"Eric Miller" wrote in message
. net...

Not taking sides, but there's generally no admission of wrong-doing when a
settlement is reached.

You still lose. Doesn't matter if admit it or not. You know that as well as
I do.

Something else to consider in regards to the "big" settlement is that they
had liability insurance, therefore the insurance company was named as
co-defendant, and they might have driven the decision to settle.

shrug Doesn't change the end result.

Better a known figure now which you can write off, than an unknown amount
(for both defense and outcome) in the future.

On a simple case of determining why an ultralight crashed? The plaintiff
claims it was negligence in design and construction. The defense claims it
was a stall just prior to landing. There were witnesses to the event, and
expert witnesses are lined up to argue the plaintiff's evidence. A week
before the pre-trial conf, the defense settles, in six figures. You can look
at it in umpteenthousand ways. The conclusion is still the same.

So it could be just as fair to say that the suit was successfully
defended.

No, it could be _rationalized_ that way. Quite a difference.

As a disinterested third party, I also found Chuck to be very forthcoming
about his past and current litigation, which is a far cry from catching
him
in a lie.

Unhuh. It is pointed out that he's been successfully sued, and his comeback
is to ask what that means. Forthcoming indeed.