Title: Suarez Trucking FL Corp. v. Souders
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SC21-369
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: October 20, 2022

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC21-369 
____________ 
 
SUAREZ TRUCKING FL CORP., et al., 
Petitioners, 
 
vs. 
 
ADAM J. SOUDERS, et al., 
Respondents. 
 
October 20, 2022 
 
PER CURIAM. 
 
This case presents the question whether a binding settlement 
agreement was formed pursuant to the provisions of section 768.79, 
Florida Statutes (2014), Florida’s offer of judgment and demand for 
judgment statute, when the defendant in a tort action, Suarez 
Trucking, filed a written notice accepting an offer of settlement 
made by the plaintiff, Adam Souders.  In Suarez Trucking FL Corp. 
v. Souders, 311 So. 3d 263, 272 (Fla. 2d DCA 2020), the Second 
District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order denying 
Suarez Trucking’s motion to enforce settlement agreement, holding 
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that the written notice of acceptance was not sufficient to form a 
binding contract and that the settlement check tendered pursuant 
to the offer of settlement was deficient because it included as a 
payee—along with Souders and his counsel—the carrier holding a 
workers’ compensation lien created by operation of section 440.39, 
Florida Statutes (2014). 
The Second District’s decision is in express and direct conflict 
with the decision of the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Cirrus 
Design Corp. v. Sasso, 95 So. 3d 308, 312 (Fla. 4th DCA 2012), 
which held that the filed acceptance of an offer under the offer of 
judgment and demand for judgment statute resulted in the 
formation of a substituted agreement and that performance thus 
was not necessary to the formation of the settlement contract.  We 
therefore have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. 
On the conflict issue—whether a settlement contract was 
formed—the framework of offer and acceptance established by 
section 768.79 as well as basic contract principles support the 
conclusion that the Second District erred in holding that no 
contract was formed.  On this point, as Judge Atkinson explains in 
his cogent dissent, the district court majority erroneously conflates 
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acceptance with performance and errs in its understanding of what 
is required to manifest acceptance of an offer inviting a promissory 
acceptance. 
We decline to go beyond the conflict issue to address whether 
Suarez Trucking—by tendering the settlement check to Souders 
with the workers’ compensation lienor named as a payee—breached 
the settlement agreement.  Because of their focus on the issue of 
contract formation, the parties have never fully argued issues 
related to breach and remedy.  Those issues should be resolved on 
remand, uninfluenced by the erroneous view of contract formation 
adopted by the Second District. 
I. 
 
Section 768.79(4) provides: “An offer shall be accepted by filing 
a written acceptance with the court within 30 days after service.  
Upon filing of both the offer and acceptance, the court has full 
jurisdiction to enforce the settlement agreement.”  Subsection (5) of 
the statute provides that “[a]n offer may be withdrawn in writing 
which is served before the date a written acceptance is filed” and 
that “[o]nce withdrawn, an offer is void.”  A related rule provision 
found in Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.442(f)(1) states that in 
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connection with an offer and acceptance under section 768.79(4), 
“[n]o oral communications shall constitute an acceptance, rejection, 
or counteroffer.” 
This framework recognizes a simple and straightforward 
process in which after a written offer is made under the statute, if 
an acceptance of that offer is timely filed, an enforceable settlement 
agreement is thereby created.  The framework contemplates that a 
filed acceptance constitutes a promise to perform in accordance 
with the terms of the offer.  Given the statute’s requirement that an 
offer and any acceptance be written, oral discussions surrounding 
the offer and acceptance are—as rule 1.442(f)(1) makes clear—of no 
consequence to the formation of a contract.  Once a proper 
acceptance—that is, an unqualified acceptance—is filed as specified 
in the statute, that’s it: a settlement contract has been entered to 
resolve the litigation.  All that remains is for performance of the 
settlement terms to be carried out.  This is the framework 
established by the statute, and parties desiring to obtain the 
potential benefit afforded by the statute are bound to operate within 
its parameters. 
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Here, the offer of settlement made by plaintiff Souders on 
February 25, 2015, expressly pursuant to section 768.79 and rule 
1.442, provided that the defendants “shall pay $500,000.00 to the 
Plaintiff . . . within ten (10) days from the date of acceptance.”  The 
offer also contained the condition that “[u]pon acceptance and 
payment of the Proposal for Settlement, Plaintiff . . . will enter 
dismissal with prejudice against Defendants.”  In response, on 
March 26, 2015, Suarez Trucking filed a notice of acceptance 
stating simply that “pursuant to Florida Statutes 769.89 and 
Florida Rule 1.442 [notice is given] that Defendants accept Plaintiff’s 
Proposal for Settlement made to Defendants, dated February 25, 
2015.”  (Emphasis added.)  This notice of acceptance created a 
binding settlement contract by unequivocally and fully assenting to 
the terms of the offer.  It is hard to imagine a form of acceptance 
that could be more clear or more effective. 
II. 
Avoiding this reality, the Second District invokes and 
misapplies “the strict common-law rule applicable to offers 
generally—the so-called ‘mirror image’ rule that generally requires 
the acceptance to be in every respect identical to the offer.”  
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16 Richard A. Lord, Williston on Contracts § 49:40 (4th ed. 2014).  
The Second District denigrates Suarez Trucking’s acceptance as 
ineffectual “boilerplate” that “lacked specificity,” holding that under 
the mirror-image rule, Suarez Trucking could only manifest its 
acceptance of the offer by reciting back the terms of the offer.  
Suarez Trucking, 311 So. 3d at 269.  In support of this conclusion, 
the Second District cites not a single case in which the mirror-
image rule has been applied in a similar way.  
The Second District, in a view adopted by the dissent, also 
erroneously sets up a dichotomy between the operation of section 
768.79 together with rule 1.442 and the formation of a binding 
settlement contract, asserting that, as the dissent says, the statute 
and rule do not “specif[y] the requirements for formation of the 
settlement agreement itself.”  Dissenting op. at 1. 
Pointing to oral communications between the parties, the 
Second District—once again echoed by the dissent—raises the 
specter that recognizing the formation of a contract between the 
parties here would somehow allow unilateral alteration of the terms 
of the settlement.  See Suarez Trucking, 311 So. 3d at 271; 
dissenting op. at 7.  The Second District also erroneously contends 
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that the offer of settlement could only be accepted by performance—
rather than by a promissory acceptance.  See Suarez Trucking, 311 
So. 3d at 269. 
None of these positions can be reconciled either with the 
provisions of the statute or with general rules of contract law. 
III. 
Basic contract law has long established that “[i]n order to 
create a contract, it is essential that there should be a reciprocal 
assent” to the contract terms.  Strong & Trowbridge Co. v. H. Baars 
& Co., 54 So. 92, 93 (Fla. 1910).  The “assent must be precisely [to] 
the same thing.”  Id.  That is, the acceptance must mirror the offer.  
“Consequently, if one assents to a certain thing and the other 
assents to it only with modifications . . . no agreement or contract 
arises therefrom.”  Id.  We have said that “in determining whether 
there has been a mutual consent to a contract,” 
[t]he rule is probably best expressed by the late Justice 
Holmes in “The Path of the Law,” 10 Harvard Law Review 
457, where it was stated in part that “The making of a 
contract depends not on the agreement of two minds in 
one intention, but on the agreement of two sets of 
external signs—not on the parties having meant the same 
thing but on their having said the same thing.” 
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Gendzier v. Bielecki, 97 So. 2d 604, 608 (Fla. 1957).1  There must 
therefore be an objective manifestation by both parties of assent to 
the same terms.  This is a rule of consistency.  It is not—as the 
Second District would have it—a rule of regurgitation. 
The “general rule at common law” is simply “that [an] 
acceptance must comply with [the] terms of [the] offer”: 
If a promise is requested, that promise must be made 
absolutely and unqualifiedly.  This does not necessarily 
mean that the precise words of the requested promise 
must be repeated, but rather that, by a positive and 
unqualified assent to the proposal, the offeree must in 
effect agree to make precisely the promise requested. 
2 Lord, Williston on Contracts § 6:11 (4th ed. 2007) (emphasis 
added). 
Here, the promise made by Suarez Trucking in the filed notice 
of acceptance was “made absolutely and unqualifiedly,” and Suarez 
Trucking “agreed to make precisely the promise requested.”  It was 
of no consequence that “the precise words of the requested promise” 
were not repeated.  The filed acceptance constituted “a positive and 
unqualified assent to the proposal” of settlement.  That’s what the 
 
 
1.  The common law rule has been modified with respect to 
transactions in goods.  See § 672.207, Fla. Stat. (2021). 
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law requires for an acceptance to be effective.  See Hanson v. 
Maxfield, 23 So. 3d 736, 739 (Fla. 1st DCA 2009) (“The May 13 
letter, written on behalf of the Hansons, states that it ‘accepts your 
settlement offer made on behalf of your clients in your April 15, 
2005, letter.’  Thus, the May 13 letter is an unequivocal and 
unconditional acceptance of the offer made in the April 15 letter.”); 
see also Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 30, illus. 3 (Am. Law 
Inst. 1981) (“A orally offers to sell and deliver to B 100 tons of coal 
at $20 a ton payable 30 days after delivery.  B replies, “I accept 
your offer.”  B has manifested assent in a sufficient form  . . . .”); id. 
§ 32, illus. 5 (“A mails a written order to B, offering to buy specified 
machinery on specified terms.  The order provides, ‘Ship at once.’  B 
immediately mails a letter to A, saying ‘I accept your offer and will 
ship at once.’  This is a sufficient acceptance to form a contract.”). 
Nothing in section 768.79 or rule 1.442 is at odds with these 
basic rules of contract law regarding offer and acceptance and 
mutual assent.  Indeed, the statute and rule operate against the 
backdrop of those legal principles.  When the statute refers to 
“offer” and “acceptance,” the statute speaks the language of 
contract.  But the statute—as implemented by the rule—specifies a 
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particular mode for the offer and acceptance: both must be written.  
Accepting the position that a valid offer and acceptance under the 
statute do not necessarily result in an enforceable settlement 
contract would unnecessarily inject incoherence into the law. 
In line with the purpose of establishing a clear-cut basis for 
the imposition of sanctions on a litigant who rejects a settlement 
proposal in the circumstances specified in the statute, the statutory 
framework does not envision a process of negotiation regarding 
settlement terms.  On the contrary, it authorizes settlement 
proposals that are by their very nature take-it-or-leave-it 
propositions.  The statutorily required written offer and acceptance 
are not affected by other communications between the litigants.  
That understanding of the operation of the statute is clearly 
reflected in the provision of rule 1.442(f)(1) that “[n]o oral 
communications shall constitute an acceptance, rejection, or 
counteroffer.” 
The focus of the Second District and the dissent on such 
communications between the parties here flows from a serious 
misconception regarding settlements pursuant to the statute.  This 
is illustrated by Scope v. Fannelli, 639 So. 2d 141 (Fla. 5th DCA 
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1994), in which the court rejected a claim that a counteroffer had 
terminated an offer made under section 768.79.  In rejecting that 
claim, the court reasoned that subsection (5) of the statute permits 
an offeror to withdraw an offer in writing with service effected before 
an acceptance is filed, but that “[n]o alternative method of reducing 
the time for acceptance is provided by the statute.”  Scope, 639 So. 
2d at 143.  Accordingly, regardless of communications between the 
parties concerning the offer, absent a withdrawal of the offer in 
accordance with the statutory provisions, the offer will remain open 
until the statutory 30-day offer period has passed.  From this 
holding it follows that—whatever may have passed between the 
parties—an acceptance filed in accordance with the statute before 
an offer has either been withdrawn or expired will be effective to 
create a settlement contract based on the terms of the offer. 
So when a settlement offer is made under the statute, the 
process must play out according to the requirements of the statute 
and rule.  Of course, the parties are always free to negotiate and 
enter a settlement on any basis to which they mutually assent. 
Such a negotiating process undertaken outside the statutory 
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framework obviously is not subject to the requirements or benefits 
of the statute and rule. 
There is no support for the claim that recognizing the 
existence of a contract here authorizes the accepting party to 
unilaterally alter the contract.  To the extent that such a claim 
points to issues concerning whether a breach of the settlement 
contract occurred, the matter is beyond the scope of the conflict 
issue, and we do not address it here. 
Finally, the Second District’s contention that the offer made by 
Souders contemplated that acceptance could only be effected by 
performance is refuted by the plain terms of the offer.  The Second 
District rests its position on this issue on the reference in the 
settlement offer to “acceptance and payment.”  Suarez Trucking, 311 
So. 3d at 270.  But this language—understood in context—indicates 
exactly the opposite of what the Second District says it means.  The 
settlement offer makes a clear distinction between acceptance and 
performance rather than equating acceptance with performance.  
This is shown most vividly in the specification that performance by 
payment must occur within ten days from the date of acceptance.  
The offer thus clearly contemplates a two-step process in which 
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acceptance is followed by performance.  This, of course, is 
consistent with the statute, which provides for acceptance by the 
filing of a notice of acceptance rather than acceptance by 
performance. 
IV. 
There is no basis to support the Second District’s conclusion 
that a settlement contract could only be formed by performance or 
that Suarez Trucking’s acceptance was otherwise defective.  We 
therefore quash the decision on review.  And we approve the conflict 
decision in Cirrus to the extent that it is consistent with our 
analysis here. 
It is so ordered. 
MUÑIZ, C.J., and CANADY, POLSTON, COURIEL, and 
GROSSHANS, JJ., concur. 
CANADY, J., concurs with an opinion, in which POLSTON, J., 
concurs. 
LABARGA, J., dissents with an opinion. 
FRANCIS, J., did not participate. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION 
AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
CANADY, J., concurring. 
Although I do not dissent from the majority’s conclusion that 
fuller briefing of the issues related to breach and remedy is 
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appropriate, based on what has been presented thus far by the 
parties it appears doubtful to me that any breach of the settlement 
agreement occurred.  And it must be acknowledged that the 
resolution of the breach issue has serious implications for the 
integrity of the legal framework for the protection of statutory 
workers’ compensation liens.  
 
Under the Workers’ Compensation Law, an employee injured 
in the course of employment by a third-party tortfeasor may accept 
workers’ compensation benefits and also sue the third-party 
tortfeasor.  § 440.39(1), Fla. Stat. (2021).  In such circumstances, 
the employee “shall sue for the employee individually and for the 
use and benefit of the employer, if a self-insurer, or employer’s 
insurance carrier.”  § 440.39(3)(a), Fla. Stat.  Under the statute, the 
employer or carrier obtains lien rights: 
Upon suit being filed, the employer or the insurance 
carrier, as the case may be, may file in the suit a notice 
of payment of compensation and medical benefits to the 
employee or his or her dependents, which notice shall 
constitute a lien upon any judgment or settlement 
recovered to the extent that the court may determine to 
be their pro rata share for compensation and medical 
benefits paid or to be paid under the provisions of this 
law, less their pro rata share of all court costs expended 
by the plaintiff in the prosecution of the suit including 
reasonable attorney’s fees for the plaintiff’s attorney. 
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Id. 
The statute thus provides for the judicial determination of the 
amount recoverable under such workers’ compensation liens.  Id.  
Specific provision is made regarding settled third-party tort claims: 
If the employer or insurance carrier has given written 
notice of his or her rights of subrogation to the third-
party tortfeasor, and, thereafter, settlement of any such 
claim or action at law is made, either before or after suit 
is filed, and the parties fail to agree on the proportion to 
be paid to each, the circuit court of the county in which 
the cause of action arose shall determine the amount to 
be paid to each by such third-party tortfeasor . . . . 
§ 440.39(3)(b), Fla. Stat. 
The Second District itself has recognized that under these 
provisions of the statute, in the event of a dispute on the question, 
an employee’s “right to the distribution of any portion of his third-
party settlement did not arise until the trial court determined the 
amount of the [workers’ compensation] lien.”  City of Tampa v. 
Norton, 681 So. 2d 811, 812 (Fla. 2d DCA 1996); see also Circle K 
Corp./AIG Claims Servs., Inc. v. Webster, 747 So. 2d 1010, 1011 
(Fla. 5th DCA 1999) (“Where a case is settled in lieu of suit or 
during the pendency of a suit and the tortfeasor has notice of the 
employer’s interest in the settlement, the case should not be settled 
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without the consent of the carrier or employer in order to protect 
the employer to the extent of benefits conferred.”). 
It is undisputed that the parties here were subject to the 
provisions of section 440.39 and that they were on notice of the 
carrier’s lien rights.  Indeed, Souders said this in his brief 
submitted to the Second District: 
[T]he record reflects that, both before and after the 
plaintiff’s offer was made, plaintiff’s counsel had advised 
Suarez Trucking’s counsel that his client had a statutory 
obligation to satisfy the compensation carrier’s lien; that 
he fully intended to do so in accordance with Florida law; 
and that he had been actively involved in negotiating the 
amount of the lien with counsel for the compensation 
carrier . . . . 
In line with this statute and the acknowledgement of lien rights by 
Souders, Suarez Trucking now argues that it simply did what “is 
customary when faced with a lienholder: it included that lienholder 
on the settlement check.”  Suarez Trucking further argues that 
under section 440.39 if it “failed to include [the workers’ 
compensation carrier] on the settlement check and protect the lien, 
it could have faced a cause of action for impairment of lien or for 
subrogation.”   
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In support of these points, Suarez Trucking cites cases 
recognizing the duty of settling parties to protect lien rights.  See, 
e.g., Hall, Lamb & Hall, P.A. v. Sherlon Invs. Corp., 7 So. 3d 639, 641 
(Fla. 3d DCA 2009) (“There is no question that as a party to the 
settlement, Sherlon had an affirmative duty to notify the law firm of 
the settlement and to protect the law firm’s lien interest in the 
settlement proceeds.”); Dade County v. Pavon, 266 So. 2d 94, 97 
(Fla. 3d DCA 1972) (“We hold that the statute placed upon the 
appellee a duty to make no settlement until the possible existence 
of a hospital lien was determined.”); see also Geico Gen. Ins. Co. v. 
Steinger, Iscoe & Greene-II, P.A., 275 So. 3d 775, 777 (Fla. 3d DCA 
2019) (holding that insurer had a “duty to protect [law firm’s] 
attorney’s lien by notifying [law firm] of the settlement, including 
[the law firm] on the settlement check or obtaining [law firm’s] 
waiver of its lien in writing, or obtaining a Hold Harmless agreement 
from [firm receiving settlement proceeds]”).  To the extent that 
Suarez Trucking can establish the existence of such a duty arising 
from section 440.39, it appears that analysis of the breach of 
contract issue should take that statute-based duty into account. 
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The relevance of background legal requirements to the 
obligations of contracting parties is by no means a novel concept in 
our law.  “Florida courts have long recognized that the statutory 
limitations and requirements surrounding traditional insurance 
contracts may be incorporated into an insurance contract for 
purposes of determining the parties’ contractual rights.”  Found. 
Health v. Westside EKG Assocs., 944 So. 2d 188, 195 (Fla. 2006).  
The issue of statutory incorporation has arisen most frequently in 
the insurance context, but our treatment of the incorporation of 
statutory provisions in that context is based on a more sweeping 
principle of statutory incorporation.  We have held broadly that  
in construing a contract, it is well established that “the 
laws existing at the time and place of the making of the 
contract and where it is to be performed which may affect 
its validity, construction, discharge and enforcement, 
enter into and become a part of the contract as if they 
were expressly referred to or actually copied or 
incorporated therein.”   
City of Homestead v. Beard, 600 So. 2d 450, 454-55 (Fla. 1992) 
(quoting Shavers v. Duval County, 73 So. 2d 684, 689 (Fla. 1954)). 
This principle of contract law is indeed venerable and widely 
acknowledged.  See Von Hoffman v. City of Quincy, 71 U.S. 535, 550 
(1866) (“It is also settled that the laws which subsist at the time and 
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place of the making of a contract, and where it is to be performed, 
enter into and form a part of it, as if they were expressly referred to 
or incorporated in its terms.  This principle embraces alike those 
which affect its validity, construction, discharge, and 
enforcement. . . . These are as much incidents and conditions of the 
contract as if they rested upon the basis of a distinct agreement.”); 
Richard A. Lord, Williston on Contracts § 30:19 (4th ed. 2012) 
(“Under [the generally applicable] presumption of incorporation, 
valid applicable laws existing at the time of the making of a contract 
enter into and form a part of the contract as fully as if expressly 
incorporated in the contract.  Thus, contractual language must be 
interpreted in light of existing law, the provisions of which are 
regarded as implied terms of the contract, regardless of whether the 
agreement refers to the governing law.” (footnotes omitted.)). 
As Souders admits, the parties here were subject to the 
provisions of section 440.39.  Souders was required by law to bring 
his third-party tort claim not only for his own benefit, but also for 
“the use and benefit” of the workers’ compensation carrier.  He was 
not entitled to the disbursement of funds paid in settlement of his 
claim prior to an agreed or judicially determined resolution of the 
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workers’ compensation lien.  The settlement funds provided to 
Souders indisputably were legally encumbered by the lien. 
When the contract is understood in light of these existing 
relationships and obligations, as is required by the well-established 
rule of incorporation, it is hard to see how Suarez Trucking’s tender 
of the settlement check with the workers’ compensation carrier 
named as a payee could be a breach—much less a material 
breach—of the settlement agreement.  The tender of the check in 
that form simply acknowledged binding legal obligations that the 
parties to the settlement necessarily understood to exist and that 
they were expressly committed to honoring. 
The autonomy of contracting parties is not compromised by 
the presumption that the contractual obligations they undertake 
are informed by and subject to legal obligations arising from the 
laws that exist when the contract is entered.  And it is hard to 
fathom how a breach of contract can arise from action by a party—
similar to the action by Suarez Trucking here—to require that the 
performance of contractual obligations be in harmony with such 
laws. 
POLSTON, J., concurs. 
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LABARGA, J., dissenting. 
 
I agree with the majority that the Second District improperly 
applied the “mirror image” rule in determining the enforceability of 
the settlement agreement in this case.  However, I ultimately agree 
with the district court that the parties’ failure to reach a meeting of 
the minds as to a material term rendered the settlement agreement 
unenforceable.  Consequently, I dissent. 
 
Relying on a terse application of section 768.79, Florida 
Statutes (2014), and Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.442, the 
majority concludes that petitioner Suarez Trucking (Suarez) and 
respondent Souders formed a binding settlement agreement.  
Section 768.79 and rule 1.442 contain the requirements for court 
approval and enforcement of a settlement agreement, but neither 
specifies the requirements for formation of the settlement 
agreement itself.  A court’s authority to ratify a settlement 
agreement and enter a judgment accordingly is distinct from the 
formation of the settlement agreement.  See Wright v. Caruana, 640 
So. 2d 197, 198 (Fla. 3d DCA 1994) (“[Section 768.79(1)] does not 
prevent an offeree from actually accepting an untimely offer and 
avoiding trial; it merely prevents the offer from later serving as the 
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basis for an award of costs and attorney’s fees under the statute.”); 
Gallagher v. Dupont, 918 So. 2d 342, 347 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005) (“A 
consent judgment is a judicially approved contract . . . .”); Mady v. 
DaimlerChrysler Corp., 59 So. 3d 1129, 1133 (Fla. 2011) (“A 
resolution reached pursuant to the offer of judgment statute, as 
opposed to an extrajudicial settlement agreement that is not subject 
to judicial enforcement bears the imprimatur of a court. . . .”).  The 
former is governed by the statute and rule, and the latter is 
governed by general contract law. 
 
Even though the parties may have adhered to the procedural 
requirements set forth in section 768.79 and rule 1.442, that is 
only part of the analysis.  The parties’ adherence to those 
requirements is—and must be—secondary to whether a valid 
settlement agreement exists. 
 
A settlement agreement, like all other contracts, is formed 
when there is mutual assent and a meeting of the minds, which 
requires an offer and an acceptance supported by valid 
consideration.  See Robbie v. City of Miami, 469 So. 2d 1384, 1385 
(Fla. 1985); Perkins v. Simmons, 15 So. 2d 289, 290 (Fla. 1943); see 
also Pena v. Fox, 198 So. 3d 61, 63 (Fla. 2d DCA 2015).  If an 
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offeree’s acceptance deviates from an offer’s essential terms, it is 
not an acceptance but is instead a counteroffer that rejects the 
original offer.  Strong & Trowbridge Co. v. H. Baars & Co., 54 So. 92, 
93-94 (Fla. 1910); see Breger v. Robshaw Custom Homes, Inc., 264 
So. 3d 1147, 1150 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019).  If the parties are still 
negotiating the essential terms of the contract, there is no meeting 
of the minds.  See Webster Lumber Co. v. Lincoln, 115 So. 498 (Fla. 
1927); see also de Vaux v. Westwood Baptist Church, 953 So. 2d 
677, 681 (Fla. 1st DCA 2007). 
 
Here, because there was no meeting of the minds as to all of 
the material terms, no settlement agreement was formed.  In 
arriving at its conclusion that a valid contract was formed when 
Suarez filed a written notice accepting Souders’ settlement offer, the 
majority glossed over a significant factual component that impeded 
such a conclusion under contract law: After Souders made his 
initial offer, Suarez’s counsel contacted Souders’ counsel and asked 
that the settlement agreement provide that the lien issued by the 
workers’ compensation carrier (Guarantee Insurance Company) be 
paid from the proceeds of the settlement check.  Souders 
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unequivocally refused the request.2  Despite Souders’s refusal, 
Suarez issued a settlement check that included Guarantee as a 
payee and filed a notice of acceptance with the court.3 
 
In the context of contract negotiations, Suarez’s request to 
include Guarantee on the settlement check constituted a 
counteroffer which voided the initial offer and was ultimately 
rejected by Souders.  Thus, at the time the acceptance was filed, 
there was no meeting of the minds as to who would be paid—
meaning that there was no binding settlement agreement.  Even if 
the request were not a counteroffer, Souders’ rejection and Suarez’s 
subsequent inclusion of Guarantee as a payee evinces that the 
parties were still negotiating who to include as payee, and thus, 
 
 
2.  The inclusion of the worker’s compensation carrier 
(Guarantee) as a payee on the settlement check would have 
required Souders to negotiate the amount of the lien with 
Guarantee before he could cash the settlement check—a step 
Souders clearly did not want to take at that time. 
 
3.  In the inverse situation, where the parties have not met the 
requirements of section 768.79 and rule 1.442, but have met the 
common law requirements for contract formation, the parties would 
be unable to exercise the benefits of the statute, but would still 
have an extrajudicial private settlement contract enforceable as a 
matter of contract law. 
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there was no meeting of the minds.  Therefore, there was no 
contract formation. 
 
In determining that the parties formed a binding settlement 
agreement upon Suarez’s notice of acceptance, the majority notes 
that “[t]he [section 768.79 and rule 1.442] framework contemplates 
that a filed acceptance constitutes a promise to perform in 
accordance with the terms of the offer.”  Majority op. at 4.  However, 
herein lies the problem in this case; there was no meeting of the 
minds as to a material term of the offer—whether Guarantee should 
be included as a payee on the settlement check.  In short, the 
parties did not agree as to who should be included in the settlement 
check as a payee—a material term of the contract.4  It would be a 
rare circumstance indeed where the identity of the payee or payees 
of a settlement check would not be considered a material term of 
 
 
4.  Although insurance carriers enjoy an automatic lien in a 
settlement with a third-party tortfeasor, the workers’ compensation 
statute clearly contemplates further negotiations and proceedings in 
the execution of the lien.  See §§ 440.39(a)-(b), Fla. Stat. (2014).  By 
including Guarantee on the check, Suarez effectively created a 
de facto lien that could affect those negotiations.  With these 
consequences in mind, the payee on the check should be 
considered a material term of the settlement agreement. 
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the settlement agreement, and without an agreement as to all of the 
material terms of the offer, there can be no valid acceptance or 
promise to perform in accordance with those terms.  See Suarez 
Trucking FL Corp. v. Souders, 311 So. 3d 263, 269 (“[T]he provisions 
of section 768.79(4) . . . do not negate the fact that contract law 
governs settlement agreements”) (citing Lunas v. Cooperativa de 
Seguros Multiples de Puerto Rico, 100 So. 3d 239, 241 (Fla. 2d DCA 
2012)).  Thus, reliance on the statute/rule framework to determine 
the enforceability of the parties’ settlement agreement is not as 
“simple and straightforward” as the majority opinion suggests.  
Majority op. at 4. 
 
Notwithstanding the majority’s reliance on rule 1.442(f)(1), 
which provides that “[n]o oral communications shall constitute an 
acceptance, rejection, or counteroffer under the provisions of this 
rule,” that provision only applies to the court’s authority to ratify 
and enforce the settlement agreement.  Neither it nor section 
768.79 alters the requirements for the valid formation of the 
settlement agreement: 
By conferring jurisdiction to enforce an agreement upon 
the trial court only after both an offer and acceptance 
have been filed with the court, the statute prevents the 
- 27 - 
trial court from enforcing an agreement based only on a 
party’s assertion that it accepted the offer.  The statute 
does not, however, require the trial court to enforce a 
contract simply because a written acceptance has been 
filed.  The trial court must still evaluate that acceptance as 
evidencing a meeting of the parties’ minds. 
 
Suarez, 311 So. 3d at 269 (emphasis added).  Although this 
language was stated in the context of the Second District’s 
erroneous “mirror image” rule analysis, the court’s understanding 
of the statute is otherwise valid.  Accordingly, rule 1.442(f)(1) does 
not restrict a court from considering the communications between 
Suarez and Souders in evaluating the enforceability of the 
settlement agreement.  Here, the parties’ communications illustrate 
that there was no meeting of the minds and no formation of a 
settlement agreement. 
 
By prioritizing compliance with section 768.79 and rule 1.442 
over the formation of a valid settlement agreement, the majority 
risks minimizing the safeguards of contract law in favor of a purely 
formalistic framework, and in turn, leaves open the possibility of 
the troublesome scenario set forth in the Second District’s opinion: 
 
Holding that the trial court should have granted 
that motion would allow offerees to file boilerplate notices 
of acceptance and subsequently alter the required 
performance as they see fit.  But an offeror who complies 
- 28 - 
with the strict requirements of the statute and the rule 
concerning proposals for settlement and offers of 
judgment should not be bound to comply with the terms 
of an agreement unilaterally created by the offeree simply 
because the offeree first filed a boilerplate notice of 
acceptance.  Such a result is untenable. 
 
Suarez, 311 So. 3d at 271.5 
 
For these reasons, I would hold that because there was no 
meeting of the minds as to all of the terms of the settlement 
agreement, and thus no contract formation, the settlement 
agreement was unenforceable. 
 
I respectfully dissent. 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal 
Direct Conflict of Decisions 
 
 
Second District - Case No. 2D19-572 
 
 
(Hillsborough County) 
 
Kansas R. Gooden of Boyd & Jenerette, Miami, Florida, and Stuart 
J. Freeman of Freeman, Goldis & Cash, PA, St. Petersburg, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioner Suarez Trucking Fl Corp 
 
Daniel A. Martinez and Jennifer C. Worden of Segundo Law Group, 
St. Petersburg, Florida, 
 
 
5.  This risk is especially relevant here, where the record 
reveals that after the offer and before acceptance, the parties 
disagreed as to whether the settlement agreement should include 
satisfaction of Guarantee’s lien from the settlement check. 
- 29 - 
 
 
for Petitioner Progressive Express Insurance Company 
 
Joel D. Eaton of Podhurst Orseck, P.A., Miami, Florida, and Chris 
M. Kavouklis of Brennan, Holden & Kavouklis, P.A., Tampa, 
Florida, 
 
 
for Respondents 
 
Thomas L. Hunker and V. Ashley Paxton of Hunker Appeals, Fort 
Lauderdale, Florida, and Elaine D. Walter of Boyd Richards Parker 
& Colonnelli, P.L., Miami, Florida, 
 
 
for Amicus Curiae Florida Defense Lawyers Association