Plaintiff’s Later Accepted 998 Offer Did Not Make Things More Valuable, Because The Defense Rejected 998 Offer Did Allow For Reasonable Fee Recovery.
In the CCP § 998 offer area, we see cases with interesting facts, and we have them in Elmi v. Related Management Company, L.P., Case No. G061379 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Sept. 25, 2023) (unpublished), authored by Justice Goethals for a 3-0 panel.
What happened here is that the defense submitted a 998 offer, rejected by plaintiff, offering to pay $10,001 plus statutory costs, including attorney’s fees on an Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act claim. Later, plaintiff submitted his own 998 offer, offering to settle for $9,999, plus defense requirement with certain investigative consumer reporting requirements, plus reasonable fees and costs as determined by the court. Plaintiff’s offer was accepted by the defense. Plaintiff then moved for $302,146 in fees as the prevailing party, with the defense principally arguing that plaintiff could not recover fees for the period after it served the defense offer because plaintiff did not obtain a more favorable result and the requested fees were excessive in nature. The lower court agreed that plaintiff was not entitled to fees after the defense rejected 998 offer and further reduced fees for over-litigation, eventually awarding $19,440 in fees.
Plaintiff’s appeal was unsuccessful. The appellate court found that plaintiff’s 998 offer was not more successful, because the rejected defense offer fully allowed for reasonable fee recovery as the trial judge would determine. Because plaintiff’s $9,999 offer was less than the defense rejected offer of $10,001, the lower court’s fee award was no abuse of discretion.