Allstate Indemnity Company v. Broan-Nutone, LLC

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLORADO
Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer
Civil Action No. 23-cv-00743-PAB-MDB
ALLSTATE INDEMNITY COMPANY, an Illinois corporation,
Plaintiff,
v.
BROAN-NUTONE, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company,
Defendant.
ORDER
This matter comes before the Court on the Stipulation to Extend Dismissal
Timeline and Vacate Pretrial Orders [Docket No. 120] and Plaintiff’s Fourth Motion for
Enlargement of Time to File Stipulation for Dismissal [Docket No. 124].
The Court will address two requests from these motions: a request to extend the
deadline for filing dismissal paperwork and a request that the Court vacate its orders on
pre-trial motions in limine and its order to exclude certain testimony of a non-retained
expert witness. See Docket No. 120 at 1 (requesting vacatur of the Court’s orders
found at Docket No. 110 and Docket No. 113); Docket No. 124 at 2.
The Court will grant the request for an extension of time. The Court will order the
parties to file dismissal papers or a status report on or before February 20, 2026.
The Court will deny the motion to vacate the Court’s prior orders. “Judicial
precedents are presumptively correct and valuable to the legal community as a whole.
Case No. 1:23-cv-00743-PAB-MDB Document 125 filed 01/27/26 USDC Colorado
pg 1 of 3

2
They are not merely the property of private litigants and should stand unless a court
concludes that the public interest would be served by a vacatur.” U.S. Bancorp Mortg.
Co. v. Bonner Mall P’ship, 513 U.S. 18, 26 (1994) (quotation omitted). “Settlement does
not justify vacatur” absent “exceptional circumstances.” Id. at 29. While it is desirable
to encourage settlement, there are “significant countervailing considerations” a court
must weigh before vacating an order. Oklahoma Radio Assocs. v. F.D.I.C., 3 F.3d
1436, 1444 (10th Cir. 1993). A court must consider that a “policy permitting litigants to
use the settlement process as a means of obtaining the withdrawal of unfavorable
precedents is fraught with the potential for abuse.” Id. In fact, economic modeling has
shown that the prospect of vacatur does not encourage settlement, but rather
encourages parties to engage in “speculative litigation” because parties believe that an
unfavorable outcome of litigation can simply be vacated through a settlement
agreement conditioned on vacatur. Jill Fisch, Rewriting History: The Propriety of
Eradicating Prior Decisional Law Through Settlement and Vacatur, 76 Cornell L. Rev.
589, 637 (1991). The primary manner in which parties may seek relief from the “legal
consequences of judicial judgments” is through the appeals process. U.S. Bancorp
Mortg. Co., 513 U.S. at 27. It would “disturb the orderly operation of the federal judicial
system” if a court were to “allow a party . . . [to] step[] off the statutory path to employ
the secondary remedy of vacatur as a refined form of collateral attack on the judgment.”
Id. None of the principles discussed in these cases support vacating the Court’s
summary judgment order.
Defendant invoked the jurisdiction of the Court to resolve its claims against
plaintiff. See Docket No. 1. Had the parties wished to resolve the dispute in a matter
Case No. 1:23-cv-00743-PAB-MDB Document 125 filed 01/27/26 USDC Colorado
pg 2 of 3

3
that did not involve public proceedings, there were ways to do so. For example, the
parties could have submitted the dispute to binding arbitration. The parties did not
choose that option and therefore cannot now expect that orders relating to the dispute,
properly entered and unrelated to settlement, will now be vacated.
It is therefore
ORDERED that the Stipulation to Extend Dismissal Timeline and Vacate Pretrial
Orders [Docket No. 120], insofar as it requests the Court vacate prior orders, is
DENIED. It is further
ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Fourth Motion for Enlargement of Time to File
Stipulation for Dismissal [Docket No. 124] is GRANTED. It is further
ORDERED that, on or before February 20, 2026, the parties shall file dismissal
papers or a status report.
DATED January 27, 2026.
BY THE COURT:
___________________________
PHILIP A. BRIMMER
Chief United States District Judge
____________________________________________________________________________________	__	_________________________
Case No. 1:23-cv-00743-PAB-MDB Document 125 filed 01/27/26 USDC Colorado
pg 3 of 3