DE · rules
D.R.E. 408
Compromise Offers and Negotiations
(a) Prohibited Uses. Evidence of the following is not admissible on behalf
of any party either to prove or disprove the validity or amount of a disputed
claim or to impeach by a prior inconsistent statement or a contradiction:
(1) furnishing, promising, or offering — or accepting, promising to
accept, or offering to accept — a valuable consideration in order to
compromise the claim; and
(2) conduct or a statement made during compromise negotiations about
the claim.
(b) Exceptions. The court may admit this evidence for another purpose, such
as proving a witness’s bias or prejudice, negating a contention of undue
delay, or proving an effort to obstruct a criminal investigation or prosecution.
History
Comment This rule generally tracks F.R.E. 408. This rule modifies existing Delaware case law. See Hudson v. Williams, Del. Super., 72 A. 985 (1908). D.R.E. 408 was amended in 2017 in response to the 2011 restyling of the Federal Rules of Evidence. The amendment is intended to be stylistic only. The pre-2017 “Comment” to D.R.E. 408 was revised only as necessary to reflect the 2017 amendments. There is no intent to change any result in ruling on evidence admissibility.
Provenance
- Source
- courts.delaware.gov
- Retrieved
- 2026-09-23
- Edition
- 2026-09-23
- Content hash
1f0de619cb97b05307c8f5bfd0baeb39733040c821082836102c39044f33bf90
The link goes to the issuing authority’s own document — the one we read to produce this record. Where a source publishes whole titles rather than sections, your browser may need a moment to jump to the provision.
Unofficial copy of government-published law, reproduced from official sources with full provenance. Not an official publication; verify against official sources before relying on it in a filing. Records in the 'guidance' corpus, and only that corpus, are sub-regulatory (interpretive guidelines, survey procedures) and are not binding law. Validity bounds follow each jurisdiction's declared temporalBasis.