This unpublished decision involves the aftermath of a jury verdict in favor of the plaintiff for racial and gender discrimination in the amount of $1.6 million.
For unstated reasons the parties jointly requested that the jury verdict be reversed (presumably as a condition of settling the case).
The appellate court denied the request and said that, while they were not stopping the parties from settling, there was no showing that the judgment involved "unfair, illegal or corrupt practices," as required by local rules.
The Court explained that there was a public policy against reversing judgments without good cause or the public trust in the legal system would be tarnished.
"[T]he reasons the parties request reversal cannot be shown to outweigh the erosion of public trust that may result from the nullification of a judgment unless the reasons are fully revealed...
"... [the p]arties are free at any time to settle their private dispute on terms mutually agreeable, and should be encouraged to do so.
"What they should not be free to do is to include within those terms of settlement the destruction of a judgment, a public product fashioned at the cost of public resources, and to require an appellate court to accomplish that destruction merely to facilitate resolution of their private dispute."
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The case is Williams v. Union Pacific RR Co.
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