good morning you may have seen the court richard love for the district of columbia the district can't be ordered to pay interest on judgment amounts prohibited by statute from pain doing so would contravene  rejected the argument that the absence of any reference to two judgments man that the cap was in they have all when you had a judgment the court said nor is there any reason to find that the judgment for attorneys fees are not subject to the cap because the appropriations acts do not specifically state pay plied to judgments and curiously also said or interest in i think the mere fact  seems clearly right if the statute is a prohibition on fees which is what you just said but it seems to be only a prohibition on payment rights and appropriation provisions so the underlying and title meant to feed is on disturbed well that that's that's correct but the o the it does not limit the court's authority to enter the award but it does limit the district's ability to pay above four thousand dollars and i think that the  so for the amounts that the district is prohibited from paying i think it's i think it's a reasonable inference that the prohibition ron was also to the interest that would have been have attached to that amount of the judgment that the district is prohibited from paying up i mean purpose for the the cap was to and it was maintained for ten years was to stem the growth in legal expenses in the usurping of resources from education to attorneys ming the growth in legal expenses it's also contrary to longstanding precedent that prohibits interest whenever payment of the principle that is interdicted and it would  absurdly subject to the strict a never ending interest payments i mean ordinarily a party can avoid a post judgement interest or the application of the post judgment interest statute by making immediate payment but here the fee kept the law fought for close that of possibility suppose we suppose we agree with you that it was erroneous to require the district now to pay interest on the entire sum of the judgments right you don't disagree that it's or doesn't disagree though that it was appropriate to authorize the payment of some level of interest below the principal cap rate oh yeah we paid we paid interest on the amounts up to four thousand dollars and how how is that calculation made on so is that the calculation of the amount of interest  given the existence of a cap do you pretend as if at the date of the judgment the judgment at four thousand dollars and then you calculate interest on that all the way through yes that's the way it's i believe i believe that's the way it was done and the determined what has already been paid and the district is fine with that so you after the cap gets raised to four thousand dollars interest is owed not interest on the full principle not interest on the full judgement but interest on the judgement up to a level of four thousand dollars crore and you go back to the judgment you basically act as if it said the judgment is four one thousand dollars and then you calculate interest though it up to the database that's my understanding of what was done yes ok and you don't dispute that part of it no we don't disputing that as i said a bad amount has already been pa can i ask you about your constitutional issues with the statute at least as applied to preexisting judgments which is not the entire scope of the statute perhaps but it's a major scope right so you have you have a preexisting judgments and then congress says as to them they can never be paid can i correct the court because i don't think they are preexisting judgments here every one of these judgments were from day one subject to a fee cap the st judgment most of i think there are ten judgments here i prohibited i'm sorry but then that commits us to the proposition that the court courts couldn't enter judgment no time no i think you know when callaway this to you which is we have a set of preexisting judgments and then congress says very broadly and very categorically we're not going to pay for these and we have authority for the proposition that judgments or property for taking such purposes why isn't that a problem well i think as a district court found here and i that makes sense if the claim were formulated as a a retroactivity based due process argument about on settling expectations but for such purposes what seems most relevant is that the preexisting judgments give rise to property rights which i guess i get back to my point which was they were always i mean it wasn't like hearing officer decisions each of which represents a failure by the district to do his duty and comply with the law the judgments are now walled the name plaintiff in this case mr allen is over two decades older as is his  is clear on this it states that interest shall run from the date of judgment there is nothing in the idea statute or in the two thousand and nine act he kept that places and he any burdens on the running of interest from the date of judgment you know what about it is an argument that it's just inherent in the concept of interest which is which would be judged griffiths textual hook right interest is compensation for a wrongful failure to pay money back on time and you don't have that and can't have that when there's a legal prohibition on making the payment right your honor i would say that interest is not merely due on wrongful delays payments but generally so in this case rightly or wrongly congress decided that fair enough but just to make it a little payment itself is legally barred from congressional appropriations only the s c is legally prohibited from d c is stopping me a cruel of interest by making payment on the underlying principle which is the fee amount over four thousand dollars a year on or the d c is legally prohibited from using congressional appropriations this one set of one pool of money to pay for the district under any federal appropriation for the dish or example in our original motion to enforce which is the joint appendix at page eighty two dollars we noted that there was a budget autonomy act which was with what the clear from question looked at here to put a cap on this was a program that they thought he'd gotten out of control well i would say that the congressional intent is not necessarily clear as these signing that there is in congress he's between congress between what congress has authorized to pay and what interest is due on that amount and whether or not it's kept interest payments is the provision of congress your honor it's not for us really or it's a little work in practice if if it's in fact true that interest is constantly running on the entire principle amount even if the district is barred from paying the principal amount about the cap from congressional of the cap on fees is converted into a very generous annuity free if that that's one possible interpretation the other is that congress has  decided so we are arguing that congress has in fact lifted the but assuming for the sake of argument that they have not then it's up to congress to lift the fee cap in the meantime interest would still be due on that entire judgement  about collectible now or collectible later the problem we run into there is people are finite while the district is now there is a time limitation in terms of mortality your honour's so we action is an interested and revisiting the cop that you in addition the district office of attorney general upon mr drake's petition to d c city council you literally came in and objected to the city council even going to congress and petitioning for removing the fee cap which would immediately resolve this issue as then print the principal and interest amount would be immediately do interest would stop running it or not not going to congress in its submissions towards the district's budgetary appropriation the d c city council has a party and we're not accustomed to being a backstop when the political process doesn't work you know we were accustomed to interpreting statutes and the constitution but we're not here to fix political issue your honor but to that degree then the running of interest while the fee cap is in place would  seem to be a political problem it would not be within this court's purview and as the court in clout and in callaway said these sorts of in congress are for congress to resolve it's not for the courts to that degree the interest argument was also weighed by the district district did not you very briefly your out of this case is not about mortality it's not about special ed services it's an action to collect on attorneys feel more nor is there any issue with regard that was raised or fully fleshed out in terms of there being other sources of funds that congress may not have appropriate what what's your answer on that argument well to the extent  addressed it in our preferred briefly in that it was forfeited never was re is that there are other funds from which that are not subject to the to the fee cap was it was never an issue that was raised below it insufficient to raises an issue in this court in the district raise and spend money on its own under the rule lacked or whatever without congressional probe i don't believe so i mean  i haven't fully research that issue so it's a little off the top of my head and i hesitate to do that but i wasn't leaves it and maybe forfeiture is the answer i mean if we were dealing with a state and support and award of interest in this circumstance is finally on the on the waiver i think it set forth in our brief but i do just want to very briefly repeat you know that it was in the district never had notice that from the reporter recommendation or from the underlining referral in the august th to order of the district court that immediate payment of interest on him or judgment amounts that exceeded the cap was an issue under consideration we were told we were ordered to pay four thousand dollars less anything already paid plus interest was arliss the ending then interest were hand only on the amounts up to the that should be calculated so the amount would be available if congress authorized future appropriations so for all of those reasons the reasons we set forth in the brief we think the court err in finding that we waived our objection to interest plus we also set forth at the issue was passed upon and that we are an extraordinary situation since it would be manifest unjust to require us to pay interest potentially never ending interest on amounts of principle we are prohibited from paying we can never stop learning from interest and to live some congressional jane thank you funds that the district could use that are not subject to congressional appropriations however the motion was denied and i don't want to go further into it but in addition the good faith the argument of whether or not the district out in good faith and fair dealing terms of our argument with regarding whether or not the district court passed on the waiver we used an incorrect word in our brief we should have said that we should refer to the interest of jackson rather than the interest argument i think that would have been