civil settlement
Out-of-court resolution of a civil claim, without any judicial finding of guilt
A civil settlement is, under US law, an agreed out-of-court resolution of a civil claim in which the parties jointly settle the terms for ending the case — typically against payment of a sum of money. The concept belongs to US civil procedure and has no fixed, standalone definition in the U.S. Code; in practice it covers what statutory language calls to 'compromise and settle' a claim. Related formulations appear in 28 U.S.C. § 2672 and § 2414, both of which concern the authority of government bodies to settle claims.
A central feature of a civil settlement is that the agreement does not involve a judicial finding of guilt. The paying party does not necessarily admit anything at all — payment may be made for purely practical or tactical reasons, for example to avoid a lengthy and public trial. The settlement is a civil-law conclusion to the dispute and is therefore clearly distinct from a criminal determination.
In matters such as the 1993 allegations against Michael Jackson, it is precisely this distinction that is legally decisive. The civil case and any criminal case are two separate legal tracks with different standards of proof. A civil settlement ends the civil track but does not in principle prevent prosecutors from bringing a separate criminal case — the two processes are independent of each other.
Settlement agreements of this kind are normally concluded confidentially, and the amounts and terms are rarely publicly available. Unlike settlements in class actions, which are handled under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(e) and require court approval, individual civil settlements can typically be concluded without active involvement of the court, as long as both parties agree and the agreement is lawful.
