Jalali

I

Farideh Jalali sued her former employer for racial discrimination and sexual harassment. Her attorney, Walter H. Root III, brought the case to the first phase of a bifurcated trial. In that phase he succeeded in convincing the jury to award compensatory damages of $750,000. The jury also found the necessary malice, fraud or oppression to justify punitive damages. With the second phase of trial and punitive damages looming, the employer made a settlement offer of $2.75 million for all claims, conditioned on confidentiality. Jalali accepted the offer.

Settlement, from a plaintiffs point of view, means avoiding a multitude of risks, particularly when large sums of money are involved, and for most people, $2.75 million is still real money. Consider the ordeal that Jalali saved herself by accepting the offer. She did not have to worry that the trial judge, by granting a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, would completely undo her win. She did not have to worry that the trial judge, by granting a new trial motion, would force her to try the case again. She did not have to worry that an appellate court might do the same by deeming her evidence insufficient, or by saying…