Smith Watkins won her trial and still lost her attorney’s fees. Florida’s proposal for settlement statute is a fee-shifting machine when it works, but the procedural requirements for a valid proposal are exacting, and the courts mean it. The Second DCA’s decision in Watkins v. Corbett, No. 2D2025-0214, 2026 FL 2781 (Fla. 2d DCA Mar. 25, 2026), is a fresh reminder of just how exacting. A proposal directed to (or from) more than one party must apportion the settlement amount between them, and a proposal that doesn’t is worthless no matter who wins.
The Corbetts, a married couple, sued Watkins, the seller of their home, for fraudulent nondisclosure of defects under Johnson v. Davis, 480 So. 2d 625 (Fla. 1985). Watkins won at trial. She then moved for attorney’s fees based on a proposal for settlement she had served on the Corbetts during the litigation, and the trial court denied the motion. The problem was straightforward. Watkins had served a single, joint proposal on both Richard and Jennifer Corbett without breaking out how much of the settlement was attributable to each plaintiff. Under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.442(c)(3), that’s fatal.
Strict compliance, one exception
Rule 1.442(c)(3) leaves no room to maneuver. “A joint proposal must state the amount and terms attributable to each party.” The rule implements section 768.79, Florida Statutes, which creates an entitlement to attorney’s fees when a party unreasonably rejects a settlement offer. Because that entitlement is in derogation of common law, strict compliance is required. Willis Shaw Express, Inc. v. Hilyer Sod, Inc., 849 So. 2d 276, 278 (Fla. 2003).
The Florida Supreme Court has allowed exactly one departure from that standard. In Kuhajda v. Borden Dairy Co., 202 So. 3d 391, 396 (Fla. 2016), it held that a proposal need not address attorney’s fees if fees were never claimed in the pleadings. That exception exists because the fees-disclosure requirement in Rule 1.442 doesn’t implement a substantive requirement of the statute. The apportionment rule does.
The entireties workaround
Watkins tried a creative one. The Corbetts owned the property as tenants by the entireties, which she characterized as a single “entity.” One entity, one party. So, she argued, there was nothing to apportion.
The Second DCA rejected the argument on three independent grounds. First, a tenancy by the entirety is a form of property ownership, not a legal entity; it cannot sue or be sued, and the Corbetts sued as individuals. See Op. at 4. Second, Watkins’s own proposal undercut the theory. She titled it as a proposal to “Plaintiffs Richard Corbett and Jennifer Corbett” — individually. The court drew on the Florida Supreme Court’s reasoning in Pratt v. Weiss, 161 So. 3d 1268, 1272 (Fla. 2015), where co-owning defendants similarly undermined their “single entity” argument by referring to themselves in the plural throughout their own filings. Third, the form of ownership had nothing to do with the underlying cause of action. A Johnson v. Davis claim turns on fraudulent misrepresentation, not property title; you don’t even need to have closed on the purchase to bring one. The Johnson plaintiffs themselves sued for rescission before closing.
None of this was new ground for the court. Cobb v. Durando, 111 So. 3d 277, 278 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013), had squarely rejected the same tenancy-by-the-entireties argument in the construction context, and Watkins reaffirms it.
The conflict with the Fourth DCA
The opinion’s most significant move may be its express disagreement with the Fourth DCA’s decision in Mackensen v. Trace Elements, Inc., 388 So. 3d 815 (Fla. 4th DCA 2024), which held that two parties asserting a single, unified claim did not need to apportion their joint proposal. The Second DCA called that holding inconsistent with the bright-line rule, and noted that the Mackensen panel never addressed its own court’s conflicting decision in Graham v. Peter K. Yeskel 1996 Irrevocable Trust, 928 So. 2d 371 (Fla. 4th DCA 2006), which enforced the apportionment requirement in a nearly identical posture.
Mackensen is already before the Florida Supreme Court. Review was granted on February 28, 2025 (SC2024-1274), with oral argument to be set. Watkins deepens the conflict and likely increases the pressure for a definitive resolution.
Update, July 2026: The conflict has been resolved in the Second District’s favor. In Trace Elements, Inc. v. Mackensen, No. SC2024-1274 (Fla. July 2, 2026), the Florida Supreme Court quashed the Fourth DCA’s Mackensen decision and approved Cobb, holding that Rule 1.442(c)(3) requires apportionment of a joint proposal even for a unified, single claim. Full analysis here.
The lesson, meanwhile, is simple. Always apportion a joint proposal for settlement. If a proposal involves more than one party on either side, every party gets a specific dollar amount. It doesn’t matter that the parties are married. It doesn’t matter that they own the property together. It doesn’t matter that the claim is “unified.” The bright-line rule admits no exceptions outside the narrow vicarious-liability carve-out in Rule 1.442(c)(4).
Proposals for settlement are powerful tools. They can shift hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees. But a defective proposal is worse than no proposal at all. It creates a false sense of security while the fee entitlement quietly evaporates.
Draft accordingly.
The full text of Watkins v. Corbett, No. 2D2025-0214, 2026 FL 2781 (Fla. 2d DCA Mar. 25, 2026) is available on the FLexlaw Reporter.