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Simmonsv.Bates

CourtCourt of Appeals of Georgia
Docket No.A22A1460
DecidedJanuary 13, 2023
Reporter366 Ga. App. 410; 883 S.E.2d 151; 2023 Ga. App. LEXIS 16; 2023 WL 178263
JudgesBarnes, P. J.; Brown and Hodges, JJ. Barnes, P. J., and Brown, J., concur.
Tags
CivilSettlement EnforcementTime-Limited DemandMultiple InsurersContract FormationMotor Vehicle Wrongful DeathOCGA 9-11-67.1Ripley's Believe It Or NotProcedural LabyrinthsMoney, Insurance & SettlementsContracts & Technicalities
Case Summary

After Judy Simmons caused a fatal collision, the decedent’s survivors sent a 39-page, time-limited settlement demand to her two insurers, making settlement contingent on both insurers’ acceptance and payment of their policy limits. Progressive accepted, tendered $100,000, provided Simmons’s no-other-insurance affidavit, and sent a release, but ACCC never received the demand; the survivors refused to settle with Progressive alone. The trial court denied Simmons’s motion to enforce settlement because it found defects in Progressive’s release. The Court of Appeals affirmed on a different ground: because ACCC never received or accepted the offer, a stated condition for settlement did not occur and no agreement formed. The court applied the rule that an offeror may set the terms of an offer and courts cannot rewrite it to require settlement with only one insurer. It did not decide whether Progressive’s response independently varied the offer; any later bad-faith claim against an insurer was outside this settlement-enforcement appeal.

Opinion

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