A settlement offer or offer to settle is a term used in a civil lawsuit to describe a communication from one party to the other suggesting a settlement - an agreement to end the lawsuit before a judgment is rendered.
Attorneys typically negotiate terms of a settlement on behalf of their clients, so a settlement offer is usually conveyed by one party's attorney directly to the other party's attorney.
In the English Law, Part 36 of the Civil Procedure Rules governs this area.
In the US, evidence of settlement discussions generally, and of settlement offers specifically, is generally inadmissible in court. This is a policy-based exclusion, intended to encourage the settlement of cases out of court, thus freeing up the resources of the court system.
In Australia and the United Kingdom, offers of settlement may be called Calderbank Offers, Calderbank Letters and Offers of Compromise and often have a major impact on the allocation, by courts, of legal costs between parties.
Famous quotes containing the words settlement and/or offer:
“The Settlement ... is an experimental effort to aid in the solution of the social and industrial problems which are engendered by the modern conditions of life in a great city. It insists that these problems are not confined to any one portion of the city. It is an attempt to relieve, at the same time, the overaccumulation at one end of society and the destitution at the other ...”
—Jane Addams (1860–1935)
“Like children, the elders are a burden. But unlike children, they offer no hope or promise. They are a weight and an encumbrance and a mirror of our own mortality. It takes a person of great heart to see past this fact and to see the wisdom the elders have to offer, and so serve them out of gratitude for the life they have passed on to us.”
—Kent Nerburn (20th century)