OCEANA STAR ALLEN and WILLIAM SCOTT ALLEN, Appellants, v. JOSEPH K. HELMS, and GEICO GENERAL INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellees. 1st District. Case No. 1D18-2417. March 24, 2020. On appeal from the Circuit Court for Clay County. Don H. Lester, Judge. Counsel: Mitchel E. Woodlief of Woodlief & Rush, P.A., Jacksonville, for Appellants. J. Stephen O’Hara, Jr. and James D. Morgan of O’Hara Law Firm, P.A., Jacksonville, for Appellees.

(JAY, J.) Oceana Star Allen and William Scott Allen appeal the trial court’s order granting Appellees’ motions for costs and fees and declaring the Allens’ Notice of Withdrawal of Proposals for Settlement “to be a nullity and of no force and effect.” We affirm.

One year later, in September 2011, Mr. Helms served separate proposals for settlement pursuant to section 768.79 and rule 1.442.² The first proposal was made to Mrs. Allen for $99,000 in payment of the claims she alleged against him; the second offered Mr. Allen $1000 for his claim. The total of the proposals represented the bodily injury limits of Mr. Helms’ policy with GEICO. The Allens rejected the proposals.

Next, in December 2011, Mr. Helms filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida. His “Schedule F — Creditors Holding Unsecured Nonpriority Clams” listed the Allens’ lawsuit against him as an asset of the bankruptcy estate and noted the limits of his insurance. In his “Schedule B — Personal Property,” however, Mr. Helms did not list the proposals for settlement as assets. A suggestion of bankruptcy was filed in the civil action on January 24, 2012, resulting in an automatic stay. The Allens moved for relief from the stay by agreeing to proceed solely against the available insurance proceeds. The stay was lifted in February 2012. Mr. Helms was granted discharge from bankruptcy in April.

One year later, the Allens’ personal injury action was tried before a jury, which rendered its verdict in April 2013. It found that Mr. Helms was 57% negligent and Mrs. Allen, 43% comparatively negligent. The jury’s total monetary award to Mrs. Allen was $116,654.57. The jury did not, however, find that Mr. Allen suffered any damages for loss of consortium. The Allens’ post-trial motions were denied.

Thereafter, on November 6, 2013, Mr. Helms’ bankruptcy trustee filed and served his “Report and Notice of Trustee’s Intention to Sell Property of the Estate.” According to the trial court, the Notice advised “all interested parties of the trustee’s intent to sell whatever right, title and interest [Mr. Helms’] bankruptcy estate may have in the proposals for settlement to [the Allens] . . . for the sum of $3500.” GEICO was not served with the Notice. On December 3, 2013, the trustee filed his Report of Sale of Property of the Estate in which he confirmed the sale of the proposals for settlement to the Allens.

On December 31, 2013, Mr. Helms filed Defendant’s Motion for Costs and Fees. The motion specified that Helms, “for the use and benefit of his liability insurer, GEICO General Insurance Company,” sought entry of an order that “he or GEICO or both” were entitled to recover costs and attorney’s fees from the Allens pursuant to section 768.79 and rule 1.442. On the same date, having learned of the “sale” of the proposals for settlement to the Allens, GEICO moved to intervene in the proceedings.

In March 2014, Mr. Helms sought entry of a final judgment. On June 2, following a hearing, the trial court granted GEICO’s motion to intervene. GEICO then filed its own motion for costs and fees, arguing that “[Helms] ha[d] neither incurred nor paid litigation costs and attorneys’ fees in his own defense,” but that all costs and fees had been paid by GEICO. Its motion was based on the rejected proposals for settlement and the fact that the net judgment recovered by the Allens — allowing for set-offs for comparative negligence and taxable costs — was at least 25% less than the proposals for settlement.

The Allens objected to an award of fees and costs on the grounds that the proposals for settlement were effectively a “cause of action” traditionally considered property of a bankrupt’s estate.³ Since they had purchased that property from Helms’ bankruptcy trustee, they believed that they were the rightful owners of the proposals. On June 20, 2014, the Allens filed a notice that they were withdrawing the proposals for settlement in an effort to defeat Mr. Helms and GEICO’s claim of entitlement to collect attorneys’ fees and costs. The trial court rejected the Allens’ claim in its Order on Motion for Costs and Fees.⁴ Instead, it found that “[t]he jury award, after deduction for set-offs and apportionment of liability, is less than 75% of the amount offered in the proposals for settlement, thus triggering the sanctions contemplated by Rule 1.442 and section 768.79, Florida Statutes.”

“[S]ubject-matter jurisdiction concerns the power of the trial court to deal with a class of cases to which a particular case belongs.” Cunningham v. Standard Guar. Ins. Co., 630 So. 2d 179, 181 (Fla. 1994) (emphasis added) (citing Lovett v. Lovett, 112 So. 768 (Fla. 1927)). In Cunningham, the supreme court elaborated upon this fundamental maxim:

“ ‘Jurisdiction,’ in the strict meaning of the term, as applied to judicial officers and tribunals, means no more than the power lawfully existing to hear and determine a cause. It is the power lawfully conferred to deal with the general subject involved in the action. It does not depend upon the ultimate existence of a good cause of action in the plaintiff, in the particular case before the court. ‘It is the power to adjudge concerning the general question involved, and is not dependent upon the state of facts which may appear in a particular case.’ . . .”

Id. (citation omitted) (quoting Malone v. Meres, 109 So. 677, 683 (Fla. 1926)); see also Paulucci v. Gen. Dynamics Corp., 842 So. 2d 797, 801 n.3 (Fla. 2003); Viverette v. State, Dep’t of Transp., 227 So. 3d 1274, 1278 (Fla. 1st DCA 2017). “Stated differently, a challenge to subject matter jurisdiction is proper only when the court lacks authority to hear a class of cases, rather than when it simply lacks authority to grant the relief requested in a particular case.” In re Adoption of D.P.P., 158 So. 3d 633, 636-37 (Fla. 5th DCA 2014) (citing Cunningham, 630 So. 2d at 181). Thus, in D.P.P., the Fifth District concluded that “the court had subject matter jurisdiction as it is without question that the circuit courts have exclusive jurisdiction over all adoption matters” by virtue of section 63.102(1), Florida Statutes. Id. at 637.

Just as the trial court in D.P.P. had the power conferred upon it by statute to hear the class of cases involving adoption, here, too, the trial court unquestionably had the subject matter jurisdiction to rule on the statutory — and rule-based — motion for attorney’s fees and costs. Rather, what the Allens mistake for lack of subject matter jurisdiction is actually the inability of a trial court to grant relief in a particular case over which it has subject matter jurisdiction. The decision in Tobkin v. State, 777 So. 2d 1160 (Fla. 4th DCA 2001), illustrates this point.

In Tobkin, the parties to an action for an injunction for protection against domestic violence and a subsequently filed dissolution of marriage action, reconciled, and the wife filed voluntary dismissals in both actions. Notwithstanding the dismissal of those cases, the trial court went on to rule on the wife’s attorney’s motion to withdraw and the husband’s motion to disqualify the wife’s counsel, and it also enforced its previously ordered requirement that the husband attend counseling and a batterers’ intervention program. In response, the parties jointly filed a petition for writ of prohibition in the Fourth District seeking to prevent the trial judge from continuing to exercise jurisdiction in the two cases. In considering the issue, the Fourth District determined:

The jurisdictional issue here is not one of subject matter jurisdiction, which the court clearly has. Rather, the issue is whether the trial judge, after the voluntary dismissal in this case, still has the power to preside over this particular dispute between the parties. This court noted in T.D. v. K.D., 747 So. 2d 456, 457 n.2 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999), that the word “jurisdiction” ordinarily refers to “subject matter” or “personal” jurisdiction, but there is a third meaning (“case” jurisdiction) which involves the power of the court over a particular case that is within its subject matter jurisdiction. “Case” jurisdiction is involved here because the trial court clearly has jurisdiction over the subject matter. . . .

Id. at 1163 (footnote omitted). Applying this distinction, the Fourth District held that the wife’s valid motions to voluntarily dismiss the dissolution proceedings and the domestic violence injunction action divested the trial court of “case jurisdiction” to continue to act in the cases. Id. See also Ricci v. Ventures Tr. 2013-I-H-R by MCM Capital Partners, LLC, 276 So. 3d 5, 8 (Fla. 4th DCA 2019) (observing that “ ‘[c]ase jurisdiction’ refers to ‘the power of the court over a particular case that is within its subject matter jurisdiction,’ ” quoting Trerice v. Trerice, 250 So. 3d 695, 698 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018)); 14302 Marina San Pablo Place SPE, LLC v. VCP-San Pablo, Ltd., 92 So. 3d 320, 321 (Fla. 1st DCA 2012) (Ray, J., concurring) (footnotes omitted) (“The type of jurisdiction the court lacked was its ‘power . . . over a particular case that is within its subject matter jurisdiction,’ as determined by reference to the case’s procedural posture. See T.D. v. K.D., 747 So. 2d 456, 457 n.2 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999). This species of jurisdiction is termed ‘case jurisdiction’ or ‘continuing jurisdiction’ by some courts. It has also been referred to as ‘procedural jurisdiction,’ meaning a court’s authority to act in a particular case.”).

Here, the Allens assert that subject matter jurisdiction in bankruptcy matters lies exclusively with the federal bankruptcy court. They therefore urge that, to the extent the trial court held the trustee’s sale of the proposals for settlement was invalid, it invaded the province of the bankruptcy court because it did not possess the subject matter jurisdiction to nullify the decision of the bankruptcy trustee. We agree with the Allens that had the trial court attempted to void the bankruptcy trustee’s sale of the proposals for settlement, it would have lacked the subject matter jurisdiction to do so. Indeed, the trial court candidly acknowledged that the question of whether a debtor’s interest constitutes the property of a bankruptcy estate is strictly a federal question. See Butner v. United States, 440 U.S. 48 (1979); In re Kalter, 292 F.3d 1350 (11th Cir. 2002).

But the trial court did not reach beyond its subject matter jurisdiction. Instead, the real issue underlying the Allens’ jurisdictional argument is whether the trial court possessed “case jurisdiction” to consider the validity of the Allens’ withdrawal of the proposals for settlement. To evaluate the propriety of the withdrawal, the trial court — necessarily — had to turn to federal law to glean a working definition of a “bankruptcy estate,” as it was an issue inherent in the question of what actually passed to the Allens from the bankruptcy trustee. However, federal law aside, the extent of Mr. Helms’ rights in the proposals for settlement at the commencement of the bankruptcy case “is an issue of Florida law.” In re Raborn, 470 F.3d 1319, 1323 (11th Cir. 2006). Accordingly, the trial court possessed not only subject matter jurisdiction, but case jurisdiction as well.

As noted above, the point of the trial court’s wading into federal bankruptcy law was to discern exactly what interest in the proposals for settlement passed to the Allens by virtue of the trustee’s sale. “An ‘elementary rule of bankruptcy . . . is that the [bankruptcy] trustee succeeds only to the title and rights in the property that the debtor possessed.’ ” In re Raborn, 470 F.3d at 1323 (quoting S. Cent. Livestock Dealers, Inc. v. Sec. State Bank, 614 F.2d 1056, 1061 (5th Cir. 1980)). The United States Bankruptcy Code provides that

“[p]roperty in which the debtor holds, as of the commencement of the case, only legal title and not an equitable interest . . . becomes property of the estate . . . only to the extent of the debtor’s legal title to such property, but not to the extent of any equitable interest in such property that the debtor does not hold.”

11 U.S.C. § 541(d) (2019) (emphasis added). Consistent with these authorities, the trial court concluded that “it is evident that the defendant’s Chapter 7 trustee acquired no greater right to the proposals for settlement than that held by the defendant, and the nature and extent of that right is determined by Florida law.” To underscore this point, the court quoted the trustee’s own words in his report and notice: The trustee sold to the Allens “ ‘whatever right, title and interest the bankruptcy estate of Joseph K. Helms may have in the Proposals for Settlement.’ ” (Emphasis added.) The emphasized language indelibly left open — under Florida law — the question of what right, title, or interest Mr. Helms possessed in the proposals for settlement that passed to the Allens. Conceivably, the bankruptcy trust received a $3500 windfall, and the Allens received nothing for their money. In that regard, we again turn to Raborn to shed further light on the matter. As the Eleventh Circuit explained:

In this case, the Bankruptcy Trustee could not succeed to rights or title to the real estate that Douglas Raborn, the debtor, did not possess. If Douglas Raborn possessed only legal title to the property as Trustee of the trust (and not as holder of both legal and equitable title in his individual capacity), the Bankruptcy Trustee could neither succeed to nor have any rights — “vested” or “unvested” — in the fee simple title to the property. Thus, a necessary threshold determination in this case is the extent of Douglas Raborn’s rights in the pertinent property at the commencement of the bankruptcy case (24 August 2001), which is an issue of Florida law.

470 F.3d at 1323.

Thus, the trial court rightly evaluated the nature of Mr. Helms’ potential legal title and equitable interest in the proposals for settlement under Florida law as the threshold question, and then correctly narrowed its focus to the law of subrogation. To that extent, we quote directly from the trial court’s order:

As a general proposition, after payment of a loss incurred by or on behalf of an insured, an insurance company is, by operation of law, without necessity for express policy provisions or formal assignment by the insured, entitled to be subrogated to any right the insured may have against a third-party. Couch v. Drew, 554 So. 2d 1185 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989); Hough v. Huffman, 555 So. 2d 942 (Fla. 5th DCA 1990). This right of subrogation includes rights against its own insured, if the insured were to recover and attempt to keep costs and expenses awarded. Aspen v. Bayless, 564 So. 2d 1081 (Fla. 1990). An insurer which defends its insured and pays costs and expenses of a lawsuit is subrogated to the extent of those payments. [Id.] at 1082; Robertson v. Cobb, 695 So. 2d 507 (Fla. 5th DCA 1997).

Accordingly, “the insurance carrier . . . is ‘the real party in interest’ ” to recover fees under section 768.79 “because it controls the defense’s litigation strategy and holds the purse strings.” Sparks v. Barnes, 755 So. 2d 718, 720 (Fla. 2d DCA 1999) (Whatley, J., concurring). Hough stated it this way:

Insurance is a business “adventure.” It “is not founded on any philanthropic or charitable principle.” State ex rel. Landis v. Dewitt C. Jones Co., 108 Fla. 613, 147 So. 230 (1933). After an insurance company has paid a loss on behalf of its insured, it is entitled to subrogation either by express contract rights, or by equitable subrogation by operation of law. 31 Fla. Jur. 2d Insurance § 149; 12 Fla. Jur. 2d Contribution, etc. §§ 18 and 20. This right of subrogation would include rights against its own insured, if the insured were to recover and attempt to keep costs and expenses awarded in this case. See International Sales-Rentals Leasing Co. v. Nearhoof, 263 So. 2d 569 (Fla. 1972).

555 So. 2d at 944-45 (emphasis added); see also In re Rush, 582 B.R. 729, 734 (Bankr. E.D. Tenn. 2018) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citations omitted) (agreeing with the majority of bankruptcy courts and holding that pre-petition child support arrearages do not become property of the custodial parent’s Chapter 7 bankruptcy estate, since the child support payments paid to the custodial parent “are intended for the benefit of the child”); In re Christakos, 553 B.R. 371, 380 (Bankr. W.D. Mo. 2016) (“[U]nder Missouri law, child support is paid to the custodial parent ‘in trust’ for the benefit of the child. As a result, the Debtor’s postpetition child support is not property of the estate under § 541(a).”).

The emphasized language from Hough neatly dovetails with the trial court’s more general observations on assignments. As the court stated:

[I]t is black letter law that an assignment transfers to the assignee only the interest and rights of the assignor in and to the thing assigned, and the assignee stands in the shoes of the assignor. Prescription Partners, LLC v. State, [Dep’t of Fin. Servs.], 109 So. 3d 1218 (Fla. 1st DCA 2013).

The court continued: “An assignment conveys no greater right than the assignor had at the time of the assignment. Union Indemnity Co. v. City of New Smyrna, 130 So. 453 (Fla. 1930).”

Unifying the foregoing authorities, the trial court reached the denouement of its decision:

It is clear, therefore, that GEICO is subrogated to any right [Mr. Helms] has to recover from [the Allens] the litigation costs and attorneys[‘] fees incurred in the defense of the defendant in the Action. . . . GEICO is the real party in interest as to the proposals for settlement.

Thus, under Florida law, while the defendant is nominally the “owner” of the proposals, the defendant has only bare legal title in interest, and GEICO is both the equitable owner of, and the true party in interest in, the proposals for settlement. . . . [T]he plaintiffs stand in the shoes of the defendant as against GEICO, and have no greater interest in the proposals for settlement than did the defendant.

The Court concludes that under Florida law, the plaintiffs, standing in the shoes of the defendant, have only bare legal interest in the proposals for settlement which cannot defeat, and is subordinate to, GEICO’s interest as both the true party in interest and as the holder of an equitable subrogation claim. . . .

In short, as the trial court observed, for their $3500 the Allens “acquired, at most, only bare legal interest in the proposals” subject to GEICO’s equitable interest, “and at worst obtained nothing.”⁵ It therefore follows that the Allens, having failed to possess the equitable interest in the proposals for settlement, did not have the power to withdraw them.

That conclusion leads us to advance another, more elementary, reason why the Allens could not have withdrawn the proposals for settlement. Proposals for settlement not accepted within thirty days are deemed rejected under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.442(f)(1). Section 768.79(5), Florida Statutes, succinctly states: “An offer may be withdrawn in writing which is served before the date a written acceptance is filed. Once withdrawn, an offer is void.” Here, Mr. Helms’ proposals for settlement “were open for the full 30 days and there was no written revocation delivered [by Helms] before the 30 days expired.” Crowley v. Sunny’s Plants, Inc., 710 So. 2d 219, 221 (Fla. 3d DCA 1998). Consequently — assuming that the Allens subsequently “acquired” the proposals for settlement from the trustee — any purported withdrawal of the proposals by the Allens after the expiration of the thirty-day period “was a legal nullity and an event not contemplated” by either rule 1.442 or section 768.79. Id.; see also Kaufman v. Smith, 693 So. 2d 133, 134 (Fla. 4th DCA 1997) (“Plaintiff’s argument that the second offer [made by the defendant] revoked the first offer overlooks the fact that the first offer, once the plaintiff failed to accept it within the statutory time period, was no longer merely an offer. Once that period expired the defendant acquired a statutory right to recover attorney’s fees and costs in the event the judgment was below a certain amount. Plaintiff no longer had the ability to accept that offer, nor could she have done anything unilaterally to make it ineffective.”).

Moreover, placing the text of section 768.79(5) in perspective, the most reasonable interpretation of the withdrawal provision is that the withdrawal of an offer must be made by the offeror. See Wilcox v. Neville, 283 So. 3d 878, 882 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019) (emphasis added) (recognizing that the statute “provides the offeree with thirty days to accept an offer” and “allows the offeror to withdraw the offer any time before a written acceptance,” citing § 768.79(1), (4), & (5), Fla. Stat., and Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.442(e), (f)(1)). In the instant case, Mr. Helms was the offeror of the proposals for settlement. It stands to reason, therefore, that only Mr. Helms had the power to withdraw them. An interpretation that would permit the offeree to withdraw the offeror’s proposal — in addition to being nonsensical — would obstruct the statutory purpose of reducing “ ‘litigation costs and conserv[ing] judicial resources by encouraging the settlement of legal actions.’ ” Kuhajda v. Borden Dairy Co. of Ala., LLC., 202 So. 3d 391, 395 (Fla. 2016) (citation omitted). The interpretation we adopt, in contrast, endorses the sound principle of statutory construction that “[a] textually permissible interpretation that furthers rather than obstructs the [text’s] purpose should be favored.” Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 63 (2012).

AFFIRMED. (BILBREY and M.K. THOMAS, JJ., concur.)

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¹Appellants have raised three points on appeal in arguing for reversal. We affirm on the issue that Appellees failed to properly allocate their attorney’s fees and costs between Appellees’ two Proposals for Settlement without further comment.

²Section 768.79(1), Florida Statutes, entitled “Offer of judgment and demand for judgment,” provides in pertinent part as follows:

In any civil action for damages filed in the courts of this state, if a defendant files an offer of judgment which is not accepted by the plaintiff within 30 days, the defendant shall be entitled to recover reasonable costs and attorney’s fees incurred by her or him or on the defendant’s behalf pursuant to a policy of liability insurance or other contract from the date of filing of the offer if the judgment is one of no liability or the judgment obtained by the plaintiff is at least 25 percent less than such offer, and the court shall set off such costs and attorney’s fees against the award.

Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.442, entitled “Proposals for Settlement,” “applies to all proposals for settlement authorized by Florida law,” and provides the procedural mechanism for obtaining the costs and fees to which a party would become entitled under section 768.79. See Fla. R. Civ. P. 1.442(a), (h).

For our purposes in this opinion, consistent with the parties’ verbiage, we will interpose the rule’s phrase — “proposals for settlement” — in the place of the statutory counterparts — “offer of judgment and demand for judgment.”

³According to Slater v. United States Steel Corp., 871 F.3d 1174 (11th Cir. 2017):

“Chapter 7 allows a debtor to make a clean break from his financial past, but at a steep price: prompt liquidation of the debtor’s assets.” Harris v. Viegelahn, __ U.S. __, 135 S. Ct. 1829, 1835, 191 L. Ed. 2d 783 (2015). When a debtor files a Chapter 7 petition, his assets, subject to certain exemptions, are immediately transferred to a bankruptcy estate. 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(1). The Chapter 7 trustee is responsible for selling the property in the estate and distributing the proceeds to creditors. Id. §§ 704(a)(1), 726. Although a Chapter 7 debtor “must forfeit virtually all his prepetition property,” the bankruptcy laws give the debtor an immediate fresh start and a break from the financial past “by shielding from creditors his postpetition earnings and acquisitions.” Harris, 135 S. Ct. at 1835. . . .

Id. at 1179 (emphasis added) (footnote omitted).

⁴In a footnote, the trial court recounted the chronology of events leading up to this point, reiterating that the proposals for settlement had not been listed as assets of the bankruptcy estate and the “verdict triggering sanctions under the proposal for settlement rule had been rendered.” As viewed by the court, “the only logical conclusion is that [the Allens], or more likely their attorney, concocted a ‘sale’ of the proposals through the bankruptcy proceeding and approached the trustee with this proposition in an attempt to avoid a significant fee award against them.” The trial court considered that likelihood to be “deeply troubling.”

⁵It is not our intention by this opinion to delve deeper into a discussion concerning the broad definition of the term “property” of a chapter 7 bankruptcy estate. But the distinction that may be drawn between the instant case and those decisions that have considered the propriety of including in a bankruptcy estate a pre-petition cause of action belonging to the debtor is that in the latter class of cases, the debtor is said to hold a property right in a cause of action against the defendants at the time the bankruptcy case was filed. See generally Segal v. Rochelle, 382 U.S. 375 (1965); Parker v. Wendy’s Int’l, Inc., 365 F.3d 1268, 1272 (11th Cir. 2004) (“Generally speaking, a pre-petition cause of action is the property of the Chapter 7 bankruptcy estate, and only the trustee in bankruptcy has standing to pursue it.”); see also In re Alipour, 252 B.R. 230 (Bankr. M.D. Fla. 2000); In re Tomaiolo, 205 B.R. 10 (Bankr. D. Mass. 1997). In the instant case, as explained elsewhere in the body of this opinion, Mr. Helms held only legal title to the proposals for settlement, not equitable title or a property right. GEICO held equitable title to the recovery. And, as stated above, under federal bankruptcy law, a bankruptcy trustee is only authorized to conduct a valid sale of property in which the debtor holds both a legal and equitable interest — with the nature of the interest to be determined under state law.