This opinion is subject to revision before final

publication in the Pacific Reporter

2024 UT 9 

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF UTAH

SUNSTONE REALTY PARTNERS X LLC, 

Appellant,

v. 

BODELL CONSTRUCTION COMPANY, 

Appellee. 

No. 20230285 

Heard December 13, 2023 

Filed March 7, 2024 

On Direct Appeal

Third District, Salt Lake County

The Honorable Robert P. Faust

No. 226909897 

Attorneys:

Russell S. Walker, South Jordan, for appellant

Michael R. Johnson, Austin C. Nate, Salt Lake City, for appellee

ASSOCIATE CHIEF JUSTICE PEARCE authored the opinion of the 

Court, in which CHIEF JUSTICE DURRANT, JUSTICE PETERSEN, 

JUSTICE HAGEN, and JUSTICE POHLMAN joined.

ASSOCIATE CHIEF JUSTICE PEARCE, opinion of the Court:

INTRODUCTION

¶1 After arbitrating a dispute in Hawaii regarding 

construction defects in a condominium development, SunStone

Realty Partners X LLC (SunStone) domesticated its Hawaii 

judgment against Bodell Construction Company (Bodell) in Utah. 

Bodell asked the district court to impose Utah’s postjudgment 

interest rate instead of Hawaii’s higher postjudgment rate. The 

district court complied with Bodell’s request.
SUNSTONE v. BODELL

Opinion of the Court

2

¶2 SunStone appeals, arguing that the Utah Foreign 

Judgment Act (UFJA) requires the court to apply the Hawaii 

postjudgment interest rate. See UTAH CODE § 78B-5-301 to -307.

Failing that, SunStone contends that provisions in its contract with 

Bodell require Utah courts to award postjudgment interest at the 

Hawaii rate. SunStone further suggests that even if the contract 

does not mandate the Hawaii rate, principles of comity do.

¶3 Although the UFJA does not squarely address the issue, it 

does instruct Utah courts to treat a foreign domesticated judgment 

like a Utah judgment for purposes of enforcement. Postjudgment 

interest serves, at least in part, as an enforcement mechanism. 

Accordingly, the UFJA requires the imposition of Utah’s 

postjudgment interest rate. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶4 SunStone and Bodell arbitrated claims arising out of a 

construction dispute. The arbitration resulted in an award against 

Bodell that exceeded $9.5 million. A Hawaii court entered a 

judgment in favor of SunStone in that amount. SunStone

subsequently domesticated that judgment in Utah under the UFJA.

¶5 Bodell promptly moved the Utah district court for an order 

imposing Utah’s postjudgment interest rate and not Hawaii’s.1 In 

its motion, Bodell argued that the UFJA requires the application of 

Utah’s rate. It reasoned that the UFJA provides that a foreign 

judgment domesticated in Utah is “subject to the same procedures, 

defenses, enforcement, satisfaction, and proceedings” as a Utah 

judgment, that postjudgment interest is properly considered a 

procedural matter, and therefore that Utah’s postjudgment rate

applies. SunStone opposed the motion, arguing that the UFJA’s 

“general purpose” requires the application of Hawaii’s rate. It 

further asserted that its contract with Bodell required the district 

court to apply the Hawaii rate.

¶6 Neither party requested a hearing on the motion, and the 

district court entered an order that contained no analysis of the 

issue, but simply stated “Utah’s post judgment rate applies as of 

the date of the domestication of the foreign judgment in Utah.”

SunStone appeals.

__________________________________________________________

1 When SunStone domesticated the judgment, the Utah rate was 

2.29%; the Hawaii rate was 10%.
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Opinion of the Court

3

ISSUES AND STANDARDS OF REVIEW

¶7 SunStone presents three issues. It first argues that the 

district court erred when it failed to recognize that Hawaii’s 

postjudgment rate should apply. SunStone posits the UFJA’s

“general purpose [is] to make . . . the law of” Utah uniform with 

states that have enacted the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign 

Judgments Act (UEFJA). (Citing UTAH CODE § 78B-5-307.) “We 

review questions of statutory interpretation for correctness, 

affording no deference to the lower court’s legal conclusions.” Scott

v. Benson, 2023 UT 4, ¶ 25, 529 P.3d 319 (cleaned up).

¶8 SunStone next contends that the contract between it and 

Bodell requires the application of the Hawaii postjudgment rate.

“We review a district court’s interpretation of a contract for 

correctness.” Brady v. Park, 2019 UT 16, ¶ 29, 445 P.3d 395.

¶9 SunStone last asserts that the Hawaii rate should apply as 

a matter of comity. When we apply “principles of comity, we have 

traditionally afforded the district court broad discretion.” Galindo 

v. City of Flagstaff, 2019 UT 67, ¶ 6, 452 P.3d 1185 (cleaned up).

However, “[w]e initially presume comity should be extended” 

unless the party shows that “the extension of comity contravenes 

or undermines Utah’s public policy.” Id. ¶¶ 11–12 (cleaned up). But 

when there is legislative guidance on an issue, the question is 

“removed . . . from the realm of comity.” Pan Energy v. Martin, 813 

P.2d 1142, 1146 (Utah 1991).

ANALYSIS

I. THE UTAH FOREIGN JUDGMENT ACT REQUIRED THE DISTRICT 

COURT TO APPLY UTAH’S POSTJUDGMENT INTEREST RATE

¶10 SunStone first argues that the Hawaii rate applies “based 

on Utah’s enactment of the” UEFJA.2 SunStone points to the 

provision in the UFJA that discusses a “general purpose to make 

uniform the law of those states which enact it.” UTAH CODE § 78B-

__________________________________________________________

2 As its name suggests, the Uniform Enforcement of Foreign 

Judgments Act is a uniform act. Forty-eight states have adopted

some version of it. Michigan, Missouri, Oregon, and Washington

expressly provide that postjudgment interest should be assessed at 

the rate of the state that issued the judgment. See MICH. COMP.LAWS 

§ 691.1176; MO. REV. STAT. § 511.760(14); OR. REV. STAT. § 24.140; 

WASH. REV. CODE § 6.36.140. Utah has not enacted a similar 

provision.
SUNSTONE v. BODELL

Opinion of the Court

4

5-307. SunStone asserts that “the only way to achieve that 

uniformity among the various states under the UEFJA is to apply 

the post-judgment rate of the [rendering state].”

¶11 “The aim of statutory interpretation is to ascertain the 

intent of the legislature, and the best evidence of the legislature’s 

intent is the plain language of the statute itself.” Scott v. Benson, 

2023 UT 4, ¶ 37, 529 P.3d 319 (cleaned up). This process does not 

look at statutory language in isolation; instead, “each section must 

be read in the context of the entire [a]ct.” Savely v. Utah Highway 

Patrol, 2018 UT 44, ¶ 25, 427 P.3d 1174 (cleaned up). And when the 

language of a statute is plain, we will not turn to a “statute’s 

purposes in hopes of finding a gloss to put on the text.” Scott, 2023 

UT 4, ¶ 43 n.13.

¶12 The UFJA provides a means of domesticating a foreign 

judgment and identifies how Utah courts must treat these 

domesticated judgments. Although the UFJA does not specifically 

address the question of postjudgment interest, subsection 78B-5-

302(3) supports the district court’s conclusion.

¶13 Subsection 78B-5-302(3) of the UFJA mandates that foreign 

judgments domesticated using the UFJA are “subject to the same 

procedures, defenses, enforcement, satisfaction, and proceedings

. . . as a judgment of a district court of this state.”3 Rather than 

determine, as SunStone urges, whether imposing the Hawaii 

postjudgment rate serves the UFJA’s general purpose, we start by 

asking whether postjudgment interest is one of the procedures, 

defenses, enforcement mechanisms, satisfactions, or proceedings 

that the UFJA instructs us to resolve with Utah law.

¶14 The United States Supreme Court has recognized that 

postjudgment interest serves “to compensate the successful 

plaintiff for being deprived of compensation for the loss from the 

time between the ascertainment of the damages and the payment 

by the defendant.” Kaiser Aluminum & Chem. Corp. v. Bonjorno, 494 

U.S. 827, 835–36 (1990) (cleaned up). The Seventh Circuit Court of 

Appeals has further explained that postjudgment interest is not 

__________________________________________________________

3 Bodell also points to subsection (2), which specifies that the 

“clerk of the district court shall treat the foreign judgment in all 

respects as a judgment of a district court of Utah.” UTAH CODE

§ 78B-5-302(2). But because subsection (3) of the UFJA controls, we 

need not turn to this provision.
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Opinion of the Court

5

meant to “punish a defendant but to encourage prompt payment 

and compensate a plaintiff for another party’s use of its money.” 

Overbeek v. Heimbecker, 101 F.3d 1225, 1228 (7th Cir. 1996). In other 

words, postjudgment interest acts as “an enforcement tool to 

ensure that . . . the award of just compensation will not be 

diminished by delay in payment.” Brown v. Habrle, 1 A.3d 401, 405 

(Me. 2010) (cleaned up).

¶15 Unlike prejudgment interest, the postjudgment rate would 

have no effect on the judgment amount should a debtor decide to 

immediately pay the judgment creditor. See Aqua Mgmt., Inc. v. 

Abdeen, 227 P.3d 498, 502 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2010). Instead, 

postjudgment interest serves, at least in part, as “an enforcement 

mechanism designed to encourage timely satisfaction of the 

judgment.” Id.

¶16 Other states see it the same way. For example, the

Pennsylvania Superior Court was asked to determine whether 

postjudgment interest was a matter of substantive or procedural 

law. See Lockley v. CSX Transp. Inc., 66 A.3d 322, 326 (Pa. Super. Ct.

2013). It concluded that postjudgment interest was procedural 

because it is a “method by which rights . . . are enforced.” Id. at 327 

(cleaned up). It further reasoned that postjudgment interest “does 

not create a substantive right” because “the amount to which the 

plaintiff is entitled has already been resolved” by the judgment. Id. 

at 326–27.

¶17 The Arizona Court of Appeals has similarly held that 

“post-judgment interest . . . is generally collateral to the underlying 

judgment.” Aqua Mgmt., Inc., 227 P.3d at 502. It explained that 

postjudgment interest “is merely an enforcement mechanism 

designed to encourage timely satisfaction of the judgment,” not a

part of the substantive judgment. Id.

¶18 For its part, a Texas Court of Appeals has opined that 

postjudgment interest can be awarded in claims against the 

government beyond the $250,000 limit set by the Texas Tort Claims 

Act. Tex. Dep’t of Transp. v. Ramming, 861 S.W.2d 460, 469 (Tex. App. 

1993), writ denied (Feb. 23, 1994). The court concluded that 

postjudgment interest could exceed the limit because “by 

encouraging prompt payment of judgments, [postjudgment 

interest] is an effective enforcement mechanism.” Id.

¶19 SunStone argues that postjudgment interest is a 

substantive part of the judgment and not an enforcement 

mechanism. In support of this argument, it claims that this court, 
SUNSTONE v. BODELL

Opinion of the Court

6

in Gressman v. State, “held that statutory provisions affecting postjudgment interest affect substantive rights because they ‘enlarge, 

eliminate, or destroy vested or contractual rights.’” (Quoting 2013 

UT 63, ¶ 14, 323 P.3d 998.) SunStone misreads Gressman.

¶20 In Gressman, we considered whether a statutory 

amendment affected vested rights, requiring us to apply the 

version of the statute before it was amended. Id. ¶¶ 13–14. The

amendment “foreclose[d] postjudgment interest for financial 

assistance payments and cut off such payments altogether” for 

certain judgments following factual innocence claims. Id. ¶ 14. We 

held that the amended provisions were substantive because they 

affected vested rights and did “not merely dictate the practice and 

procedure or the legal machinery by which the substantive law is 

determined or made effective.” Id. (cleaned up). SunStone would 

have us ignore that Gressman rested its conclusion on the 

elimination of both postjudgment interest and the underlying 

judgment, and not on a characterization of postjudgment interest 

generally.4 See id.

¶21 Because postjudgment interest is an enforcement 

mechanism, the UFJA requires us to look to Utah law. See UTAH 

CODE § 78B-5-302(3). The district court did not err when it 

concluded that Utah’s postjudgment rate applies under the UFJA.

II. THE PARTIES’ CONTRACT DID NOT REQUIRE THE DISTRICT COURT 

TO APPLY THE HAWAII POSTJUDGMENT INTEREST RATE

¶22 SunStone also contends that provisions in the parties’ 

construction contract required the imposition of the Hawaii 

postjudgment interest rate and that the district court erred when it 

failed to recognize that requirement. SunStone explains that the 

parties agreed in the contract that proceedings would “be 

conducted in the State of Hawaii” and that the contract would be 

“governed by the law of the place where the project is located 

[Hawaii].” SunStone also avers that the contract provided that 

“[p]ayments . . . shall bear interest . . . at such rate as the parties 

__________________________________________________________

4 The question is not before us, so we need not address it, but in 

the interest of clarity we note that we can envision circumstances 

where postjudgment interest is specifically awarded in a judgment 

that a party subsequently domesticates in Utah. That would 

present a different circumstance than the judgment SunStone 

domesticated, which did not include a specific postjudgment 

interest rate.
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Opinion of the Court

7

may agree upon in writing or . . . at the legal rate prevailing . . . at 

the place where the project is located.”

¶23 When parties to a contract have agreed to apply the law of 

a foreign state to govern disputes, generally that agreement “would 

only apply to the substantive law governing the dispute.” See 

Trillium USA, Inc. v. Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs, 2001 UT 101, ¶ 14, 37 P.3d 

1093. In other words, non-substantive matters or “matters of 

procedure” are governed by the law of the forum. Id. (cleaned up).

¶24 As discussed, postjudgment interest is generally a

mechanism to enforce a judgment. Supra ¶¶ 14–18; cf. Baker v. Gen.

Motors Corp., 522 U.S. 222, 235 (1998) (“Enforcement measures do 

not travel with the sister state judgment as preclusive effects do

. . . .”). Where a foreign judgment is domesticated in Utah and the 

judgment itself does not specify a postjudgment rate, the choice to 

apply Utah’s postjudgment interest statute is a question of 

procedure. See AAA Fencing Co. v. Raintree Dev. & Energy Co., 714 

P.2d 289, 291 n.2 (Utah 1986) (“A procedural statute . . . relates to 

the means and procedures for enforcing [substantive] rights.”). 

Therefore, the contract’s choice of law provision does not dictate 

the postjudgment rate.

¶25 We take SunStone’s point that the parties could have 

agreed to a postjudgment interest rate in their contract. See UTAH 

CODE § 15-1-4(2)(a). But the interest provision SunStone relies on 

does not speak to postjudgment interest. The contract sets the 

interest rate only for “Payments due and unpaid under the 

Contract Documents.” There is no mention anywhere within the 

document of an interest rate on a judgment. SunStone argues that 

the general interest provision relating to payments should extend 

to the judgment obtained for construction defects.

¶26 We have not allowed parties to transmogrify an unrelated 

interest rate clause into an expression of agreement on a 

postjudgment interest rate. This court has explained that an 

agreement to a particular interest rate in a contract will only apply 

to a judgment award “if the parties agreed that the interest rate 

would apply to the contractual obligation that forms the basis for 

the judgment.” Brady v. Park, 2019 UT 16, ¶ 104, 445 P.3d 395. Put 

differently, for a district court to impose a non-statutory 

postjudgment rate, it must be “contractually linked” to the 

obligation. See id.

¶27 In Brady, we determined that an agreement to a ten percent

interest rate on the repayment of a loan does not extend to a 
SUNSTONE v. BODELL

Opinion of the Court

8

judgment to recover overpayments on that loan. Id. ¶ 105. We 

reasoned that the parties “did not contemplate the possibility of 

loan overpayments,” nor did they “agree upon an interest rate that 

would attach to” a judgment award for overpayments. Id.

¶28 Here, the arbitration award underlying the judgment is 

based on claims for construction defects. This has no reasonable 

relation to the parties’ agreement to an interest rate for “payments 

due” under the contract. There is no indication that the parties 

agreed to an interest rate that would apply to a judgment award for 

construction defects. Nor did the parties agree to an interest rate 

that would attach to a judgment generally. In the absence of such 

an agreement, we default to the UFJA. The district court did not err 

when it applied Utah’s postjudgment rate.

III. WE DO NOT CONSIDER PRINCIPLES OF COMITY BECAUSE THE 

UFJA MANDATES A RESULT

¶29 SunStone last argues that the district court should have 

applied the Hawaii postjudgment interest rate as a matter of 

comity. We have explained that comity “is the principle that a 

court, for considerations of public policy, should defer to a court of 

another jurisdiction . . . and is a matter that calls for the exercise of 

judicial discretion.” Pan Energy v. Martin, 813 P.2d 1142, 1146 (Utah 

1991). But when an issue is addressed by statute, it is “removed . . . 

from the realm of comity.” Id. Because the UFJA subjects foreign 

judgments filed under the UFJA to the same enforcement as local 

judgments, the Legislature has already decided how we resolve the 

question, and we may not use notions of comity to avoid the result

the statute requires.5 See id.

CONCLUSION

¶30 The district court did not err when it concluded that Utah’s 

postjudgment interest rate applies to the Hawaii judgment 

__________________________________________________________

5 SunStone raises a number of interesting and important policy 

considerations. Perhaps most compelling is SunStone’s assertion 

that the UFJA’s purposes could best be promoted through the 

application of the postjudgment interest rate of the state that 

renders the judgment. These are arguments best addressed to the 

Utah Legislature, which might decide to join Michigan, Missouri, 

Oregon, and Washington on the list of states that have deviated 

from the uniform act to mandate that the postjudgment interest rate 

of the rendering state applies.
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Opinion of the Court

9 

SunStone domesticated in Utah using the UFJA. Indeed, the Utah 

Foreign Judgment Act requires that result. The district court also

did not err when it rejected SunStone’s claim that the construction

contract required the application of Hawaii’s postjudgment rate.

Moreover, general principles of comity cannot override the result 

that the statute dictates. We affirm.