United States Ninth Circuit

The district court's order granting plaintiffs' motion to enforce a settlement agreement reached during mediation in an action brought under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 and state law against defendant-county and certain present and former county officials is affirmed, where: 1) federal privilege law governs the admissibility of evidence of an alleged settlement reached during the mediation of federal and state law claims; 2) in this case the defendant-county waived any available privilege and therefore that the district court did not err in admitting and considering allegedly privileged documents and testimony; and 3) the district court did not clearly err in finding that defendant-county authorized the County Manager to settle plaintiffs' claims and therefore did not err in enforcing the settlement agreement.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/02/2014
• Published 06/02/2014

Judges

• TASHIMA

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel