A divided U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that even if a defendant in a lawsuit offers to give the plaintiff everything he or she asks for, the case does not end simply on the basis of the offer itself.
The split ruling by the Court in Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, No. 14-857 (January 20, 2016), reasons that an offer of settlement – even if it fully satisfies the plaintiff’s claims – is just that, in other words only a proposal, so that if the plaintiff does not accept, there is still a dispute for a court to decide. The three dissenting Justices would have ruled that an offer of full relief eliminates any controversy.
Although Campbell-Ewald is not an employment case, the decision extends to employment-related cases, and is especially relevant in the context of those cases in which a defendant employer may seek to avoid certification of a class action by offering to pay off the individual representative plaintiffs in full.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Campbell-Ewald is available here.