Young v. Ricketts

1 Citing case

  1. Southwest Nurseries, LLC v. Florists Mutual Insurance

    266 F. Supp. 2d 1253 (D. Colo. 2003)   Cited 43 times
    Stating that "the court should apply the same standard for exercising its discretion under Rule 15(d) as it does for deciding a motion under Rule 15"

    Without further explanation, the court must conclude that Southwest seeks to offer evidence of Defendants' settlement conduct to prove liability under Plaintiff's fourth claim for relief. Yet, Rule 408 specifically bars evidence of settlement negotiations offered to prove liability. See Reeder v. American Economy Insurance Co., 88 F.3d 892, 894-95 (10th Cir. 1996) (in affirming decision to exclude evidence of insurer's settlement offer, held that Rule 408 does not distinguish between settlement offers made pursuant to insurer's public policy or statutory responsibilities and settlement offers made for other reasons); Vanguard Insurance Co. v. Havadjia, 886 F.2d 1321 (Table) (9th Cir. 1989) (in case asserting bad faith claims, trial court properly excluded evidence of insurer's settlement offers); Bower v. Stein Eriksen Lodge Owners Ass'n, Inc., 201 F. Supp.2d 1134, 1139-40 (D.Utah 2002) (in excluding evidence of settlement negotiations, rejected defendants' argument that declarations merely offered to prove plaintiffs' bad faith). The same policy considerations bar the supplemental complaint in this case.