Attorneys Fees and Joint Proposals for Settlement

Many times particularly in probate, estates and guardianship’s there specific statutes that permit the recovery of attorneys fees under certain circumstances

Attorneys fees for Florida and joint proposals for settlement, an offer of judgment case. Hello my name is John Pankauski. You know, attorney fees are often hotly contested and highly litigated here in Florida. Many times particularly in probate, estates and guardianships there specific statutes that permit the recovery of attorneys fees under certain circumstances such as if you prevail or if you provide a benefit to somebody or something.

But there’s also statutes that is so called fee-shifting statutes. That if you’re in trial or going to litigation you should know about them, maybe even earlier than before going to trial. One of those statutes are laws is 768.79 it has an accompanying rule of civil procedure 1.442.

This rule and this statute do provide under certain circumstances the recovery of attorneys fees if an offer of settlement an offer of judgment is made to the other side and they don’t accept it and they don’t do, to a certain degree, better at trial. So, there is a way to recover attorney fees and costs, but what happens if there are joint parties or multiple parties and there’s a proposal for settlement that’s rejected but it’s a joint proposal.

Luckily our appellate courts just recently handed down an opinion that you can read for free to tell you more about this Florida legal issue. Consider reading the Peltz case. It’s out of the Miami District Court, the 3rd District Court of Appeal and it was issued on April 11th 2018.