Opinion ID: 2284361
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Offers of Compromise To Show Liability

Text: The law of evidence, reflecting a policy to promote private resolution of civil disputes, disfavors the use of an offer to compromise a disputed claim against the party making it as an admission of liability. This rule also recognizes the minimal probative value of a settlement offer as an admission against interest. See Fed.R. Evid. 408 (1988); C. MCCORMICK, MCCORMICK ON EVIDENCE § 274(f) (3d ed. 1984). Hence this court has repeatedly held that an offer to compromise a claim is inadmissible on the issue of liability. See, e.g., Goon v. Gee Kung Tong, Inc., 544 A.2d 277, 280 (D.C.1988); Wayne Insulation Co. v. Hex Corp., 534 A.2d 1279, 1281 (D.C. 1987); Pyne v. Jamaica Nutrition Holdings, 497 A.2d 118, 126-27 (D.C.1985). Beyond question the September 19 letter was, in substance, an offer by Beckman to compromise Farmer's claim. It occurred at a time when the parties were in clear dispute as to the validity of Farmer's claim, and when relations were so acrimonious as to make litigation almost inevitable. Cf. Goon, supra, 544 A.2d at 281; 1010 Potomac Assoc. v. Grocery Mfrs., 485 A.2d 199, 211 (D.C.1984); Crain v. Allison, 443 A.2d 558, 565-66 (D.C.1982) (for exclusionary rule to apply, parties must be in apparent dispute as to amount or validity of claim). Moreover, the letter wears a characteristic badge of an offer to compromise a disputed claim: an express disclaimer of liability. See Harrison v. District of Columbia, 95 A.2d 332, 334 (D.C.1953). Farmer, however, mirroring the trial judge's reasoning in denying defendants' motions for a new trial, argues that the offer to compromise was not admitted against Beckman as an admission of liability; indeed, it was not offered for any purpose at all but rather wasas the trial judge opineda purely incidental part of a letter whose legitimate significance lay elsewhere, viz., in Beckman's failure to assert that Farmer had contracted away his rights in the earlier agreement. [38] That aspect of the letter, Farmer maintains, was relevant to the parties' intent in executing the July 1984 agreement. There are several difficulties with this argument. First, assuming the trial judge had this distinction in mind, he issued no instruction to the jury, contemporaneously or at any time, charging them to disregard the settlement offer and consider only Beckman's failure in the letter to mention the earlier separation of practice agreement. Second, Farmer's counsel made no such distinction in arguing the contents of the letter to the jury, but rather directed the jury's attention precisely to its mention of the Laker anti-trust litigation and proposal of $200,000 from [that] litigation. See note 37, supra. Third, asking the jury to consider what the letter did not say but not to consider the settlement offer would have been impractical in any event. The centerpiece of the letter was its propos[al of] the following as a full settlement of all claims.... It then listed four terms of settlement which included alternative dollar amounts, one for $200,000 of the Laker fee. If the settlement offer is removed from the letter, almost nothing remains. Moreover, consistent with the purpose of the exclusionary rule to promote settlement of disputes, Fed.R.Evid. 408 bars admission of [el vidence of conduct or statements made in compromise negotiations... (emphasis added). Beckman's failure to mention the separation practice agreement was assuredly conduct in the course of compromise negotiations, and its admission would be equally forbidden under the federal rule. We conclude that the trial court should have excluded the letter entirely as an inadmissible offer to compromise.