Title: CCM Condominium Association, Inc. v. Petri Positive Pest Control, Inc.
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SC19-861
State: Florida
Issuer: Florida Supreme Court
Date: September 9, 2021

Supreme Court of Florida 
 
____________ 
 
No. SC19-861 
____________ 
 
CCM CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, INC., etc., 
Petitioner, 
 
vs. 
 
PETRI POSITIVE PEST CONTROL, INC., etc., 
Respondent. 
 
September 9, 2021 
 
POLSTON, J. 
 
We review the Fourth District Court of Appeal’s decision in 
Petri Positive Pest Control, Inc. v. CCM Condominium Ass’n, 271 So. 
3d 1001 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019), in which the Fourth District certified 
the following question of great public importance: 
FOR PURPOSES OF CALCULATING WHETHER A 
PLAINTIFF HAS MET THE THRESHOLD AMOUNT OF 
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN OFFER OF JUDGMENT 
AND THE JUDGMENT ENTERED FOR PURPOSES OF 
SECTION 768.79, FLORIDA STATUTES, MUST POST-
OFFER PREJUDGMENT INTEREST BE EXCLUDED 
FROM THE AMOUNT OF THE “JUDGMENT OBTAINED”? 
 
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Id. at 1007.  In its decision, the Fourth District also certified conflict 
with the Third District Court of Appeal’s decision in Perez v. Circuit 
City Stores, Inc., 721 So. 2d 409 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998), and the First 
District Court of Appeal’s decision in Phillips v. Parrish, 585 So. 2d 
1038 (Fla. 1st DCA 1991).  Petri, 271 So. 3d at 1007.1 
 
Based upon this Court’s precedent and as explained below, we 
answer the certified question in the affirmative, approve the Fourth 
District’s decision in Petri, and disapprove the Third District’s 
decision in Perez and the First District’s decision in Phillips to the 
extent they are inconsistent with our decision today. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
The Fourth District described the background of this case as 
follows: 
 
In 2013, the appellee/plaintiff, CCM Condominium 
Association, Inc., sued the appellant/defendant, Petri 
Positive Pest Control, Inc., for negligence and breach of 
contract regarding the parties’ contract for Petri to 
address a termite problem at CCM’s property.  Petri 
answered, denying the allegations.  CCM served an 
amended offer of judgment in 2014, pursuant to section 
768.79, Florida Statutes.  It offered to settle all of CCM’s 
claims for damages, including punitive damages, 
attorney’s fees, costs, and interest, for $500,000.  Petri 
rejected the offer. 
 
 
1.  We have jurisdiction.  See art. V, § 3(b)(4), Fla. Const. 
 
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Following a trial in 2016, the jury found in favor of 
CCM on its breach of contract claim, and it awarded 
CCM $551,881 in damages.  CCM submitted a proposed 
final judgment, requesting $551,881 in damages, and an 
additional $84,295.60 in prejudgment interest calculated 
by an accountant, with a per diem rate for each day.  
This amount included both pre-offer of settlement and 
post-offer of settlement interest.  The court entered 
judgment based on those calculations for a total of 
$636,326.90.  CCM then moved to tax costs, which the 
court granted in the amount of $73,579.21. 
CCM moved for attorney’s fees pursuant to section 
768.79, Florida Statutes, the offer of judgment statute, 
contending that its judgment of $636,326.90, inclusive of 
interest, exceeded the offer by more than 25%.  Thus, 
CCM was entitled to an award of attorney’s fees incurred.  
Petri objected, contending that in accordance with White 
v. Steak & Ale of Florida, Inc., 816 So. 2d 546 (Fla. 2002), 
the amount of the plaintiff’s total recovery included only 
its attorney’s fees, costs, and prejudgment interest 
accrued up to the date of the offer of judgment.  Without 
the post-offer prejudgment interest and costs, CCM had 
not met the threshold amount of $625,000. 
The court granted CCM’s motion for attorney’s fees.  
It concluded that White addressed only pre-offer costs in 
relation to a plaintiff’s “judgment obtained,” not 
prejudgment interest.  Relying on Perez v. Circuit City 
Stores, Inc., 721 So. 2d 409 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998), the court 
ruled that prejudgment interest is included in the 
“judgment obtained” for section 768.79 purposes.  The 
court held a hearing to determine the amount of 
attorney’s fees, and the parties ultimately agreed on the 
amount, leaving the issue of entitlement for this appeal. 
 
Petri, 271 So. 3d at 1002-03. 
On appeal, the Fourth District reversed the award of attorney’s 
fees based upon this Court’s precedent, although it concluded that 
 
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the plain meaning of section 768.79 did not support the precedent.  
The Fourth District held that this Court’s decisions in White and 
Shands Teaching Hospital & Clinics, Inc. v. Mercury Insurance Co. of 
Florida, 97 So. 3d 204 (Fla. 2012), required the exclusion of post-
offer prejudgment interest from the “judgment obtained” when 
determining entitlement to attorney’s fees pursuant to section 
768.79.  The Fourth District explained that its conclusion, that only 
pre-offer prejudgment interest is included in the calculation, 
conflicts with the Third District’s decision in Perez and the First 
District’s decision in Phillips.  Therefore, the Fourth District certified 
conflict with Perez and Phillips, both pre-White cases.  It also 
certified the above question of great public importance.  
II.  ANALYSIS 
CCM argues that the plain meaning of section 768.79 does not 
exclude post-offer prejudgment interest from the “judgment 
obtained” that is compared to a rejected settlement offer when 
determining whether to award attorneys’ fees under the offer of 
judgment statute.  Petri counters that this Court in White already 
held that post-offer prejudgment interest is to be excluded and that 
the White formula has been consistently and workably applied and 
 
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reaffirmed for nearly two decades.  Because this Court’s precedent 
is not clearly erroneous, we decline to recede from the White 
formula. 
This Court recently explained that “[i]n a case where we are 
bound by a higher legal authority—whether it be a constitutional 
provision, a statute, or a decision of the Supreme Court—our job is 
to apply that law correctly to the case before us.”  State v. Poole, 
297 So. 3d 487, 507 (Fla. 2020).  And “[w]hen we are convinced that 
a precedent clearly conflicts with the law we are sworn to uphold, 
precedent normally must yield.”  Id.  “But once we have chosen to 
reassess a precedent and have come to the conclusion that it is 
clearly erroneous, the proper question becomes whether there is a 
valid reason why not to recede from that precedent.”  Id.  When 
determining whether there is a valid reason not to recede, “[t]he 
critical consideration ordinarily will be reliance.”  Id. 
Section 768.79(1), Florida Statutes (2014) (emphasis added), 
provides that “[i]f a plaintiff files a demand for judgment which is 
not accepted by the defendant within 30 days and the plaintiff 
recovers a judgment in an amount at least 25 percent greater than 
the offer, she or he shall be entitled to recover reasonable costs and 
 
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attorney’s fees incurred from the date of the filing of the demand.”  
Similarly, section 768.79(6)(b), Florida Statutes (2014) (emphasis 
added), provides that “[i]f 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 
investigative expense, and attorney’s fees . . . incurred from the date 
the offer was served.”  Section 768.79(6), Florida Statutes (2014) 
(emphasis added), explains that “judgment obtained” in subsection 
(6)(b) “means the amount of the net judgment entered, plus any 
postoffer settlement amounts by which the verdict was reduced.” 
In White this Court concluded that, in determining whether 
attorney’s fees are to be awarded under section 768.79, settlement 
offers should be compared to what would be included in judgments 
if the judgments were entered on the date of the settlement offers 
because these amounts are the ones that are evaluated when 
determining the amount of offers and whether to accept offers.  See 
816 So. 2d at 550-51.  This Court in White reasoned as follows: 
In determining both the amount of the offer and whether 
to accept the offer, the party necessarily must evaluate 
not only the amount of the potential jury verdict, but also 
 
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any taxable costs, attorneys’ fees, and prejudgment 
interest to which the party would be entitled if the trial 
court entered the judgment at the time of the offer or 
demand.  As we stated in Danis Industries Corp. v. 
Ground Improvement Techniques, Inc., 645 So. 2d 420, 
421–22 (Fla. 1994): 
 
[A]ny offer of settlement shall be construed to 
include all damages, attorney fees, taxable 
costs, and prejudgment interest which would 
be included in a final judgment if the final 
judgment was entered on the date of the offer 
of settlement. 
 
Id. at 421–22.  We reaffirmed this principle in our recent 
decision in Scottsdale Insurance. Co. v. DeSalvo, 748 So. 
2d 941, 944 n.3 (Fla. 1999), where we explained that the 
plaintiff’s “recovery” must be added to its “attorney fees, 
costs, and prejudgment interest” accrued up to the date 
of the “offer” to determine the total “judgment.”  It is this 
judgment to which the offer must be compared in 
determining whether to award fees and costs.  Id. 
In summary, we conclude that the “judgment 
obtained” pursuant to section 768.79 includes the net 
judgment for damages and any attorneys’ fees and 
taxable costs that could have been included in a final 
judgment if such final judgment was entered on the date 
of the offer.  Thus, in calculating the “judgment obtained” 
for purposes of determining whether the party who made 
the offer is entitled to attorneys’ fees, the court must 
determine the total net judgment, which includes the 
plaintiff’s taxable costs up to the date of the offer and, 
where applicable, the plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees up to the 
date of the offer. 
 
Id. (footnotes omitted). 
 
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Then, in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. 
Nichols, 932 So. 2d 1067, 1074 (Fla. 2006), this Court reaffirmed 
the White formula, which we described as follows: 
In White v. Steak & Ale of Florida, Inc., 816 So. 2d 546 
(Fla. 2002), we held that the term “judgment” under the 
offer of judgment statute must be defined—as it is under 
section 627.428—to include not only the plaintiff’s 
damages award, but also any attorney’s fees, taxable 
costs, and prejudgment interest to which the plaintiff 
would have been entitled when the offer was made.  Id. at 
551.  “It is this judgment to which the offer must be 
compared in determining whether to award fees and 
costs” under both the offer of judgment statute and 
section 627.428.  Id. (citing DeSalvo, 748 So. 2d at 944 
n.3).   
Additionally, in Shands, 97 So. 3d at 213, this Court held that a 
trial court properly calculated the “judgment obtained” as including 
pre-offer prejudgment interest pursuant to the White formula.  
Following the formula that this Court first set forth in White, 
the district courts have consistently excluded amounts that were 
not present on the date of the offer, including damages for claims 
that had not yet been added.  See Palmentere Bros. Cartage Serv. v. 
Copeland, 277 So. 3d 729, 733 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019) (“Because 
punitive damages were not part of the case on the date of the offer 
of settlement, the calculation of the ‘net judgment’ and ‘judgment 
 
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obtained’ required in section 768.79(6)(b), could not include the 
amount of the punitive damages verdict.”); R.J. Reynolds Tobacco 
Co. v. Lewis, 275 So. 3d 747, 749 (Fla. 5th DCA 2019) (explaining 
that “it is clear that under White, a court may only properly 
consider those costs that were already taxable on the date the PFS 
was filed,” and holding that the experts’ costs were not taxable 
because they had not been deposed and did not testify); Diecidue v. 
Lewis, 223 So. 3d 1015, 1017 n.2 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017) (“The majority 
of this cost award was not considered when calculating the 
necessary twenty-five percent margin in section 768.79(1) because 
the costs were not incurred on [the date of the offer].”); UCF 
Athletics Ass’n v. Plancher, 121 So. 3d 616, 618-19 (Fla. 5th DCA 
2013) (explaining that “[f]or the purpose of the offer of judgment 
statute, the judgment obtained includes the net judgment for 
damages and any attorney’s fees and taxable costs that could have 
been included in a final judgment if such final judgment was 
entered on the day of the offer,” and reversing the award of 
attorneys’ fees because “[h]ad the trial court properly ruled [on the 
issue of sovereign immunity], on the day the offer was made, the 
most Appellee would have been entitled to recover from UCFAA was 
 
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$200,000, an amount much less than the offer Appellee made to 
settle the case”); Nilo v. Fugate, 30 So. 3d 623, 625 (Fla. 1st DCA 
2010) (“Only those costs incurred pre-demand may be considered in 
determining whether the total judgment meets the statutory 
threshold.”); Segundo v. Reid, 20 So. 3d 933, 938 (Fla. 3d DCA 
2009) (“[T]o require the defendant to pay attorney’s fees as a 
sanction for ‘unreasonably’ rejecting the plaintiff’s proposal for 
settlement would penalize the defendant for damages not pled nor 
proven until after the proposal for settlement was rejected and 
permit the plaintiff to benefit from the changing nature of his claim 
after the proposal for settlement expired.”); Segui v. Margill, 864 So. 
2d 518, 518 (Fla. 5th DCA 2004) (“[White] do[es] not support the 
award of attorney’s fees in the instant case because no attorney’s 
fees had accrued as of the date of the offer of settlement.”); Amador 
v. Walker, 862 So. 2d 729, 731 (Fla. 5th DCA 2003) (rejecting the 
argument that “[t]he lesson and holding of White is that all taxable 
costs, pre-offer and post-offer, are to be included in determining the 
‘judgment obtained’ ”). 
In fact, as Petri notes, CCM does not cite a decision after White 
that stands for the proposition that post-offer prejudgment interest 
 
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is included in the “judgment obtained.”  Even the two decisions with 
which the Fourth District certified conflict are pre-White decisions.  
See Petri, 271 So. 3d at 1007 (certifying conflict with Perez, which 
was decided by the Third District in 1998, and Phillips, which was 
decided by the First District in 1991).  Moreover, as Petri argued 
during oral argument, the White formula appears somewhat 
uniquely clear and consistently applied in Florida’s related 
jurisprudence. 
When considering the text of section 768.79 as a whole and in 
context, we cannot conclude that this Court’s precedent setting 
forth the White formula is “clearly erroneous.”  Poole, 297 So. 3d at 
507.  We simply do not have a definite and firm conviction that this 
Court’s prior interpretation of the offer of judgment statute and the 
terms “judgment,” “judgment obtained,” and “net judgment entered” 
is wrong.  Cf. United States v. U.S. Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 395 
(1948) (“A finding [in an action tried without a jury] is ‘clearly 
erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the 
reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and 
firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.”); Branch v. 
Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 638 F.3d 1353, 1356 (11th Cir. 2011) (“A 
 
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finding is clearly erroneous when we are left with the definite and 
firm conviction that it is wrong.”); Tropical Jewelers Inc. v. Bank of 
Am., N.A., 19 So. 3d 424, 426 (Fla. 3d DCA 2009) (same). 
 
CCM claims that the language of section 768.79(6) defining 
“judgment obtained” as the “net judgment entered,” means that all 
amounts awarded in any judgment in the case are to be used for 
comparison to the offer, including all prejudgment interest, all 
costs, and all attorney’s fees.  However, the term “net judgment 
entered” does not automatically include attorney’s fees, interest, or 
costs.  Further, section 768.79(2) provides that “[t]he offer shall be 
construed as including all damages which may be awarded in a 
final judgment.”  Attorney’s fees and costs are not damages.  See 
First Specialty Ins. Co. v. Caliber One Indem. Co., 988 So. 2d 708, 
714 (Fla. 2d DCA 2008); Golub v. Golub, 336 So. 2d 693, 694 (Fla. 
2d DCA 1976).  It was only by interpreting the phrase “net 
judgment entered,” which is not defined in the statute, that this 
Court determined that pre-offer attorneys’ fees, pre-offer costs, and 
pre-offer prejudgment interest should be included in the “judgment 
obtained.” 
 
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Accordingly, because we cannot conclude that this Court’s 
prior interpretation of section 768.79 is clearly erroneous, we 
decline to recede from the formula this Court set forth in White.  
See Poole, 297 So. 3d at 507. 
III.  CONCLUSION 
Based upon this Court’s precedent from which we decline to 
recede, we hold that post-offer prejudgment interest is excluded 
from the “judgment obtained” that is compared to a rejected 
settlement offer when determining entitlement to attorneys’ fees 
under section 768.79.  Accordingly, we answer the certified 
question in the affirmative, approve the Fourth District’s decision in 
Petri, and disapprove the Third District’s decision in Perez and the 
First District’s decision in Phillips to the extent they are 
inconsistent with this decision. 
 
It is so ordered. 
LABARGA, MUÑIZ, COURIEL, and GROSSHANS, JJ., concur. 
CANADY, C.J., dissents with an opinion, in which LAWSON, J., 
concurs. 
 
NOT FINAL UNTIL TIME EXPIRES TO FILE REHEARING MOTION 
AND, IF FILED, DETERMINED. 
 
 
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CANADY, C.J., dissenting. 
The majority rest its decision on the conclusion that the 
question presented is settled by our precedents and there is not an 
adequate basis for disturbing those precedents.  But as the Fourth 
District correctly acknowledged, this Court “has never squarely 
addressed [the] issue” presented for decision here.  Petri Positive 
Pest Control, Inc. v. CCM Condo. Ass’n, 271 So. 3d 1001, 1002 (Fla. 
4th DCA 2019).  Because we have no applicable precedent and the 
result reached by the majority is detached from the text of the 
statute, I dissent.  I would conclude that post-offer prejudgment 
interest must be included in calculating the “judgment obtained” 
under section 768.79, answer the certified question in the negative, 
and quash the decision on review. 
“Not all text within a judicial decision serves as precedent.  
That’s a role generally reserved only for holdings: the parts of a 
decision that focus on the legal questions actually presented to and 
decided by the court.”  Bryan A. Garner et al., The Law of Judicial 
Precedent 44 (2016).  “A decision’s authority as precedent is limited 
to the points of law raised by the record, considered by the court, 
and determined by the outcome.  The assumptions a court uses to 
 
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reach a particular result do not themselves create a new precedent 
or strengthen existing precedent.”  Id. at 84. 
Here, the primary authority on which the majority relies, White 
v. Steak & Ale of Florida, Inc., 816 So. 2d 546 (Fla. 2002), stated 
that the “question presented” was “whether a prevailing party’s pre-
offer taxable costs are included for purposes of calculating the 
‘judgment obtained.’ ”  Id. at 549 (emphasis added).  The framing of 
the issue by the petitioner and the Court in White left aside the 
issue of post-offer taxable costs.  So the Court had no occasion to 
decide whether post-offer taxable costs—much less post-offer 
prejudgment interest—should be included in the calculation of the 
amount of the judgment obtained.  Of course, in White any 
argument over post-offer costs would have been meaningless, since 
the 25%-of-offer threshold was crossed once pre-offer costs were 
included in the calculation of the judgment obtained.  In White, the 
holding of the Court turned on its rejection of decisions that had 
excluded all costs from the calculation of the judgment obtained.  
Id. at 550.  The Court reasoned that costs were properly considered 
in “determining the judgment threshold because a prevailing party 
 
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is entitled to a judgment for taxable costs.”  Id.  That resolved the 
issue presented to the Court for decision in White. 
What White went on to say about costs, fees and interest “to 
which the party would be entitled if the trial court entered the 
judgment at the time of the offer or demand,” id., was not necessary 
to decide the issue presented.  See id. at 550-51.  Indeed, the issue 
presented effectively assumed at least that post-offer costs would 
not be included in the calculation of the judgment obtained.  But 
such an assumption that is not necessary to the resolution of the 
issue actually presented is not transformed into a holding even if 
the court adopts the assumption. 
The majority’s reliance on Shands Teaching Hospital & Clinics, 
Inc. v. Mercury Insurance Co. of Florida, 97 So. 3d 204 (Fla. 2012), is 
similarly misplaced.  There is no indication in the Shands opinion 
that any argument was presented to the Court regarding post-offer 
costs and post-offer prejudgment interest.  In any event, the award 
of fees sought under section 768.79 was defeated without any need 
to consider post-offer costs or post-offer prejudgment interest.  See 
id. at 214.  So—just as in White—that issue was irrelevant to the 
disposition of the section 768.79 issue in the case. 
 
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In State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Nichols, 932 
So. 2d 1067, 1074 (Fla. 2006), the Court did refer to the pre-offer 
language of White in providing background, but the reference had 
no bearing on the issues actually presented and decided.  Nichols 
held “that the offer of judgment statute applies to PIP suits” but 
that the offer at issue was invalid because it “was too ambiguous.”  
Id. at 1080.  Given the invalidity of the offer, there was no need for 
the Court to consider the question presented in this case or any 
other question concerning the calculation of the judgment obtained.  
Nichols by no means established or reaffirmed any precedent 
relevant to the issue in this case. 
A fair reading of the text of the statute cannot support the 
interpretation articulated in the statements from White relied on by 
the majority.  As the Fourth District explains, the authorities cited 
in White to support its discussion that is relevant to post-offer fees, 
costs and interest are cases interpreting a different statute, section 
627.428, Florida Statutes, which provides for the award of 
prevailing party fees to an insured in litigation against an insurer.  
That statute is structured in an entirely different manner than 
section 768.79.  There is no relevant textual similarity and thus no 
 
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basis for applying the interpretation of one statute to the other 
statute.  The pertinent statements from White thus are of very 
dubious provenance.  In issuing those statements, the White 
opinion simply did not engage the relevant provisions of section 
768.79. 
There is no path from the statutory language of section 
768.79—“net judgment entered”—to the meaning adopted by the 
majority—a hypothetical judgment equivalent to “what would be 
included in judgments if the judgments were entered on the date of 
the settlement offers.”  Majority op. at 6.  The legislature certainly 
could have enacted a statute with such a meaning.  Indeed, the 
legislature has enacted a statute containing a very similar 
provision.  Section 45.061, Florida Statutes (2020), which applies to 
offers of settlement for causes of action that accrued on or before 
the effective date of the statute in 1990, contains a provision 
defining “the amount of the judgment” as “the total amount of 
money damages awarded plus the amount of costs and expenses 
reasonably incurred by the plaintiff or counter-plaintiff prior to the 
making of the offer.”  § 45.061(2)(b), Fla. Stat.  So the legislature 
certainly knows how to clearly exclude post-offer costs and 
 
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expenses from the definition of the amount of judgment used to 
determine whether an award is to be made under an offer of 
judgment statute. 
In previously rejecting particular statutory interpretations, “we 
have pointed to language in other statutes to show that the 
Legislature ‘knows how to’ accomplish what it has omitted in the 
statute in question.”  Cason v. Fla. Dep’t of Mgmt. Servs., 944 So. 2d 
306, 315 (Fla. 2006).  “[W]here the legislature has inserted a 
provision in only one of two statutes that deal with closely related 
subject matter, it is reasonable to infer that the failure to include 
that provision in the other statute was deliberate rather than 
inadvertent.”  Olmstead v. F.T.C., 44 So. 3d 76, 82 (Fla. 2010) 
(alteration in original) (quoting 2B Norman J. Singer & J.D. 
Shambie Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction § 51:2 (7th ed. 
2008)).  The omission from section 768.79 of a provision similar to 
the pre-offer provision of section 45.061 strongly militates against 
the result reached by the majority. 
LAWSON, J., concurs. 
Application for Review of the Decision of the District Court of Appeal 
Certified Great Public Importance/Certified Direct Conflict of 
Decisions 
 
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Fourth District - Case No. 4D18-1290 
 
 
(Broward County) 
 
Steven J. Hammer and Zane Berg of Schlesinger Law Offices, P.A., 
Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Shea T. Moxon, Celene H. Humphries, and 
Joseph T. Eagleton of Brannock, Humphries & Berman, Tampa, 
Florida; and Thomas P. Angelo and James W. Carpenter of Angelo & 
Banta, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 
 
 
for Petitioners 
 
Mark D. Tinker, Tampa, Florida, and Sanaz Alempour of Cole, Scott 
& Kissane, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 
 
 
for Respondents