Opinion ID: 569320
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Interest on the damages

Text: 41 Brister contends that the trial court abused its discretion by granting him interest from the date of the judgment rather than from the date of injury, at least as pertains to the portion of the award that is attributable to past damages. We have determined that the supplemental judgment for past medical expenses was inappropriate. We still must address whether the district court erred by failing to award prejudgment interest on the original judgment as well. 42 As a general rule, prejudgment interest should be awarded in admiralty cases--not as a penalty, but as compensation for the use of funds to which the claimant was rightfully entitled. Noritake Co., 627 F.2d at 728. This general rule is limited by the proposition that a seaman may receive prejudgment interest for past but not future damages. Verdin, 860 F.2d at 158. Therefore, we must examine whether the district court abused its discretion in failing to award prejudgment interest on at least some portion of the original judgment that could properly be attributed to past damages. 43 The district court did not explain its denial of prejudgment interest. However, we infer from the record that the jury verdict form's failure to itemize past and future damages in providing the sum of damages due to Brister made the court reticent to apportion the damages itself in order to award pre- and post-judgment interest. The record does not show that Brister objected to the verdict form, which made no distinction between past and future damages. We find that the district court acted within its discretion in refusing to grant prejudgment interest to all or any portion of the jury's lump sum damages award. Although it is clear that some part of the original award was for past damages, the district court was not compelled to speculate as to how the jury would have apportioned the damages if it had been asked to do so. Therefore, we affirm the decision of the district court on this issue.