Enforcement of a settlement agreement; Whether a settlement agreement existed; “Offer”; Eerdmans v. Maki

In an order in lieu of granting leave to appeal, the court reversed the Court of Appeals judgment (see e-Journal # 58973 in the 2/5/15 edition) and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings. The court noted that an “offer ‘is the manifestation of willingness to enter into a bargain, so made as to justify another person in understanding that his assent to that bargain is invited and will conclude it.’” Contrary to the Court of Appeals judgment, the 1/20/12 e-mail “from plaintiff’s counsel to defendants’ counsel did not constitute an offer to settle this case. Instead, this e-mail inquired whether defendants would present an offer at some point in the future, which they did, through a subsequent e-mail by their counsel. Defendants’ counsel confirmed that this subsequent e-mail was an offer by later inquiring whether plaintiff had accepted their offer.” Thus, for these reasons and for the reasons stated by the Court of Appeals dissent, “no enforceable settlement agreement existed to bind the parties in this case.”