Rouland

In this action for breach of contract and insurance bad faith, defendant and appellant Pacific Specialty Insurance Company appeals from a postjudgment order denying the expert witness fees it incurred in successfully defending against plaintiffs and respondents Lars and Lisa Rouland’s claims. Pacific Specialty sought its expert witness fees under Code of Civil Procedure section 998 because the Roulands did not accept Pacific Specialty’s pretrial settlement offers and thereafter failed to obtain a more favorable judgment at trial. The trial court found Pacific Specialty could not recover its expert fees because its settlement offers did not strictly comply with section 998’s requirement that an offer “shall include ... a provision that allows the accepting party to indicate acceptance of the offer by signing a statement that the offer is accepted.” (Id,., subd. (b).)

We reverse the trial court’s order because we conclude Pacific Specialty’s offers satisfied this requirement by directing the Roulands to file an “ ‘Offer and Notice of Acceptance’ ” with the trial court if they accepted the proposals. The statute merely requires the section 998 offer to identify a manner of…