California, United States of America
The following excerpt is from Dade v. Dep't of Transp., E064438 (Cal. App. 2017):
"[A] section 998 offer must be made in good faith to be valid. [Citation.] Good faith requires that the pretrial offer of settlement be 'realistically reasonable under the circumstances of the particular case. Normally, therefore, a token or nominal offer will not satisfy this good faith requirement . . . .' [Citation.] The offer 'must carry with it some reasonable prospect of acceptance. [Citation.]' [Citation.] One having no expectation that his or her offer will be accepted will not be allowed to benefit from a no-risk offer made for the sole purpose of later recovering large expert witness fees." (Jones v. Dumrichob (1998) 63 Cal.App.4th 1258, 1262-1263.)
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