Guy Rubinstein 93 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 789 Scholars have long regarded the prohibition against racially selective enforcement by the police as a dead letter. Formally, the Supreme Court forbids police officers from stopping or searching individuals based on race. In practice, the traditional evidentiary standard for proving selective enforcement is nearly insurmountable, and successful... Read More

Can civil settlements be coercive? Conventional wisdom suggests they generally cannot, as the inherent power dynamic of private law is accepted as inevitable. This Article challenges these conventions, arguing that some private settlements—which it labels “high-risk civil settlements”—might be coercive. Using confidential settlements as an example, this Article contends that acquiescence to a defendant’s demand for silence in exchange for forgoing a legal claim can reflect coercion when additional factors are present. The Article builds on psychological research to show how a plaintiff’s voluntariness can be negated by using subtle methods of social influence. Recognizing the coercive power that stronger parties wield in some private disputes, this Article urges the legal system to step up to assure that civil settlement agreements are in fact mutually desirable deals.