Opinion ID: 2634681
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Calculation of Award for Payments Past Due

Text: Neil also contests the award of prejudgment interest, arguing that [i]nterest should only accrue from the date of judgment, not prior years. The superior court ordered Neil to pay prejudgment interest based on its judgment of payments past due from June 12, 1992 to August 19, 2002. While the award of interest was justified, the superior court mischaracterized the collection action as a judgment rather than a writ of execution of an existing judgment. The superior court entered an order on June 12, 1992 ordering Neil to pay Debra $500 per month as her share of the military retirement benefits earned by Neil during marriage. In State, Department of Revenue, Child Support Enforcement Division ex rel. Inman v. Dean, [40] we held that efforts to collect past due alimony payments ordered by decree, like actions to collect past due child support, involve periodic support obligations that are judgments that vest when an installment becomes due but remains unpaid. [41] This reasoning is equally applicable to past-due installment payments of marital property. Accordingly, each monthly payment owed to Debra pursuant to the 1992 court order was a judgment that vested when it became due and payable. Postjudgment interest accrues on these sums at the statutory rate as prescribed by AS 09.30.070(a), [42] and different interest rates will apply to judgments vesting in different years. On remand, the trial court should determine the interest rate in effect during each year encompassed in the court's modified judgment, and then recalculate the amount of postjudgment interest owed based on the date of accrual of each enforceable obligation and the interest rate in effect at that time during the year it accrued.