The attorney representing 22 women suing Houston Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson says settlement talks between the two sides broke down before the NFL’s trade deadline because of language Watson’s legal team insisted they include in nondisclosure agreements.
“In what was submitted to us, there were nondisclosure agreements and many of the women pushed back on those,” attorney Tony Buzbee told Houston television station Fox 26 in an interview Tuesday evening.
Buzbee said he and his colleagues modified the language in the proposed nondisclosure agreements “substantially” but added that “there were still some women who said, ‘I’m never going to sign that.'”
He told Fox 26 that the NDAs were ultimately a “deal breaker” in efforts to settle the cases.
Buzbee’s interview is the first confirmation from either of the legal teams involved in Watson’s civil cases that the two sides had entered a period of mediation.
“Now that the heat is off I probably won’t be getting calls from the other side wanting to settle the case,” Buzbee said, a reference to the pressure involved in settling the lawsuits prior to the NFL’s Tuesday trade deadline.
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Buzbee also said in his interview with Fox 26 that Watson’s team appeared willing to settle a portion of the 22 civil cases.
“First it was, ‘We need to get 22 cases settled’ and then it was, ‘Well, maybe we can get 20 cases settled,’ and, finally, there was some discussion of maybe even less than that,” Buzbee said. “But based on the terms that were submitted to us, we weren’t going to get 22 settlements. Period.”
See here and here for the background. We assumed there were settlement talks happening, the possibility of a trade was predicated on there being a settlement, and now we have confirmation. I don’t know that it would have served justice for such an agreement to be reached, especially if it came with a blanket NDA on all of the accusers, but that’s not my call. I don’t know if there’s any impetus for settlement talks to continue now – beyond what would normally be there, anyway – so we may not hear much else for awhile. Watson can’t be deposed until February at the earliest, and a trial date (if it comes to that) can’t be set until early May. So we’ll see.
5 days and counting……