Atlanta Partners Seth Friedman and Chris Meeks recently secured a decision from the Georgia Court of Appeals holding that their client, Geico, had entered into an enforceable settlement with a driver who was involved in a car crash with its insured. The April 8 opinion marked the second time in a month that the team obtained an appellate victory for a carrier on this important recurring issue of Georgia insurance law, after they previously achieved a win for State Farm in a case with near-identical facts on March 16.
Plaintiff Adam Abdel-Rahman asserted that he was seriously injured in a 2022 motor vehicle accident caused by Geico's insured, Patricia Faircloth. In May 2023, Abdel-Rahman's counsel sent Geico a settlement offer that included not only the statutory material terms required by OCGA § 9-11-67.1(2021), but many additional non-statutory conditions, including a requirement that Geico agree that the statute would not govern his offer.
The following month, Geico tendered the $25,000 limit of Faircloth's policy but accepted Abdel-Rahman's offer only to the extent it was consistent with the material terms outlined in OCGA § 9-11-67.1(2021). Abdel-Rahman rejected the tender and returned the check.
Geico then filed suit against Abdel-Rahman. The carrier sought declarations that it had an enforceable settlement agreement with Abdel-Rahman and that Abdel-Rahman's offer was not valid because it did not comply with the terms of OCGA § 9-11-67.1(2021). Geico further asserted that Abdel-Rahman breached the settlement agreement and sought to recover its attorney's fees.
The trial court dismissed Geico's declaratory judgment claims and granted Abdel-Rahman judgment on the pleadings on the claims for breach of contract and attorney's fees. Geico appealed.
While Geico's appeal was pending, the Georgia Court of Appeals on February 13 issued its opinion in Gomez v. USAA, in which the court held, under similar circumstances, that there was an enforceable settlement agreement between the defendant insurer and a third-party claimant under OCGA § 9-11-67.1 (2021).
The Court of Appeals found in the April 8 opinion that Gomez controls the outcome of Geico's case and compels reversal of the trial court's decision and a judgment in Geico's favor. The court noted that it had already applied Gomez's rationale to render a decision in favor of Lewis Brisbois' client, State Farm, in the case captioned Squires v. Vincent on March 16.
"The same rationale applies here," the court held. "Abdel-Rahman included the material statutory terms in his settlement offer. Geico accepted those terms when it stated in the acceptance letter that it agreed to all 'material terms' in the settlement offer. Contrary to Abdel-Rahman's argument, the phrase 'material terms' in Geico's written response, considered in the overall context of the acceptance letter, refers to the statutory material terms set forth in OCGA § 9-11-67.1(a)(1) (2021). The other, non-statutory terms of Abdel-Rahman's offer 'are irrelevant to the formation of a binding contract under OCGA § 9-11-67.1 (2021)' because the parties did not mutually agree to operate under those additional terms."