Confidential settlement undone by daughter’s Facebook posting
By: John Rosenberg
Published: 03/03/2014
Agreements to keep bodily injury settlements are common when one of the parties to the settlement does not want the terms or the facts of a settlement to be disclosed publically. Usually the request for confidentiality is made by a business or a medical professional that does not want news of a settlement, where they pay damages, to be made public. A confidentiality agreement, when made a part of a settlement, requires that neither party can talk about, publically discuss, publish or report the facts, parties or amounts of a settlement. Failure to abide by the confidentiality agreement can result in undoing the settlement and requiring the Plaintiff to return the settlment money. Recently, information about a settlement that included a confidentiality agreement was posted on Facebook by the daughter of the family that entered into the settlement. The Defendants found out about the posting and forced the family to return the $80,000.00 settlement. The bottom line is don’t disclose the terms of a settlement if it is confidential and don’t use social media to discuss legal proceedings.