Civil Procedure — settlement

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Procedure — settlement

Even though a group of attorneys refused to sign a written agreement memorializing the attorney fee allocation, the district court properly enforced the agreement.

“Indeed, when pressed at oral argument, Susman identified the expense dispute with Gotfryd as the reason he objected to the written agreement. He also acknowledges on appeal that he considers himself bound by the fee-allocation percentages, and indeed he has been accepting distributions pursuant to the agreement. If his real complaint is the size of his share— whether in relative terms, once he saw all the numbers, or because the expense dispute with Gotfryd made him change his mind about the allocation’s fairness—then his reliance on a tardy objection to the arbitration and hold-harmless provisions in the written agreement is hard to explain as anything other than a sham. He can’t reopen the fee division now, and he claims he’s not trying to; but neither can he get out of the other terms in the written agreement by way of a late objection when the circumstances reasonably suggest that he manifested an assent to be bound.”

Affirmed.

12-3036 Bauer v. Qwest Communications Co.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Pallmeyer, J., Sykes, J.