Opinion ID: 789821
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The dividing line between prejudgment and postjudgment interest

Text: 68 Under 28 U.S.C. § 1961(a), which controls postjudgment interest in civil cases decided in the federal district courts, postjudgment interest shall be calculated from the date of the entry of the judgment. The Supreme Court has interpreted this statute to require interest to run from the date of the entry of judgment by the court rather than from the date of the jury verdict. Kaiser Aluminum & Chem. Corp. v. Bonjorno, 494 U.S. 827, 835, 110 S.Ct. 1570, 108 L.Ed.2d 842 (1990). This circuit has held that postjudgment interest can run from the date of any judgment that is not entirely set aside. Skalka v. Fernald Envtl. Restoration Mgmt. Corp., 178 F.3d 414, 429 (6th Cir.1999). 69 As the district court noted, the Ninth Circuit addressed an issue similar to the one that faces us here and held that postjudgment interest should accrue from the date of the final judgment. See AT & T Co. v. United Computer Systems, Inc., 98 F.3d 1206, 1211 (9th Cir.1996) (calculating postjudgment interest from the later of two possible dates of judgment, where the prejudgment interest was higher than the postjudgment interest, on the ground that [w]here a prior judgment awarding damages has been vacated pursuant to the actions of an ultimately losing party, equitable principles favor calculating the interest in a manner that more fully compensates the prevailing party). The district court attempted to distinguish AT & T by stating that there is only one judgment in this case — the Rule 54(b) judgment entered on May 16, 2002. 70 This is incorrect. At least two judgments were entered after May 16, 2002, including a September 30, 2002 amended judgment and a September 22, 2003 final amended judgment. Several judgments were also entered before the jury verdict, but those judgments are not candidates for the date that postjudgment interest begins because the damages due were not sufficiently ascertained. Cf. AT & T, 98 F.3d at 1210. 71 The justification given by the Ninth Circuit for calculating postjudgment interest from the date of final judgment applies with equal force in the present case. Although both parties received jury awards, Scotts was clearly the prevailing party. Id. at 1211. Scotts was awarded $22.5 million of its $23.8 million claim; Central was awarded only $12.075 million of the originally requested sum of $976 million (and this award was further reduced by the district court). Because the prejudgment-interest rate on all of the claims is substantially higher than the postjudgment-interest rate, the district court's decision to start postjudgment interest from the May 16, 2002 judgment on the jury verdict grants an unjustified benefit to Central as the losing party. This equitable imbalance could have been avoided if the district court had ruled that postjudgment interest did not begin until the September 22, 2003 final amended judgment. We therefore reverse the district court's ruling on this issue, and set the date at which postjudgment interest begins to run at September 22, 2003.