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A proposal for settlement which does not state whether attorney’s fees are part of the claim to be settled and the amount offered to settle a claim for punitive damages is valid.  In Aguado v. Miller,  Case No. 1D16-4589 (Fla. 1st DCA May 16, 2017), neither attorney's fees nor punitive damages were sought in the pleadings, and as such were not referenced in the plaintiff's proposal for settlement.  The proposal was not accepted, and the plaintiff filed a motion for entitlement to attorney's fees as the prevailing party.  The trial court denied the motion based upon its determination that the proposal was invalid, and this appeal followed.

In reversing the trial court's decision, the Florida First District Court of Appeal held that if attorney's fees are not sought in the pleadings, an offer of settlement is not invalid if it fails to state whether it includes attorney's fees and whether attorney's fees are part of the legal claim.  Similarly, the Court stated that "it would make no sense to require the offeror to state in its proposal for settlement that the offer does not include punitive damages when the plaintiff did not claim an entitlement to them and could not recover them because of the failure to plead."  Since neither attorney's fees nor punitive damages were sought in the plaintiff's complaint, their absence from the proposal "does not render the otherwise unambiguous proposal invalid."