Marryshow v. Flynn

A defendant’s “offer to allow judgment ... with costs then accrued” must be compared with the “judgment finally obtained” by the plaintiff to determine under Fed. R.Civ.P. 68 whether the plaintiff must bear his post-offer costs. The majority holds that, for purposes of this comparison, the “judgment finally obtained” is not the amount that the jury or trial court awarded on the substantive cause of action, but rather the sum of this amount and the amount of pre-offer costs awarded to the plaintiff by the trial court. This holding contradicts the text of Rule 68, in which the phrase “judgment…