The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit permitted the introduction of settlement evidence to show bias or prejudice of witnesses. In Croskey v. BMW of North America, 532 F.3d 511 (6th Cir. 2008). Plaintiff offered testimony of four witnesses concerning similar incidents with other BMW’s to prove a failure to warn claim. To rebut this evidence defendant introduced evidence regarding the dispositions in three of these cases in order to show bias and prejudice. The plaintiff had moved in limine to exclude the evidence and defendants opposed the motion on the basis that the reason the witnesses were testifying is because they were unhappy with the settlement and wanted more. Affirming the trial court the Court of Appeals said:
“Although settlement evidence is generally not admissible on the merits at trial, Federal Rule of Evidence 408 ‘does not require exclusion when the evidence is offered for another purpose, such as proving bias or prejudice of a witness…’ Here, the motives of the similar-incident witnesses, all of whom had sued BMW and then settled, were relevant. Evidence of their settlements was offered to show that they might be biased against BMW because their settlement amounts were for less than they had requested. The settlement evidence was not offered as a defense to Plaintiff’s negligence claims against BMW, but instead was offered to show the state of mind of the witnesses. The district court’s application of the Rule 408 ‘other purposes’ exception to this evidence was therefore proper.” (P 519)