in the U.S, if a settlement is offered by a defendant that is potentially more than what could/would be awarded in any jury trial, then the plaintiff was under some kind of obligation to accept the settlement, or at least risked being countered sued themselves, if they refused the offer and went through with the jury trial; even if they eventually did win the jury trial. Can someone with more legal understanding than myself refresh my memory of what I am referring to?
No, this is not true. A plaintiff is not under any obligation to settle. I think you might be getting this confused with high/lows that can be reached prior and/or during trial. A high/low relates to when the parties reach a settlement (example between 1 mil and 500k). So if the jury comes back w/ 1.5, the plaintiff only gets 1 mil or alternatively if the jury comes back w/ zero, the plaintiff at least gets 500k. There is something that is called bad faith, but that is another matter and too long to explain as to how it might relate to settlements. Also, a judge can make a recommendation during a pretrial conference and in some cases if the jury reaches the same conclusion as the judge, (award in favor of the defendant as plaintiff failed to met the burden of proof based on their cause of action) some defendants will move (under the various laws of that state) for payment of their attorney's fees. But again that is another type of action and again it depends on the state. A counterclaim and or cross claim is something different.
A gag order is generally put in place during the course of the pending cause of action. Once a settlement has been reached then a settlement agreement is entered into and there are provisions w/i the settlement agreement that prevent the various parties from discussing certain things (such as dollar amounts or specific names of parties and their testimony). Again, I don't know enough about CA law, but a gag order has been throw around here and I believe the use of the term is incorrect.
I am sure those people who were molested by the Catholic priests were none to happy when out of court settlements were reached and they too were under a confidentiality provision of the settlement agreement and were unable to speak. Any organization that is at a huge risk of harmful information getting out is going to seek having it contained. I would have been surprised if the WTBTS had NOT entered into a confidentiality agreement with the settling parties.
As for the toll it takes on the plaintiffs (and their attorneys) ... it is huge. Plaintiff work is very hard on various fronts. If you work for a large firm they have the resource to bank roll the case. However, Love & Norris is not a big firm. It is my understanding that Ms. Norris took out a mortgage on her house in order to continue to pay staff and continue to work on the case. Based on what some of the plaintiffs went thru and their emotional state, the plaintiffs' attorneys had to act not only as counselor at law but also therapist and parent. It was emotionally taxing for everyone and there was no promise that some of those plaintiffs would make it thru a trial.
The risk you run in a trial is losing. Think about how much of a blow this would have been to some plaintiffs. We here, with all our righteous disgust, feel that surely everyone will see what we see. But they DON'T. That is the reality of life. A 12 person jury could feel that the evidence was just not there. What would happen to those fragile plaintiffs if the jury had returned a verdict in favor of the defendant? Would they take it as an affirmation that they are not to be believed by anyone? There were many risks that were run by all the parties in these lawsuits.
I suppose I see things a little differently. I don't see the confidentiality requirements that are in place (what little I know of them) as all that strange. In most cases we enter into a settlement agreement and don't file it with the court because we don't want anyone to know what we settled to, we just enter an order saying the matter was settlement. Only if someone breaches the agreement do we go back in and seek the court's assistance.
If the parties had not settlement the matter may still not have gone to trial and in turn certain events that took place that allowed for the releasing of documents from the OR case may not be at our disposal now. Those documents will be, and are, far more damning to the WTBTS then any settlement they entered into because the documents speak for themselves.