California Supreme Court to Decide Whether “Simultaneous” 998 Offers Survive in Gorobets v. Jaguar Land Rover

A case pending before the California Supreme Court, Gorobets v. Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC,[1] may reshape how lawyers draft and evaluate settlement offers under Code of Civil Procedure section 998. The dispute began when the defendant served a single 998 document containing two different settlement options, one offering a lump-sum repurchase of the plaintiff’s vehicle and another outlining a reimbursement formula with any disagreements to be resolved through a third-party process. After the plaintiff rejected the offer and received a final judgment lower than the lump-sum figure, the trial court deemed the offer valid for cost-shifting purposes—even though it had two distinct components—and limited the plaintiff’s recovery of attorney fees and costs. The California Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District largely upheld that view, ruling that the presence of an invalid “option” in the offer did not necessarily invalidate the rest.

Now, the California Supreme Court has granted review to clarify whether multiple, simultaneous options within a single section 998 offer can stand. In essence, section 998 encourages litigants to make reasonable pretrial settlement offers by allowing the offeror to recover post-offer costs if the offeree’s trial result does not exceed the offer. But that framework presupposes clarity. If a settlement offer is too uncertain—either because its terms are overly contingent or because multiple options muddy the waters—a court may refuse to apply cost-shifting rules. In Gorobets, the appellate court reasoned that one settlement path (the lump-sum buyback) was sufficiently definite, whereas the other path (the “category-based” approach) left key terms unresolved. Because only one path was invalid, the court concluded the overall offer was enforceable.

However, the Supreme Court could adopt a stricter stance, holding that a single document with alternative settlement methods is fatally uncertain. If that happens, litigants who attempt to fold multiple scenarios into a single 998 proposal might find themselves outside the statute’s cost-shifting protections. On the other hand, the Court may confirm the appellate approach, permitting courts to salvage whichever option is definite and discard any provision deemed too vague.

If the Supreme Court deems simultaneous options per se invalid, lawyers will need to refrain from providing alternative settlement paths in one writing, lest they risk losing section 998’s important benefits. If the Court upholds the lower ruling, defendants and plaintiffs alike may take a nuanced approach, ensuring that at least one distinctly stated option meets the statute’s definiteness requirements. Either way, Gorobets promises an important clarification of how California’s settlement framework treats an offer that attempts to do more than propose a single, straightforward compromise.