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957 F.2d 745

Docket No. 91-3263.

Clark v. Stapleton Corp.

Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals

Feb. 14, 1992.

Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1992-02-14

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“In litigation involving numerous parties, litigants sometimes seek a settlement with less than all of the parties. FedeRAL JuDICIAL CENTER, MANUAL FOR COMPLEX Litigation 174 (4th ed.2004). In this adjudication, where there are hundreds of claimants, it is extremely unlikely that settlement negotiations involving every party in this case would resolve successfully in a reasonable period of time. There is nothing impermissible or improper about the Settlement Parties attempting to settle their disputes among themselves and allowing other parties to join in the settlement later. The negotiations were closed to the public because the Court ordered that all oral and written statements made in the course of discussions with the mediator be kept confidential. (Order, Doc. No. 5629, filed September 15, 2000). The purpose of the confidentiality rule is to encourage the parties to be candid with the mediator by making them comfortable that their positions, willingness to settle, weaknesses of their case, etc. will not prematurely influence the trial judge. Both the United States Congress and the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, in which this Court sits, recognize that the guarantee of confidentiality is essential to the proper functioning of a settlement program. See Alternative Dispute Resolution Act, 28 U.S.C. § 652 (d) (each district court shall, by local rule, provide for the confidentiality of the mediation process and prohibit disclosure of confidential mediation communica”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 171 F. Supp. 3d 1171 - New Mexico ex rel. State Engineer v. Aamodt

Relies on In re the Arbitration Between Lake Utopia Paper Ltd. & Connelly Containers, Inc. · 772 F. Supp. 1181 - Clark v. R.E.L. Products, Inc.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by Per Curiam · Decided 1992-02-14

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently August 2017

4 federal appellate · 3 district · 1 state decisions

50199220002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Paul D. Post of Paul D. Post, P.A., Topeka, Kan., for plaintiff-appellant.

David R. Buchanan of Brown & James, P.C., Kansas City, Mo., for defendant-appellee.

Before SEYMOUR and BRORBY, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

¶1

Appellant has filed an objection to a motion for an extension of time filed by appellee. In the objection, counsel for appellant recounts remarks made by opposing counsel at a settlement conference held pursuant to 10th Cir.R. 33.1. This disclosure violates our rule that "... statements and comments made during a conference shall be confidential and shall not be disclosed to the court ... by counsel...." 10th Cir.R. 33.1.

¶2

We agree with the Second Circuit that the guarantee of confidentiality is essential to the proper functioning of an appellate settlement conference program. Lake Utopia Paper v. Connelly Containers, 608 F.2d 928, 930 (2d Cir.1979). We also agree that revealing statements or comments made at a settlement conference is a serious breach of confidentiality. Id. For our conference program to be successful, participants must trust that matters discussed at a conference will not be revealed to the judges. Counsel for appellant is admonished for violating the non-disclosure requirement of our rule. Future violations of this rule may subject counsel to sanctions.

¶3

Appellant's objection to appellee's motion for an extension of time is construed as a motion to reconsider the clerk's order of January 17, 1992 and is denied.

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