Court Opinion

ID: 9728013
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:55:16.882465+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:44.976458
License: Public Domain

*262NORTON, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent on the preverdict interest issue. Johnson v. Kromhout, 444 N.W.2d 569 (Minn.App.1989), is distinguishable from this case. There, this court addressed the issues of waiver by a party’s failure to respond to a settlement offer within the time period provided by the preverdict interest statute and the effect a future counteroffer has on the calculation of preverdiet interest. Id. at 570-71. Here, the issue is whether offers and counteroffers must be held open for the entire period for response provided by Minn.Stat. § 549.09, subd. 1(b) (1992) (30 days). I think the appropriate answer is yes.
3M attempts to distinguish “time for response,” which 3M admits the statute addresses, with the time period during which an offer is held open. Under traditional contract law, there is no distinction. If a party, as here, holds an offer open for only 14 days and the other party attempts to respond on day 15, the acceptance or counteroffer is invalid. See Callender v. Kalscheuer, 289 Minn. 532, 533, 184 N.W.2d 811, 812 (1971) (where the offeree failed to accept within the time period provided by the offer- or, no legally enforceable contract resulted from the offeree’s later attempted acceptance); see also Restatement (Second) of Contracts §§ 35(2), 36(b), 41(1) (1981) (a contract cannot be created by acceptance of an offer after the power of acceptance has been terminated by lapse of time which may be specified as a condition in the offer). The “time for response” then is the amount of time that the offeror holds the offer open. The statute expressly provides that the offer-ee “may” accept or counter “within 30 days.” This court should read “may” to mean the offeree may choose not to respond to a settlement offer as Kromhout instructs, but if the offeree does choose to respond, that party has 30 days. The majority’s opinion simply reads “30 days” out of the statute, which is contrary to our role in interpreting statutes. See Minn.Stat. § 645.16 (1992) (“the letter of the law shall not be disregarded under the pretext of pursuing the spirit”). Because neither party extended an offer which was held open for 30 days, I would find that the offer-counteroffer exception of Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 1(b) does not apply.