Why are Settlements Confidential?
When litigation or potential litigation settles, the details of the settlement are often confidential. Sometimes, the mere fact of the settlement is confidential. People often want to know why.
The reason, from the party paying to settle the litigation, is simple. They do not want to expose themselves to future liability in the same or similar situation. Let’s suppose an 18-wheeler truck gets into an accident and someone is seriously injured. The trucking company gets sued. The lawyers for the trucking company decide it’s in the best interest to settle the case for $900,000. The litigation is settled. The trucking company lawyers do not want anyone to know the details. The next injured party might think their case is worth $900,000 when, for any number of reasons, the case might only be worth $150,000. Each case is different and many factors go into valuing a lawsuit.
There are a host of other reasons as well. Numbers make headlines. Defendants do not want bad publicity. Confidential settlements are far less likely to lead to bad publicity. Additionally, often, defendants do not admit liability in a confidential settlement.
The lawyers featured in the Injury Lawyer Database often have many confidential settlements to their credit. Sometimes these cases are reflected in their statistics, sometimes they are not. Our statistics come from publicly available data sources. Therefore, the stats only reflect cases for which suit was filed.
Lawyers who earn strong reputations in the eyes of defendants and defendant’s insurance companies can have more settlements and, therefore, more confidential settlements. If the opposing party knows a plaintiff’s lawyer only takes good cases and is always prepared to fight them as far as they need to go, settlement is more likely. It often behooves injured clients to have such an attorney on their side. ILD can help in finding the right lawyer.