Multiple Offers With No Separate Acceptance Lines Was Invalid.
CCP § 998 offers involve very careful planning. Multiple offers and acceptance line principles often will derail offers made with the best intentions. Little v. Singh, Case No. F083989 (5th Dist. July 31, 2023) (unpublished) illustrates these lessons well.
There, plaintiffs obtained a substantial $10 million total verdict against two defendants in a vehicle collision case, with vicarious liability (admitted) and other negligent owning/maintenance theories (contested). Earlier, plaintiffs sent a CCP § 998 offer to both defendants offering to resolve the case for $1 million, but it was non-apportioned and only had an acceptance line for the attorney representing both defendants. (We assume that the defense should have settled for $1 million, but we are simply guessing.) The defense did not accept the offer. After plaintiffs received the jury verdict, they moved for additional prejudgment interest and expert fee costs of over $3 million based on section 998’s costs-shifting provision. The trial court taxed plaintiffs’ costs efforts, a determination affirmed on appeal in favor of the defense.
The problems with plaintiffs’ 998 offer were two-fold: (1) the non-apportioned offer did not allow concurrent tortfeasors to assess what each would owe (although vicarious liability was conceded, one defendant could not ascertain whether he was liable for corporate defendant’s negligent owning/maintenance claims); and (2) there was only a single acceptance line for joint defense counsel notwithstanding there needed to be two acceptance lines for each offeree under Menees v. Andrews, 122 Cal.App.4th 1540, 1546 (2004). So, the moral of the story is to carefully apportion 998 offers unless joint and several liability on all claims exists undisputably and make sure you provide separate acceptance lines for separate defendants, even if joint defense counsel represents those separate defendants.
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