LEGAL MEMOS
Gorobets v. Jaguar Landrover North America LLC(2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 913. This is an instruction manual on the use of a 998 Offer and what happens if it is used and the party receiving the offer gets a lesser award. In this case the manufacturer made two simultaneous 998 Offers, one of which was to pay a flat amount to the Plaintiff to return the vehicle to the manufacturer while the second was a more complicated offer involving dispute resolution choices. Plaintiff didn’t respond, and went to trial. Plaintiff received an amount of money at trial that was less than the amount of the cash 998 offer. The trial court awarded the manufacturer the cost it incurred after the 998 offer and also ruled that Plaintiff was barred from recovering attorney’s fees he incurred after the 998 offer.
The Court of Appeal affirmed but in doing so noted that simultaneous offers to the same party are not effective under CCP 998 because they do not meet the certainty requirements of that statute. However, in this case one of the offers did meet the requirements, and the other could simply be disregarded as being invalid. The monetary offer under 998 was valid, and it resulted in the apportionment made by the trial court reducing Plaintiff’s attorney’s fees and awarding costs after the 998 offer was made to the Defendant.
Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association v. Powell (2024) 105 Cal.App.5th 955. This is a SLAPP case. Plaintiff challenged replenishment assessment charges imposed by a water district and named in a putative class action multiple Defendants including not only the water district but also its board members, a general manager and three consulting firms. All Defendants except the District filed a SLAPP motion. The trial court denied the motion as frivolous and awarded attorney’s fees to the Plaintiff. The Court of Appeal reversed the Order denying the SLAPP motion and the Order awarding attorney’s fees and costs determining that the trial court errored in finding that the public interest exception applied as there was no justifiable reason for the Plaintiff to sue the District’s Board members or its general manager individually for remedies which only the District could provide. Further the Defendants satisfactorily demonstrated that the causes of action alleged against them arose from protected activity and Plaintiff failed to demonstrate that those causes of action had minimal merit.