In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins. The term "settlement" also has other meanings in the context of law.
The contract is based upon the bargain that a party foregoes its ability to sue (if it has not sued already), or to continue with the claim (if the plaintiff has sued), in return for the certainty written into the settlement. The courts will enforce the settlement: if it is breached, the party in default could be sued for breach of that contract. In some jurisdictions, the party in default could also face the original action being restored.
The settlement of the lawsuit defines legal requirements of the parties, and is often put in force by an order of the court after a joint stipulation by the parties. In other situations (as where the claims have been satisfied by the payment of a certain sum of money) the plaintiff and defendant can simply file a notice that the case has been dismissed.
The majority of cases are decided by a settlement. Both sides (regardless of relative monetary resources) often have a strong incentive to settle to avoid the costs (such as legal fees, finding expert witnesses, etc.), the time and the stress associated with a trial, particularly where a trial by jury is available. Generally, one side or the other will make a settlement offer early in litigation. The parties may hold (and indeed, the court may require) a settlement conference, at which they attempt to reach such a settlement.
In controversial cases, it may be written into a settlement that both sides keep its contents and all other information relevant to the case confidential.
Confidentiality is not possible in class action cases in the United States, where all settlements are subject to approval by the court pursuant to Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and counterpart rules adopted in most states.
To get around the issue of confidentiality referred to above, a standard procedure consent order, known as a Tomlin Order is entered into. The order itself contains an agreement that the claim is stayed and no further action can be taken in court (except for referring a dispute in the implementation of the order to court, which is allowed). The order also deals with payment of costs, and payments of money out of court if any money is held by the court (as these are matters which must be dealt with by Court Order). However, the actual terms of the settlement are dealt with in a 'schedule' to the order, which can remain confidential. Breach of the schedule can be dealt with as breach of contract, or breach of the consent order.
Category:Civil law (common law) Category:Civil procedure
de:Vergleich (Recht) es:Conciliación (Derecho) fr:Transaction juridique nl:Dading ja:和解 no:Forlik ru:Сеттльмент (юриспруденция) zh:庭外和解This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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