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§998 Offer Can’t Be Accepted After Summary Judgment—C.A.
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A plaintiff who purported to accept an offer to compromise pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure §998 four minutes after a hearing at which the judge orally granting summary judgment in favor of the defendant acted too late for the acceptance to have any effect, Div. Two of the for this district declared yesterday.
“We conclude that a still-pending 998 offer expires when a trial court orally grants summary judgment,” Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt wrote.
The opinion upholds a judgment by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel M. Crowley in favor of the City of Los Angeles in a slip-and-fall case. Plaintiff Ana Isabel Trujillo had tripped on a sidewalk while jogging.
A few days before the acceptance March 2, 2021 hearing on the summary judgment motion, the city had offered to settle the case for acceptance $30,000.
Crowley’s Ruling
In denying her “Motion for an Order Compelling the Judge’s Signature entering Judgment on the Accepted Offer,” Crowley on June 4, 2021 pointed to the proviso in §998 that “[i]f the offer is not accepted prior to trial...it shall be deemed withdrawn,” and said:
“[W]hen the Court heard Defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment and issued a ruling, this was a ‘commencement of trial’ for the purposes of CCP section 998. As a result, it terminated Plaintiff’s power to accept Defendants’ Offer, and his purported acceptance of the Offer did not form a valid compromise agreement.”
He commented that “allowing the use of section 998 to trump a prior disposition on the merits, as Plaintiff seeks to do here, would nullify” Code of Civil Procedure §437c, the summary judgment statute, “giving pointless effect to one provision at the expense of the other.”
Crowley said he “does not believe the Legislature intended section 998 to revive a case that was deemed meritless, so that the losing party can force the other to compromise it instead.”
Hoffstadt’s Opinion
Hoffstadt’s opinion affirms the judgment but expresses disagreement with Crowley’s view that a hearing on a summary judgment motion is akin to a trial. He wrote:
“[S]ummary judgment is not a substitute for trial….More to the point, section 998’s language that a 998 offer expires at the commencement of a trial makes sense—even if the outcome of the trial is not yet known—due to the commitment of judicial resources a trial entails. Summary judgment hearings do not entail such a commitment of resources; thus, a 998 offer remains valid after such a hearing commences until the trial court orally issues a ruling.”
The jurist explained:
“Because the sole purpose of trial is…to resolve disputes…, a section 998 offer may only be made when there exists a dispute to be resolved. As our Supreme Court has said time and again, a grant of summary judgment resolves all the disputes in a case.”
Policy Consideration
He remarked:
“If a party has the option of accepting a settlement offer even after a court has resolved the dispute the litigation presents, then that party has no incentive whatsoever to accept that offer before the court does so; a rational party given that option would simply ‘wait and see’ how the court rules: If it prevails, it can still accept the offer on its still-live claims; and, if it loses, it can accept the offer as a way to resurrect its defunct claims. Giving parties this option would not only fail to encourage early settlement, it would actively discourage early settlement and would thus be wholly antithetical to the very purpose animating section 998. We must not construe section 998 to sanction such an absurd result.”
The case is Trujillo v. City of Los Angeles. 2022 S.O.S. 5460.
G. Amy Vahdat, and Kevin M. Davis of the Law Offices of Vahdat & Associates in Encino represented Trujillo and Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney Michael M. Walsh acted for the city.
Copyright 2022, Metropolitan News Company