Dispute Resolution: Settlement Out of Court Option and ADR Issues
Verified
Added on 2023/06/03
|4
|739
|201
AI Summary
This article discusses the advantages and disadvantages of settlement out of court option and ADR issues in dispute resolution. It also highlights the legal issues that may not benefit from ADR in resolution.
Contribute Materials
Your contribution can guide someone’s learning journey. Share your
documents today.
DISPUTE RESOLUTION2 Settlement Out of Court Option A settlement is a word that is used for prescribed or formal resolution of a legal dispute without taking the issue to be determined by the court. It comes after an agreement between the parties involved in a case. The defendant provides a particular amount of money to the plaintiff in give-and-take for the plaintiff’s signing a release of the liability of the defendant about the major occurrence or transaction for that matter(Faure & Weber, 2016). It takes place at any stage in a civil litigation process. Settlement out of court can have a good or bad outcome in favor of either the defendant or the plaintiff. In addition to the expectancy of the unknown and unpredictable outcome to be received at the trial, both parties of litigation might fear to get on the eyewitness stand and narrating their side of the story to the jury, then being subject to interrogation by the other side of the counsel. In general, having a case settled out of court has several advantages as explained in the paragraphs below. Court cases are costly especially if the trial goes on for several months or even years, the expenses can be overwhelming. It doesn’t matter who wins the case, court charges and compensation for the attorneys can chip away at the payments. One of the fundamental benefits for plaintiffs who select to settle outside of court is the more reasonable expense (Gutman, 2017). A reasonable attorney can ordinarily reach a precise acceptable agreement or settlement in far less duration than it would take to argue the case in the court. On the other hand, settlement may lessen the stress that can be caused by trial through interrogation and the anticipation of the outcome. Similarly, privacy is essential in very many
DISPUTE RESOLUTION3 situations; therefore, if a case is taken to court, the level of privacy is reduced as both defendant, and the plaintiff are brought to the public during the proceedings. ADR Issues ADR is a term that is applied for various ways of dispute resolution. These include mediation, adjudication, arbitration, and ombudsmen. It is important to know who is making a claim and why, that is very critical when thinking about the claims made for any dispute since some of them might be true, but again only in some circumstances. Several legal issues might not benefit from the ADR in resolution. For example, the arbitration decisions are final and cannot be appealed, injunctions cannot be issued, and finally, arbitrators can only resolve a dispute involving financial issues (Duplessis O’Byrne, King, Adams & Enman, 2016). ADR as discussed above has several advantages compared to disadvantages; however, I don’t believe it is a good trend since one party can influence the decision of the arbitrator who again issues the verdict in favor of one party. Similarly, it cannot solve some technical issues that need legal interpretations from the judges(Nabatchi, 2007). Once the settlements are done, the courts are always reluctant thinking re-opening of the settlement agreement could result to same claims and therefore it is of no use.
DISPUTE RESOLUTION4 References Duplessis, D., O’Byrne, S., King, P., Adams, L. and Enman, S. (2016). CANADIAN BUSINESS AND THE LAW. 6th ed. Ontario, pp.67-91 Faure, M., & Weber, F. (2016). Potential and Limits of Out-Of-Court Rapid Claims Settlement-- A Law and Economics Analysis. Journal of Environmental Law, 28(1), 125–150. Gutman, J. (2017). Mediation and Its Uses in the Legal Process. Legaldate, 29(2), 3–7 Nabatchi, T. (2007). The Institutionalization of Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Federal Government. Public Administration Review, 67(4), 646–661.