Court Opinion

ID: 9688753
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:03:06.112295+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:41.852232
License: Public Domain

KLAPHAKE, Judge,
dissenting.
Because I believe that the result reached by the majority here is contrary to the Minnesota Supreme Court’s own interpretation of its rule, I respectfully dissent. I would therefore reverse the district court’s decision and allow respondent to recover only those costs and disbursements incurred after he made his offer to appellants.
In general, I agree that when the supreme court either adds or deletes language from a rule, it intends to change past practice. Here, however, I do not believe that the supreme court necessarily intended to change past Minnesota practice by deleting the words “incurred after the making of the offer” from the language of Minn. R. Civ. P. 68.
. Besides the deletion of these words, several other significant changes were made in 1985 when the current version of rule 68 was adopted. The 1985 comment discusses these other changes in detail, but fails to mention the deletion of the words “incurred after the making of the offer.” See Minn. R. Civ. P. 68 advisory comm, note. The comment merely states that the Minnesota rule is to be interpreted consistently with the federal rule, which specifically requires an offeree to “pay the costs incurred after the making of the offer.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 68. From the 1985 comment, we may reasonably conclude that the deletion of the words “incurred after the making of the offer” was not necessarily intended to change the longstanding practice in Minnesota of taxing costs and disbursements only from the date the offer was made.
The supreme court followed súch an interpretation of the current version of rule 68 in Bucko v. First Minn. Sav. Bank, F.B.S., 471 N.W.2d 95 (Minn.1991). In that case, the supreme court concluded that Crace, the one party who recovered nothing, “must therefore pay the Bank’s costs and disbursements incurred from the date of its offer of judgment until judgment was entered by the trial court.” Id. at 98. The supreme court cited the current version of rule 68, but failed to specifically mention or discuss the 1985 deletion *528of the words after the making of the offer.” As an intermediate appellate court, I do not believe that we are in a position to impliedly overrule Bucko by presuming that the supreme court must have made a mistake or erred when it concluded that the offeror in Bucko need only pay the costs and disbursements incurred from the date of its offer of settlement.
In a case decided after Bucko, the supreme court was asked to decide whether a prevailing party who has rejected a more favorable offer of settlement is required to bear its own expenses, in addition to those incurred by the offeror. Borchert v. Maloney, 581 N.W.2d 838, 840-41 (Minn.1998). The court discussed federal court practice, which precludes a prevailing party from taxing its own costs and disbursements. Id. at 840. The court chose to not follow federal court practice, however, and held that a prevailing party in Minnesota is entitled to tax its own costs and disbursements, against which the offeror’s costs must be offset. Id. at 841. By so holding, our supreme court chose to reject a course that would have maximized the costs to an offeree who rejects a favorable offer of settlement. Contrary to the choice made by the supreme court in Borchert, the majority decision here chooses to maximize the cost to appellants by requiring that they pay all of respondent’s costs and disbursements.
I therefore disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the plain language of rule 68 requires us to tax all of respondent’s costs and disbursement to appellants. Although the language limiting calculation of costs and disbursements to those incurred from the date of the offer has been deleted from rule 68, nothing in the current version of the rule prohibits courts from continuing to interpret the rule as allowing costs and disbursements only from the date the offer was made. Such an interpretation is sound, does not ignore the supreme court cases cited above that have continued to follow past Minnesota practice, and is not contrary to the public policy of encouraging settlements while not maximizing the costs to an offeree who rejects a favorable offer.
I would therefore reverse the district court and remand for calculation of costs and disbursements from the date respondent made his offer to appellants.