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In direct contradiction to the testimony of Mrs. Wolfe and
Messrs. McCarthy and Brant, Mr. Wolfe testified that he did not
agree to or authorize a settlement of the cases on the afternoon
of March 11. Instead, he insisted that he had advised Mr.
McCarthy that he would not agree to any settlement without
respondent’s concessions on the two points Mr. Mansour had raised
and without first reviewing a final version of the stipulation of
settled issues. According to Mr. Wolfe’s testimony, Mr. McCarthy
assured him at the conclusion of their meeting on March 11 that
he would obtain concessions from respondent on the two disputed
points and submit to Mr. Wolfe for his review a revised
stipulation of settled issues, with revisions to reflect the
changes, the next day.
We conclude that Mr. Wolfe’s testimony is not worthy of
belief. Besides being contradicted by the testimony of all other
witnesses present at the March 11 meeting or participating in the
settlement negotiations, his testimony is highly implausible in
the circumstances. First, accepting Mr. Wolfe’s version of
events would require us to believe that Mr. McCarthy, an
experienced litigator, left unresolved the question of whether a
settlement would occur on the afternoon before a scheduled
trial–-in particular, when he was scheduled to give oral argument
the next morning in another case. We find it unlikely that, as
Mr. Wolfe claims, Mr. McCarthy advised him that there would be an
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