Abuse of Discretion

Listen to this article

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Peter Koehn v. Lauri Tobias, et al.

Case No.: 16-3482

Officials: BAUER, POSNER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Abuse of Discretion

Plaintiff‐appellee Peter Koehn filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that Defendants‐appellants Lauri Tobias and Margaret Segerston (Defendants), his former employers, unlawfully retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights. After a series of failed settlement negotiations, the case proceeded to trial, where a jury found in favor of Defendants. After the trial, upon Koehn’s motion, the district court ordered Defendants to pay fees and costs associated with Koehn’s attorney’s preparation for a settlement conference that proved to be unnecessary and futile. This appeal followed.

It is clear that both Koehn and the court interpreted defense counsel’s representations at the status hearing as an indication of Defendants’ current settlement posture. In fact, the court’s order explicitly stated that the suggestion of a range of $150,000 induced the court to schedule the conference. To be sure, as the district court noted, Defendants were free to change that posture before the settlement conference. However, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in finding that, by changing their position so drastically without any indication that they intended to do so, Defendants did not participate in the settlement conference in good faith.

Affirmed

Full Text

Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.