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Dryden v. Pedemonti4/15/2005
Dryden appeals an order of the trial court, which struck his proposal for settlement after a final judgment. He sought an award of attorney fees and costs pursuant to Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.442. The trial court struck the proposal because it determined that the release terms required by the proposal were ambiguous and were stated with insufficient particularity. We affirm.
The settlement proposal required Pedemonti to execute a full release, which was not attached to the proposal. It summarized the terms of the release as:
elease of All Claims against the Defendant and all persons legally liable for the Defendant's actions in connection with the incident upon which the above styled cause of action is based, including the provision under which the Releasor shall indemnify and hold harmless their Releasees as to any and all liens and subrogated interests of any third party by virtue of any services or benefits provided by the Releasor, including, but not limited to, hospital liens, doctor's liens, worker 's compensation liens, CHAMPUS liens, and any other liens..
At the oral argument in this case, the attorneys for the appellant, Dryden, and the appellee, Pedemonti, were asked whether the release clause language contained in the proposed settlement would potentially extinguish Pedemonti's first party PIP and health insurance claims. Dryden's attorney said it clearly would not and Pedemonti's attorney said it clearly would or could.
Who is correct on this issue? The "law" is not clear, in our view. Thus, pursuant to Nichols v. State Farm Mut. Cas. Ins. Co., 851 So. 2d 742 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003), rev. granted, No. SC03-1483 (Fla. Aug. 27, 2003) and No. SCO3-1653 (Fla. Sept. 11, 2003), the proposal was invalid. The burden of clarifying the intent or extent of a settlement proposal cannot be placed on the party to whom the proposal is made.
In Nichols, this court held that a proposal for settlement was ambiguous, and thus ineffective under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.442(c)(2)(C) and (D) because the general release requested potentially could have required the plaintiff-insured to give up her first party insurance claim for uninsured motorist coverage against the defendant-insurance company. In that case, the plaintiff-insured sued her insurance carrier under her personal injury protection clause for failure to pay her PIP claim and her uninsured motorist claim was not involved, although it was a potential additional claim. The general release language stated the insured would release all "claims, causes of actions, [etc.].that have accrued through the date" on which the release was signed.
The attorney for the insurance company who sent the proposal for settlement argued that he did not know of the potential uninsured motorist claim and that he did not intend that the general release encompass that cause of action. In addition, counsel testified that had the insured's counsel called him, he would have clarified the intent. This court cautioned in footnote 3, that when a general release is sought, care should be taken to insure it does not extinguish claims that are extrinsic to the litigation. 851 So. 2d at 746. In order to qualify under the rule, the terms of the proposal must be devoid of ambiguity, patent or latent, and not require any clarification or later judicial interpretation.
The dissent relies on three cases for the proposition that the release language in this case would not release Pedemonti's PIP or health insurance claims against first party carriers. We do not view the cases as either clear or conclusive on that point.
1. Longman v. Travelers Ins. Co., 371 So. 2d 533 (Fla. 3d DCA 1979
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