When someone settles out of court, does it pretty much mean they are guilty?
by 
Dirty-Ninja-Misses-NYC
ANSWERS: 8
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Not really - sometimes they just want to avoid the hassle of a trial. And sometimes they can settle out of court for less than what it would cost them if they went through a lengthy trial.
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Nope... It means: 1) They don't want to go through the expense of a trial (they've calculated that it would be cheaper to settle and pay, rather than try the case.) 2) They don't want OTHER things that may come up during trial to be brought to light, and settling will close the case. 3) Guilty or not, they believe the other side has such a case that they will lose, so paying up means they don't have to go through the expense of the lawyers battling it out. 4) They may not wish to spend the time on a trial. Many times trials can drag on for months. In that time, certain people MUST be available to be called as witnesses, usually relatively high up in the company, if it's a suit against one. For example, if they had called Bill Gates, it would have cost him and MS MILLIONS for every DAY he had to be available. So, in almost all cases, it's cheaper to settle than to go through the time, energy, and expense of a trial, EVEN if they are not guilty. This is one of the reasons lawyers go after companies with big pockets.
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only in a lawsuit
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usually the person knows they have a provable degree of guilt and decide to pay to avoid the hassle of court trial
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Not necessarily. It simply means that they are not confident that a trial will be worth it for them...it may cost MORE to hire a legal team than to pay someone off. . Also, when you settle out of court, it's over and done with...the outcome is CERTAIN. If you go to trial, the outcome is uncertain, and a study I saw recently suggested that a jury verdict is wrong 13% of the time (http://www.scientificblogging.com/news/new_study_says_juries_got_it_wrong_13_percent_of_the_time) and another that showed that judges disagreed with juries 30% of the time, so this means that judges are often wrong as well. But we all already knew that. Bottom line is that it is safer to settle out of court.
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That is generally not possible. You can only be guilty or not guilty in a criminal court. However, you cannot settle a criminal case (although the Alford plea, where permitted, is like a settlement). If you are settling case, it means you are settling a civil case, where there is no such thing is guilt or innocence.
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It means they don't want the hassle of going through a trial, which can be long and costly.
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Settling out of court is only an option in civil cases, in which there is no question of guilty/not guilty. Civil cases are when one party sues another for some sort of damage that has claimed to be done, and the court is basically acting adjudicator. The court will normally order money to be paid for harm done, or enforce some kind of agreement over disputed property. The two parties can come to an agreement out of court and do not need to waste the court's time, and their money. In a criminal court, someone is accused of breaking the law, and there is no question of settling out of court. Pleading guilty could, I supposed, be sen as sort of equivalent. However, the two courts and the two situations are completely different.
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