Private settlements can require judges to publicly falsify the timing of events

Evidence

The last two weeks had been difficult for Schlichtmann. Keating had made many demands on behalf of Grace. There would be no deal, Keating had said, unless the judge granted Grace’s motion for a new trial and rendered the verdict null. Furthermore, it had to appear as if the settlement had come about only after the judge declared a new trial. This petty deception irked Schlichtmann, but he went along with it. He had little choice. He suspected the judge was going to order a new trial for Grace anyway. He became certain of that when the judge readily adopted Keating’s fictitious chronology. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 2873

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: the quiet choreography of sealed settlements — how courts, defendants, and plaintiffs coordinate a public narrative that bears no relation to what actually happened behind closed doors.
• QUESTION: How common is this ‘fictitious chronology’ arrangement, and does anything in judicial ethics rules prohibit a judge from adopting a settlement-driven sequence of events?