Hersey v. Vopava

*794Under Code of Civil Procedure section 998,1 a litigant who refuses an offer to compromise and then obtains a judgment lower than *795the offer is tasked with paying *264the offeror's costs incurred from the date of the rejected offer. Here respondent landlord made two different offers to compromise his tenant's civil complaint under section 998. Both were rejected. This appeal primarily presents a question of costs, that is, how to determine the correct "net" judgment in favor of appellant tenant and, thereafter, whether the judgment is more favorable than the two section 998 offers.

A landlord-tenant…