Imagine you handled the defense of a case for your client perfectly. You serve a proposal for settlement early in the proceedings that that the plaintiff receives, but does not accept. You obtain a judgment in your client’s favor and timely file a motion for attorney fees. In addition to the judgment, you and your client anticipate recovering all fees and costs expended in the litigation from the date you served the proposal. This was undoubtedly your finest legal work and a moment of triumph in your career. Then the trial court incredulously denies your motion for fees, citing technical defects in the service of the proposal for settlement, even though the plaintiff’s attorney actually received it.
These are the facts behind Wheaton v. Wheaton, 217 So. 3d 125 (Fla. 3d DCA 2017), where the Third District affirmed the trial court’s denial of the defendant’s motion for attorney fees. Wheaton is a not-so-subtle reminder that statutes providing for a party’s recovery of attorney fees are in derogation of Florida law, and such statutes are strictly construed, see Campbell v. Goldman, 959 So. 2d 223, 226 (Fla. 2007).
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