Opinion ID: 1564508
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Interest on the Award.

Text: The decree of July 16, 1930, allowed interest in the amount of $20,160. The plaintiffs appealed, but assigned no error as to the amount of interest allowed. The decree was affirmed. A year and two months after the mandate went down, plaintiffs asked the trial court to amend the decree by adding interest from July 16, 1930, to the date of payment. The trial court declined to modify or amend the decree except in the one particular directed by this court. The trial court was right. There is a time for all things, and the time to object to the omission of interest from the decree of July 16, 1930, was on the appeal therefrom; the time to object to any oversight in an order of affirmance is by petition for rehearing or other appropriate proceedings in the appellate court. There must be an end to litigation sometime, and there would be no end if trial courts could modify or amend their decrees after affirmance. Of the multitude of cases on the point, it is only necessary to cite those where the trial court undertook to add interest to a judgment or decree after affirmance, for the time elapsed pending the appeal. In Boyce v. Grundy, 9 Pet. 275, 289, 290, 9 L. Ed. 127, a decree in equity requiring the payment of money was affirmed. Nothing was said in the decree or order of affirmance concerning interest. Upon the mandate coming down, the trial court added interest pending the appeal. Upon the second appeal, the interest was eliminated. Mr. Justice Story, referring to the Supreme Court rule on interest, held: It is, therefore, solely for the decision of the supreme court, whether any damages or interest (as a part thereof) are to be allowed, or not, in cases of affirmance. If, upon the affirmance, no allowance of interest or damages is made, it is equivalent to a denial of any interest or damages; and the circuit court, in carrying into effect the decree of affirmance, cannot enlarge the amount thereby decreed; but is limited to the mere execution of the decree, in the terms in which it is expressed. A decree of the circuit court, allowing interest in such a case, is, to all intents and purposes, quoad hoc, a new decree, extending the former decree. In re Washington & Georgetown R. Co., 140 U. S. 91, 94, 96, 11 S. Ct. 673, 35 L. Ed. 339, was a proceeding in mandamus against a trial judge who added interest to a judgment which did not provide for interest and which had been affirmed without any order as to interest. The writ was issued, the court saying: The fact that the judgment of this court merely affirmed the judgment of the general term with costs, and said nothing about interest, is to be taken as a declaration of this court that, upon the record as presented to it, no interest was to be allowed. It was thereupon the duty of the general term to enter a judgment strictly in accordance with the judgment of this court, and not to add to it the allowance of interest.    Under these circumstances, the general term had no authority to make its order of June 9, 1890, in regard to interest on the judgment.    The principle has been well established, in numerous cases, that, on a mandate from this court, containing a specific direction to the inferior court to enter a specific judgment, the latter court has no authority to do anything but to execute the mandate. The statute relied upon, 28 USCA § 811, was originally enacted in 1842. Rule 26 of our court, and Rule 30 of the Supreme Court, here relied upon (28 USCA following section 354), are the same as Rule 62, adopted in December, 1852, save that the present Rule 30 is qualified by the expression and interest is properly allowable. These cases are therefore binding authorities. They have been uniformly followed by the lower courts. In United States v. United States Dist. Court (C. C. A. 9) 272 F. 611, the rule was followed in a case where, after affirmance, interest was awarded bondholders in an equitable decree. See, also, Hagerman v. Moran (C. C. A. 9) 75 F. 97; Green v. Chicago, S. & C. R. Co. (C. C. A. 6) 49 F. 907. [1] The trial court being without power in the premises, there is no need to inquire whether this court should have modified the decree, on the first appeal, by including interest on the award pending the appeal. It may be said, however, that the delay in payment was caused by plaintiffs and not defendants; the defendants did not appeal from the award, but paid the money into court the day the trial court denied the claim as to interest. The decree provided that upon the payment of $92,160 the lien on the properties of defendants should be discharged. As long as plaintiffs kept the case in the courts, defendants could not clear their properties of the lien; and until such clearance could be had, they were not bound to pay. No equitable reason is suggested why defendants, ready, able, and willing to comply with the decree, should be required to pay interest to plaintiffs for the period of a delay brought about by plaintiffs' unsuccessful effort to increase the award. The Scotland, 118 U. S. 507, 6 S. Ct. 1174, 30 L. Ed. 153; Bates v. Dresser, 251 U. S. 524, 40 S. Ct. 247, 64 L. Ed. 388; Zurich General Accident & Liability Co. v. Mid-Continent Petroleum Corp. (C. C. A. 10) 43 F.(2d) 355, 358. The decrees appealed from in Nos. 1140 and 1141 are affirmed.