Did you ever have a case or cases where you either had so many filings, became such a nuisance to defendants or cost the defendants so much money via settlement or at trial(or all 3) that they never wanted to hear from you again ? Did anyone say" covenant not to sue" ? And this should not be confused with a confidentiality agreement.
In this scenario, the lawfirm(and sometimes the plaintiff(s)] agree when executing the release and settlement documents never to to sue the defendants again for future alleged injury/losses arising from the very facts involved in the litigation being settled. Is it enforceable ? In some situations yes and in some situations it might be determined to be void as against "public policy".
I had two experiences as an attorney that I recall where I executed covenants not to sue. The first time occurred after I litigated a series of sexual assault cases against a school for "special needs " students in Westchester County. After the last settlent(3 more than defendants' had anticipated) I executed the covenant. The second time was after I settled a toxic exposure case against an apartment complex owner on behalf of hundreds of injured tenants.
On neither occassion did I challenge the executed covenants. Would have been interesting if that "block-buster case" came down the pike to us after the covenants to sue had been executed, settlements paid and checks cleared... Oh well. Anyway, that's all for another edition of Goldman War Stories.
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