The general rule governing when settlements have been finalized in cases involving Statutory requirements of Insurance Information Disclosure, as applied for example in Florida, has been stated:
Where a condition of the settlement offer (or demand) is disclosure of the insurance information required to be disclosed by a statute such as Fla. Stat. § 627.4137, it has been held that a failure to disclose in accordance with the statute is therefore, in such a case, not an acceptance of the offer (or demand) for settlement for which statutory compliance is a condition of acceptance. E.g., Schlosser v. Perez, 832 So. 2d 179, 183 (Fla. 2d DCA 2002); Cheverie v. Geisser, 783 So. 2d 1115, 1117-18, 1119 (Fla. 4th DCA), review denied, 805 So. 2d 806 (Fla. 2001).
Dennis J. Wall, "Litigation and Prevention of Insurer Bad Faith" § 3:14 (Shepard's/McGraw-Hill Second Edition; 2009 Supplement West Publishing Company).
Now, another Florida Court deciding another case has entered the fray. In that case, two (2) letters were exchanged between two lawyers. One was an offer (or demand) from the Plaintiff's Attorney and the other was a letter stating acceptance from the Defendants' Insurance Company's Attorney. Download Hanson v. Maxfield (Fla. 1st DCA Opinion Filed October 30, 2009), attached Official Slipsheet Opinion at 2-4. The offer/demand stated, in pertinent part, as quoted by the First District Court of Appeal:
I will, of course, need a properly certified policy and full compliance with that statute [Fla. Stat. § 627.4137] as part of this settlement, in order to confirm that there is no other coverage available to either the owner or driver.
Download Hanson v. Maxfield (Fla. 1st DCA Opinion Filed October 30, 2009), at 3. On appeal, the Plaintiff, Maxfield, contended "that the insurance policy and disclosures provided with Hansons' acceptance letter did not comply with the disclosure requirements of section 627.4137(1), Florida Statutes (2005)," and "does not asset that the drafts or the form of release enclosed ... fail to comply with the conditions of the settlement," Download Hanson v. Maxfield (Fla. 1st DCA Opinion Filed October 30, 2009), at 5, although seemingly the release provided with the Hansons' acceptance letter may have provided an argument that it differed from the terms of the offer/demand in that case.
On these reported facts, Florida's First District Court of Appeal reversed an adverse final judgment and remanded for further proceedings which will necessarily involve the Hansons' Affirmative Defense of Settlement and the Trial Court's denial of their Motion for Summary Judgment based on it. The First District based its ruling on the reported facts in this case, making a definite exception to the general rule quoted at the beginning of this post:
Unlike the series of conflicting letters in Cheverie, the two letters here constitute a settlement offer with specific terms and an unequivocal acceptance of the terms offered. In addition, although Maxfield asserts that her offer was, like the offer in Schlosser, an offer for a unilateral contract that required the Hansons to perform the conditions specified in the offer in order to accept it, her assertion is not supported by the record. Maxfield's offer contains no language indicating that the conditions must be performed to have an acceptance of the settlement offer.
Download Hanson v. Maxfield (Fla. 1st DCA Opinion Filed October 30, 2009), at 8-9.
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