Matthew GarrettSomething that the whole lawsuit thing taught me is that settlement offers aren't an indication of weakness - there's a significant strategic aspect of them under English law. This is covered by part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules (https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part36), and one of the most interesting parts is 36.17 - the consequences of not accepting an offer to settle. The court system prefers a resolution that avoids court whenever possible, so there are strong incentives for that.
The short version is that if someone offers a settlement and you refuse it, and the case goes to trial and you either lose, or win but don't win as much as was offered in the settlement, you owe costs from the date that the settlement offer was made, and you owe them at what's called the "indemnity basis" - ie, you have to pay more. This means that there's a strong incentive to make a settlement offer early in the proceedings. If the other side refuses, they'll likely end up owing you more.
But obviously it's important that the judge makes a decision without knowing about what offers have been made and refused and what they involved, because that might otherwise prejudice their decision making process - so 36.16 makes it clear that disclosing the existence of any offers before judgement is entered is forbidden
But settlements still make sense in terms of saving everyone time and money, and it's not unusual for them to occur immediately before the trial, or even *during* the trial. Someone being willing to offer a settlement isn't admitting they have a weak case, and in general if you were offered a settlement, refuse it, go to trial and then lose, you've made some poor choices.
(I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to come to a conclusion about the expected outcome if you show up to a trial without any evidence and refuse an offer to settle that involves no exchange of money at all)
drbrain
Ryan Finnie@mjg59 I had jury duty a few months ago, where I was not immediately dismissed at the counter. I waited an hour in the waiting room and was informed that everyone in the room was to be screened for one of two trials; mine was for trial B, which was expected to take a week. Watched the orientation video and waited for another few hours while the A jurors shuffled out into a courtroom for screening.
Then the judge comes in and says something like "Sorry, you're all dismissed due to the parties settling. Sometimes all it takes is for them to see that there are jurors ready to start the trial and this is a real thing, for them to admit they should settle." I later learned "sometimes" is greatly understated.
James Bennett@mjg59 There’s a similar idea in US federal procedure, which has occasionally bitten IP trolls who refuse a settlement offer.
