Vanguard Car Rental USA, LLC v. Suttles

190 So. 3d 672, 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 6338, 2016 WL 1658764
CourtDistrict Court of Appeal of Florida
DecidedApril 27, 2016
Docket15-0723
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 190 So. 3d 672 (Vanguard Car Rental USA, LLC v. Suttles) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vanguard Car Rental USA, LLC v. Suttles, 190 So. 3d 672, 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 6338, 2016 WL 1658764 (Fla. Ct. App. 2016).

Opinions

WELLS, Judge.

Vanguard Car Rental USA, LLC appeals from a final order denying its motion for attorney’s fees and costs made pursuant to a proposal for settlement under section 768.79 of the Florida Statutes and Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.442. See § 768.79, Fla. Stat. (2014)1; Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.442.2 Because we, .agree with Vanguard that its proposal for settlement met all the prerequisites for a fee award, we reverse the order on appeal and remand for a determination of the. amount to be awardEed.D

In 1991, National Car Rental' advised law enforcement that Lawrence Suttles, Jr. had failed to timely return a rental car. Two, years later, National filed for bankruptcy and Vanguard’s predecessor, CAC LLC, purchased National’s assets in the bankruptcy proceeding.

Fourteen' years láter, in 2007, Suttles was arrested on a long outstanding warrant related to the 1991 report that he had not returned a rental car. The following year, Suttles sued Vanguard Car Rental USA, Inc. d/b/a National Car Rental (herein Vanguard, Inc.), the successor to CAC LLC. In April of 2010, Suttles was allowed to, amend his complaint to add the Florida State Attorney’s, office as a party-defendant. A year after that, Suttles added “National Car Rental System, Inc., a Delaware Corporation d/b/a National Car Rental” as a defendant. Suttles thereafter filed a fourth amended complaint to add a claim for punitive damages. Throughout this time, Vanguard Inc. remained a named defendant. •

- On January 3, 2013, Vanguard Inc. served a proposal for settlement on Sut-tles, which Suttles rejected.. In May 2013, Vanguard Inc. filed its answer and affirmative defenses and demanded a jury trial.

After learning that Vanguard Inc. had converted from a- corporation to a limited liability company, Suttles revised ' his fourth amended complaint to name Vanguard LLC f/k/a Vanguard Inc. as ‘a party defendant. Vanguard LLC, the entity into which Vanguard Inc. had converted in 2009, filed an answer, affirmative defenses and demand for jury trial.

On August 19,2014, final summary judgment was entered in favor of “Vanguard Car Rental USA, LLC, a Delaware limited [674]*674liability company f/k/a Vanguard Car Rental USA, [Inc.], a Delaware corporation” on a finding that Vanguard did not assume National Car Rental’s liabilities when it, purchased National’s assets out of bankruptcy. ■ After that judgment was affirmed on appeal, Vanguard moved for an award of attorneys’ fees pursuant to its earlier filed proposal-.

During the hearing to determine whether fées should be awarded to Vanguard pursuant to its proposal for settlement, Suttles,-for the first time, claimed that Vanguard LLC could not recover its attorney fees and costs because Vanguard LLC was not the party that served the proposal for settlement. Following' a second hearing on the matter, the court below ruled that Vanguard LLC, the prevailing party in the action, could not recover its fees and costs because Vanguard, Inc. had made the proposal for settlement3:

My ruling is on the face of the offer itself. It should have been LLC saying we converted back in '09, Inc. is no longer here, we are the one, Mr. Plaintiff, here is our offer on our behalf as a converted entity from Inc. And I think all of the rights and, obligations arguments legally flow, I agree with you, but it’s a different name. So for that reason, the motion is denied.

We reverse this- order for two reasons, first, because the proposal for settlement satisfied all prerequisites necessary for Vanguard Inc. to recover its -fees and costs, and second, because the conversion of Vanguard Inc. to Vanguard LLC had no effect on Vanguard’s potential liability as a party in this action.

In TGI Friday’s, Inc. v, Dvorak, 663 So.2d 606, 611 (Fla.1995), the Florida Supreme Court confirmed that section 768.79 creates a mandatory right to a fee award where a party has served a demand or offer of judgment and that party has recovered a judgment in its favor at least 25 percent more or less than the demand or offer:

We also find that the district court correctly held that section 768.79 provides for an award of attorney’s fees regardless of the reasonableness of an offeree’s rejection of an offer of judgment. In making this determination, the district court referred to its earlier decision in Schmidt v. Fortner, 629 So.2d 1036 (Fla. 4th DCA 1993). In-Schmidt, the district court explained the application of section 768.79 as follows:
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To begin, the words “shall be entitled” [é.s.] in subsection (1) [of section 768.79] quoted above cannot possibly have any meaning other than to create a right to attorney’s fees when the two preceding prerequisites have been fulfilled:' i.e., (1) when a party has served a demand or offer for judgment, and (2) that party has recovered a judgment at least 25 percent more or less than the demand or offer. These are the only elements of the statutory entitlement. No other factor is relevant in determining the question of entitlement.
Subsection. (6)(b) of section 768.79 (in pertinent part) provides as follows:
“(6) Upon motion made by the of-feror within 30 days after the entry of judgment or after voluntary or involuntary dismissal, the court shall determine the following:
(a) If a defendant serves an offer which is not accepted by the plain[675]*675tiff, and if the judgment obtained by the plaintiff if at least 25 percent less than the amount of the offer, the defendant shall be awarded reasonable costs, including ... attorney’s fees —
(b) If a ¡plaintiff serves an offer which is not accepted by the defendant, and if the judgment obtained by the plaintiff, is at least 25 percent more than the amount of the offer, the plaintiff shall be awarded reasonable costs, including ... attorney’s fees— ”
Under this provision,.the right to an award turns only on the difference between the amount of a rejected offer and the amount of a later judgment. It does not depend on whether the offer or the rejection was reasonable. ' If the offer is 25 percent inore or less than the judgment, then the party has qualified for an award. To repeat, these two provisions together create an entitlement which qualifies a party to an award of attorney’s fees where the party has served an offer that is more or less than the ultimate judgment, if the motion therefore has been timely made.

Id. at 611-613 (quoting with approval and agreeing with Schmidt, 629 So.2d at 1040-42); see also McGregor v. Molnar, 79 So.3d 908, 910 (Fla. 2d DCA 2012) (confirming that “the supreme court explained that section 768.79 creates a mandatory right to attorney’s fees if its prerequisites are met”).

While a trial court may in its discretion refuse to grant a fee award where these prerequisites are met, it may do so only if it determines that a qualifying offer was not made in good faith. See Dvorak, 663 So.2d at 612 (stating that while subsection 768,79(7) does “allow the court in its discretion to disallow an award of attorney’s fees,” it may do so “only if it determines that a qualifying offer ‘was not made in good faith.’ ”) (quoting § 768.79(7)); Molnar,

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Bluebook (online)
190 So. 3d 672, 2016 Fla. App. LEXIS 6338, 2016 WL 1658764, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vanguard-car-rental-usa-llc-v-suttles-fladistctapp-2016.