It is understood the striker has now agreed to settle the matter out of court and will receive a payment in the region of £800,000.
A spokesman for Brabners said: “We are glad that Ched Evans has agreed not to pursue this case, which we believe was entirely without merit. Brabners put forward a strong defence of Mr Evans claim following a thorough process and we were prepared to vigorously defend our handling of the case.”
Presumably your insurers thought you were bang to rights and 800 large was cheap to get out of it.
“Presumably your insurers thought you were bang to rights and 800 large was cheap to get out of it.”
That would be one reason, but not the only possible one.
Perhaps the legal team / insurers thought that they were going to win but it was going to cost them significantly more than this to do so on top of what they’d spent already, and that they’d never be able to recover the sum from the other party. UK legal services are not quite American-expensive, but they are really very dear compared to on the Continong…
Or that it was a toss-up and they could spend a fortune in legal fees and either win or lose. Meaning that it costs a fortune either way.
Without having any interest in, or knowledge of, the details of the case, any of these could be true.
what abacab says. Plus risk, Tim. a 50/50 chance of losing £1.6mm is worth £800,000 to settle, and it’s a long way from bang to rights. If it’s a risk of losing plus paying both sides’ fees, say another £800,000, the settlement would be a bargain even if you thought you were 2 to 1 likely to win. Judges and especially juries are unpredictable and risky – bless them.
Looks like Evans wasn’t convinced he was on solid ground as well. £800k for lost earnings plus what he could have gone on to do doesn’t seem much.
to expand on what napsjam said, these questions are looked at more or less as the spectrum of outcomes, estimated probabilities for each, and so on. Then it’s just a simple financial calculation up to what level of payout you’re more likely than not to come out ahead.
E.g. if he’ll only settle for 5M but you reckon it’ll cost you less than this to fight, you fight, taking in risks and probabilities of winning/losing.
Plus the insurers have re-insurance behind them…
These things are often rather more purely financial transactions than people imagine.
Yet another ‘can they both lose?’ case. And it appears they can!
“Yet another ‘can they both lose?’ case. And it appears they can!”
Sadly the legal profession (in the form of Evan’s legal advisers) will be getting a lot of the £800k one suspects. And it won’t be Brabners paying either, it’ll be their clients who get shafted, the word will go out to all of their staff – bill for everything you can chaps, and some you can’t…….lawyers have got to be the most immoral bunch of shysters going. At least criminals don’t pretend to be your friend while stealing from you.
Brabners haven’t just paid £800,000 – they have also taken a big hit to their reputation. They will lose prospective clients. They knew that, but made the payout anyway, because either the cost or the reputational damage of fighting the case would have been worse.
Off topic but so funny I laughed out loud. Opinion piece in the Guardian….
“Muslims and LGBTQ people should stand together, not fight each other” – Owen Jones
This is of course because the ‘evil nasty far-right’ is the common enemy.
Go on then Owen, go down to one of the anti-gay education protests outside one of the schools and flout your gayness as a rallying call to unite with fundamentalist Muslims.
Needless to say there are no comments allowed.
Yes, I was also tickled by Komment Macht Frei’s latest Owen Jones piece.
Muslims and LGBTs should stand together. Just not at the top of tall buildings.
Bad jokes aside, it’s utterly ridiculous. It’s a fairly mainstream belief in Islam worldwide that homosexuality is evil. Quite possibly in Britain’s Muslim community too.
At the least, they think you are going to hell. A good number of them think gays should be killed.
And yet they are supposed to be brothers in the common cause of defence against oppression. What oppression? Gays can now marry and gay relationships have been legal for years. They can even adopt children. At most it’s a few unkind words in the playground.
The removal of comments on a guardian opinion piece is invariably a signal that even the editors realise it’s a load of indefensible BS.
I believe the two individuals that represented/advised Evans (one of whom was an ex-Blackburn player who later qualified as a solicitor) have now left the firm. Doubtless Brabners have since overhauled their HR/Recruitment Dept.
“Doubtless Brabners have since overhauled their”…
.standard terms of service.
Brabners argue that there was nothing wrong with their handling of a case where Mr Evans got convicted of raping a woman who had not accused him of raping her. Despite Mr Evans’ fiancee uncovering evidence that persuaded a Jury that he was innocent.
The reputational damage to Brabners from fighting the case even if they won – daily newspaper reports – would be far greater than from a few comments in the couple of days after the settlement was announced. Not that I think Brabners have a leg to stand on morally but they very probably have a legal defence because the lawyers make the laws.
£800k looks cheap to me. If he hadn’t been sent to prison, there is a good chance Ched Evans would be an established Premier League striker by now. His loss of earnings could be in the tens of millions. £800k is a small percentage of that.
I haven’t bothered to check, but if Brabners is a pure criminal law firm, then most of its clientele will not be vetting its publicly-available online history. Most of them will take what they’re given in the cop shop or rozzer house.
But there are exceptions, of course. Back when I did that kind of work, I recall a miscreant who called different firms, depending on where he was arrested.
I think that is what is called a ‘discerning consumer’.
Maybe the insurers confused Brabners with Juicy Smollet?
Had a workplace claim once that just seemed stupid, when we met with the lawyer he was really looking forward to going to court, but the insurance company insisted on offering a settlement, which was of course taken. They didn’t believe they would recover costs even if awarded so there was financial benefit in paying off the claimant regardless of the validity of the claim.