really ought to be coming from both sides,” Tarle said. “I’ll make suggestions, but this is their process.”
Many of the disputes he’s worked to resolve feature intense emotions, and listening to litigants is a critical component of his process, he said, but will offer his thoughts on the strengths and weaknesses of a case.
“Litigants want to be treated fairly, they want to be heard, and they want to be understood,” Tarle explained. “After 36 years on the bench, I may not know what an outcome will be in a trial, but I certainly know what the jurors and the court are going to have problems with. So I have long discussions sometimes with the attorneys and the litigants about where I see problems and ask them to just consider those.”
Oceanside plaintiffs’ attorney Alise M. Fonseca used Tarle recently to settle an auto accident personal injury case. She said he was impressively determined and optimistic throughout, and she described his process as one full of “constructive communication.”
“Throughout the mediation he posed effective questions that caused my client — and probably the other side, too — to pause, reflect and reassess the case in ways we hadn’t before, including flaws and strong points. It was really beneficial for my client to hear that,” Fonseca said. “He really seemed to be considering the case in its entirety. And at one point, he even asked me, ‘What are you trying to communicate?’ with one of my counter demands. So he was really looking beyond or behind the numbers to really what the case was about for both sides.”
Irvine defense attorney Denetta E. Scott used Tarle to resolve a personal injury dispute this year. She said he was extremely patient with one of the case’s pro per plaintiffs, and the mediator’s extensive experience on the bench was especially helpful.
“That really helped him to read the room as far as the parties’ perspectives and to speak with everyone in a way that ultimately helped us reach a global resolution,” Scott said. “He was also very fair and neutral. You would think all mediators would be fair and neutral, but I’m finding these days that’s not always the case. But I felt he really treated all the parties very fairly.”
Lancaster plaintiffs’ attorney Mark A. Anderson used Tarle to settle a restaurant slip-and-fall case in May. He said the neutral was especially patient, good with the clients and “authoritative without being pushy.”
“He’s a good choice for difficult cases with clients with expectations that need to be kept in a real range,” Anderson said. “I’ve had mediators that trot out the horribles — as I call it — in front of the client, and sometimes it comes off as very discouraging, kind of one-sided. … He didn’t come off too strong in that regard, which I really appreciated, but he did still lay out some of the legitimate realities of taking the case to trial, which I thought was really helpful.”
Tarle said working as a mediator and an arbitrator has proved to be far more enjoyable than he initially imagined.
“I think the ability to help people out of a place they really don’t want to be, which is in litigation, is wonderful,” he explained. “I know the stress that the litigants feel. I can see it. It keeps them up at night, and it affects absolutely everything they do. … That feeling of just giving them a hand out of that vortex is really rewarding.”
Here are some attorneys who have used Tarle’s services: Alise M. Fonseca, Harris Personal Injury Lawyers; Mark A. Anderson, Kuzyk Law LLP; Anthony M. Burrola, Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP; Denetta E. Scott, Mortenson Taggart Adams LLP; Mark W. Flory, Ford, Walker, Haggerty & Behar LLP.