Nevada’s Supreme Court has overturned a key piece of caselaw governing how contingency fee attorneys’ fees are awarded following successful offers of judgment.
The ruling, handed down in Clark v. Marin on July 2, 2026, overrules the 2021 decision in Capriati Construction Corp. v. Yahyavi to a significant degree.
The earlier Capriati decision had established that a plaintiff represented on a contingency fee could recover the entire contingency fee if an offer of judgment was beaten at trial.
The case arose from a motor vehicle accident in which Marin sued Clark for personal injury damages, serving a $2 million offer of judgment 24 days before the trial began.
The jury returned a verdict totalling $2,045,117.55, and when prejudgment interest and taxable costs were added, the final judgment exceeded the $2 million threshold.
Because the verdict surpassed Marin’s offer of judgment, the plaintiff moved for attorneys’ fees under Nevada Rule of Civil Procedure 68, which allows such recovery when a plaintiff obtains more than was offered.
Applying the Capriati precedent, the district court awarded attorneys’ fees in the full amount of Marin’s contingency fee agreement, totalling $818,047.02.
On appeal, the Supreme Court overruled that approach, reasoning that a personal injury plaintiff incurs attorneys’ fees throughout the entire course of litigation, not solely after an offer of judgment is served.
The Court established that going forward, “while courts can consider the contingency fee amount in awarding attorney fees under NRCP 68, the award must be proportionate to and directly reflective of the work performed from the time of the offer.”
District courts were instructed to “determine a starting amount and make adjustments to account only for the work completed post-offer,” though no single prescribed method was mandated for reaching that figure.
The ruling represents a meaningful shift in how Nevada courts will handle fee disputes in personal injury and other contingency-based litigation going forward.
The Court emphasised that excessive fee awards, “like those covering the entirety of a contingency fee agreement, risk such an effect” of unfairly pressuring parties to abandon legitimate claims rather than proceed to trial.
The decision reinforces the principle that “NRCP 68 must hold offerees responsible for the value of the work required in continuing to litigate the case instead of settling, and no more.”
Legal observers consider the Clark ruling a significant victory for defendants in Nevada, curtailing what had become a powerful financial lever for plaintiffs following successful jury verdicts.