Opinion ID: 779977
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the applicability of the offer of judgment statute

Text: 3 Our earlier opinion was barely in the hardback books when the Fourth District Court of Appeal in Florida issued a decision disagreeing with our estimate of Florida law. See BDO Seidman, LLP v. British Car Auctions, Inc., 802 So.2d 366 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001), review denied, (Fla. Sept. 24, 2002) (No. SC02-96). If the BDO Seidman decision had been around when we issued our first decision in this case, we would have followed it. We would have been compelled to do so because the rule is that, absent a decision from the state supreme court on an issue of state law, we are bound to follow decisions of the state's intermediate appellate courts unless there is some persuasive indication that the highest court of the state would decide the issue differently. See Galindo v. ARI Mut. Ins. Co., 203 F.3d 771, 775 (11th Cir.2000); Trumpet Vine Invs., N.V. v. Union Capital Partners I, Inc., 92 F.3d 1110, 1120 (11th Cir.1996); Williams v. Singletary, 78 F.3d 1510, 1515 (11th Cir.1996). That rule is, if anything, particularly appropriate in Florida, where the state's highest court has held that [t]he decisions of the district courts of appeal represent the law of Florida unless and until they are overruled by [the Florida Supreme Court]. Pardo v. State, 596 So.2d 665, 666 (Fla.1992) (quoting Stanfill v. State, 384 So.2d 141, 143 (Fla.1980)). 4 There is no persuasive indication that the Florida Supreme Court would not follow the Fourth District Court of Appeal's BDO Seidman decision on whether its offer of judgment statute, Fla. Stat. § 768.79, applies when the case is governed by the substantive law of another state. The fact that we decided the issue differently is not a persuasive indication that the Florida Supreme Court would agree with us and not with one of its own intermediate appellate courts, which presumably knows more about Florida law than we do. Nor is the fact that one of the three judges dissented on this point in BDO Seidman, 802 So.2d at 374 (Polen, C.J., dissenting), a persuasive indication that the Florida Supreme Court would decide the issue differently. Two is a majority of three, and a majority of participating judges controls a court's decision. See Fla. R. Jud. Admin. 2.040(a)(1) (2002) (Three judges shall constitute a panel for and shall consider each case, and the concurrence of a majority of the panel shall be necessary to a decision.). The holding in BDO Seidman is and will remain Florida law until such time, if any, as the Florida Supreme Court has the inclination and opportunity to rule to the contrary. 5 Of course, at the time we issued our decision in this case we did not have the benefit of the BDO Seidman decision, which was released on the very day we denied the petition for rehearing and suggestion for rehearing en banc in this case. In a diversity case, however, we are bound to follow any changes in a state's decisional law that occur during the case. See Huddleston v. Dwyer, 322 U.S. 232, 236, 64 S.Ct. 1015, 1018, 88 L.Ed. 1246 (1944); see also Technical Coating Applicators, Inc. v. United States Fid. & Guar. Co., 157 F.3d 843, 845 (11th Cir.1998) (Intervening state decisions must be given full effect as if the decisions existed during the pendency of the case in district court.). We still have the authority, power, and duty to modify our decision to comport with the latest word from the Florida courts even though we have already denied rehearing, because we have not yet issued the mandate returning the case to the district court. The case is still before us and we can correct our missed guess about Florida law. 6 In light of the BDO Seidman decision, we rescind Part II.D of our prior decision, 256 F.3d at 1130, and in its place we hold that Florida's offer of judgment statute, Fla. Stat. § 768.79, is applicable to cases, like this one, that are tried in the State of Florida even though the substantive law that governs the case is that of another state. 1 7 We turn now to the contentions raised by MBM and McMahan in this appeal that we did not reach in our previous opinion because of our no longer viable holding that Fla. Stat. § 768.79 was inapplicable in this case. Many of these born-again contentions are not sufficiently viable to warrant discussion because they either are so clearly without merit, or they are without merit and are of insufficiently general application, to warrant discussion in a published opinion. Those not mentioned are summarily rejected. 8 Some of the contentions we did not reach in our earlier opinion do warrant discussion, and some even have merit. For reasons we will discuss, we are going to remand this case for further proceedings relating to the amount of attorney's fees that should be awarded. Accordingly, we also rescind Part III(3) of our prior decision, 256 F.3d at 1135, and replace it with the conclusion at the end of this opinion.