Insurance – Auto – Settlement Contract – Inadvertent Mistake – Hand Delivery

In complying with plaintiff’s nine-page single-spaced demand letter, defendant’s insurance company inadvertently neglected to include in its settlement packet one of the two $25,000 settlement checks that it had prepared. Plaintiff waited until four days after the deadline set out in the demand letter before informing the insurance company of its mistake. The insurance company’s failure to deliver the second $25,000 check within the deadline was a good faith mistake, not a rejection or counteroffer.

We affirm the circuit court’s grant of defendant’s motion to enforce the parties’ settlement agreement.

In addition, given the 16-day period in which plaintiff demanded acceptance with the letter’s numerous demands, the mailing address provided in the demand letter was not a material term of the offer of compromise. The demand letter from plaintiff’s attorney stated, “The checks must be RECEIVED in my office no later than 5:00 pm EDT on October 12, 2018. . . . These funds should be mailed to 32 Ann Street, Charleston, SC 29403.”

Rather than snail mailing the response packet to the law firm’s downtown mailing address, the insurance company hand-delivered the documents and funds to the law firm’s physical address in North Charleston. As the mailing address was not a material term of the demand letter, we agree with the circuit court that plaintiff’s argument challenging the hand delivery of the settlement packet to the law firm’s physical address is without merit.

O’Conner v. Collier (Lawyers Weekly No. 012-020-23, 6 pp.) (Per Curiam) Appealed from Anderson County Circuit Court (Lawton McIntosh, J.) Eric Marc Poulin and Roy Willey for appellant; Michael Coulter and Michelle Endemann for respondent. South Carolina Court of Appeals (unpublished)