- Court
- Court of Appeals of Georgia
- Year
- 2025
- Case
- The Kane Clinic, LLC v. Keitt
- Citation
- 374 Ga. App. 230
- Decided
- January 31, 2025
An offer of settlement under OCGA 9-11-68 was enforceable where, read as a whole, it had only one reasonable interpretation about the parties making the offer and the claims to be resolved.
Summary
The Court of Appeals of Georgia affirmed a judgment from DeKalb State Court awarding Jullyene Santos Keitt nearly $2 million in attorney fees and expenses under OCGA 9-11-68.
The court held that Keitt’s offer of settlement was enforceable because it clearly identified the capacities in which the offer was made and the claims the offer would resolve.
Issues Decided
Enforceability of the offer of settlement
Decision
The court held that the plaintiff’s offer satisfied OCGA 9-11-68 because it was subject to only one reasonable interpretation when read as a whole.
Facts
Keitt sued The Kane Clinic for medical malpractice involving the wrongful death of her child and her own pain and suffering after the child was stillborn. Her counsel sent a $1 million settlement offer. The offer identified Keitt individually and as the natural mother of Baby Santos Keitt, and it stated that it would resolve all claims alleged in the complaint.
The Clinic rejected the offer. After a default on liability, a jury awarded damages exceeding 125 percent of the offer, and Keitt moved for fees.
Reasoning
The Clinic argued that the offer was ambiguous because some paragraphs did not repeat Keitt’s representative capacity and because the offer did not identify the wrongful-death claim by name. The Court of Appeals rejected that argument. The offer twice identified Keitt’s capacities and stated that all claims in the complaint would be resolved.
Because the offer consistently indicated that all claims against the Clinic would be dismissed if accepted, it was enforceable for OCGA 9-11-68 fee-shifting purposes.
Commentary
The decision is useful for drafting settlement offers in medical-malpractice and wrongful-death cases. The court did not require claim-by-claim magic words when the offer, read as a whole, identified the offeror’s capacities and made clear that all claims in the complaint were included.
That does not make precision optional. The safer offer still states each capacity, identifies the claims or complaint being resolved, and uses internally consistent release language. The point of Keitt is that courts may read a coherent offer as a whole rather than searching for isolated omissions.
