269 F. Supp. 2d 911 - Ayers v. C & D GENERAL CONTRACTORS’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

1 state decisions

Most-quoted passages

The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 1 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “Although courts agree that consent judgments coupled with covenants not to execute are enforceable, they have taken diverse approaches to determining reasonableness or collusion. Essentially, the issue is who should bear the primary burden of proof. Under one approach which is advanced now by Plaintiff, the Ninth Circuit held that courts need not look behind consent judgments to determine if they are reasonable.... Under the second approach, courts hold that an insured only has the initial burden of producing evidence that the settlement is prima facie reasonable in amount and untainted by bad faith. Once the insured satisfies this burden, the burden shifts to the insurer to show, by a preponderance of the evidence, that it is not liable because the settlement is neither reasonable nor reached in good faith. Last, under a third approach, courts require that the Plaintiff has the burden of showing by a preponderance of the evidence that the judgment amount was reasonable and prudent. Based on this standard, if a plaintiff fails to come forward with sufficient evidence, the consent judgment is presumptively invalid. After considering the relevant Kentucky decisions and those in other jurisdictions, this Court predicts that Kentucky's highest court would follow the second approach.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. 220 W. Va. 329 - Strahin v. Sullivan