Challenges to good faith settlements that cut off the rights of non-settling defendants to seek indemnification and contribution from settling defendants are nearly always doomed to failure. Trial courts are understandably eager to clear their dockets and there’s no docket-clean-up pitcher like the first defendant to settle. Deny the motion and bring a settled defendant and his trial-ready resources back in to the litigation when the first defendant-domino has just successfully toppled over? Not likely, my friend. Not in the trial court at any rate.
These motions are so difficult to oppose that I’ve seen a target defendant threaten a marginal player (my client) with sanctions just for challenging the target’s very low six-figure settlement in an eight-figure antitrust action.
It looks like low value settlements got just a little bit harder to defend yesterday when the Second District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court’s good faith settlement finding in Long Beach Memorial Medical Center v. Superior Court (Conners).
Best quotation: “The hospital contends that the physicians‟ $200,000 settlement — representing 2 percent of plaintiffs‟ $10 million damages estimate — was so far out of the “ballpark” it was not even in the parking lot.” With a first runner-up to “If section 877.6 is to serve the ends of justice, it must prevent a party from purchasing protection from its indemnification obligation at bargain-basement prices.”
The Court of Appeal relied upon the following “facts” in finding that the trial court abused its considerable discretion in granting a good faith motion to defendant physicians in light of defendant hospital’s opposition.
If this case isn’t depublished (an unfortunate California practice) or taken up for review, it will bear re-reading and deeper thinking about the stategy and tactics of breaking away from the mob to cut a separate deal beneficial to one’s own client without “consider[ing] . . the relevant liability of all parties . . . ”
Comments welcome!!
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*/ This is a good place to note the importance of either indicating in the parties’ post-mediation written negotiations that the mediation is continuing (hence the communications remain absolutely protected) or that the mediation has concluded (hence bringing those post-mediation settlement negotiations outside the scope of the strictly enforced mediation confidentiality restrictions).
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