Opinion ID: 484641
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Postjudgment Losses

Text: 84 EPTL Sec. 5-4.3 provides, in part, that [i]nterest upon the principal sum recovered by the plaintiff from the date of the decedent's death shall be added to and be a part of the total sum awarded. Woodling contends that this provision required the district court to include in the judgment an award of interest on all of her losses, whether or not suffered prior to the entry of judgment. Defendants, on the other hand, argue that our decision in Lin v. McDonnell Douglas Corp., 742 F.2d 45, 51-52 (2d Cir.1984) (Lin ) forbade the award of prejudgment interest for postjudgment losses. Although we are uncertain of the correctness of the fundamental assumption of Lin, we conclude that since the facts here matched that assumption the Lin holding should have been applied in the present case. 85 In Lin we ruled that a plaintiff was not entitled to prejudgment interest on postjudgment losses, stating that 86 [t]he purpose of the [wrongful death] statute is to compensate for  'pecuniary injuries' suffered by the distributees of decedent's estate. Parilis v. Feinstein, 49 N.Y.2d 984, 985, 429 N.Y.S.2d 165, 406 N.E.2d 1059 (1980). The prejudgment interest provision implements this goal by ensuring that the distributees are compensated for the time value of the income stream the decedent would have earned between death and the entry of judgment.... Were prejudgment interest applied to the component of the award intended to compensate the plaintiff for postjudgment losses, plaintiffs would effectively receive a double recovery. 87 742 F.2d at 51-52. The assumption underlying this reasoning was that, when the factfinder discounts the award for future losses to account for the income that can be earned on an immediate lump sum award, it discounts back only as far as the date of its decision, not back to the date of the decedent's death. See id. at 51-52 & n. 8. If the award of damages for losses that have yet to occur is not discounted for that earlier period from the date of death to date of decision, then an award of interest for that earlier period would not compensate any loss but would give the plaintiff a windfall. Since the goal of the wrongful death statute is to compensate the decedent's distributees for their pecuniary loss, see EPTL Sec. 5-4.3; Parilis v. Feinstein, 49 N.Y.2d 984, 985, 429 N.Y.S.2d 165, 166, 406 N.E.2d 1059, 1060 (1980); Rosenfeld v. Isaacs, 79 A.D.2d 630, 630-31, 433 N.Y.S.2d 623, 624-25 (2d Dep't 1980), Lin 's view, i.e., that when the future loss award is discounted only to date of judgment there should be no prejudgment interest on those future losses, is correct. Cf. Hollwedel v. Duffy-Mott Co., 263 N.Y. 95, 103-07, 188 N.E. 266 (1933) (under former N.Y.Civ.Prac.Act Sec. 480, discharged employee cannot receive prejudgment interest on undiscounted lost wages from date of breach of contract as this would lead to overcompensation); Petition of City of New York, 332 F.2d 1006, 1008 (2d Cir.) (to the extent damage award already compensates for delay, there should be no prejudgment interest), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 922, 85 S.Ct. 277, 13 L.Ed.2d 335 (1964). 88 Although we have found no clear discussion in the cases, it appears that the prior practice in wrongful death cases may have been to discount the plaintiff's postjudgment losses all the way back to the decedent's death, in which case, the award of prejudgment interest starting from the same date is needed to provide full compensation for the loss. See In re Petroleum Tankers Corp., 204 F.Supp. 727, 731-32, 735-36 (S.D.N.Y.1960); cf. Hollwedel v. Duffy-Mott Co., 263 N.Y. at 103-07. Assuming that the inflation-adjusted discount rate is based on the legal rate of interest, which is used in calculating prejudgment interest, this practice reaches precisely the same result as Lin. See In re Air Crash Disaster Near Chicago, Ill., 644 F.2d 633, 643-46 (7th Cir.1981). 89 We decline Woodling's invitation to abandon Lin on the basis that a recent New York Appellate Division decision, Soulier v. Hughes, 119 A.D.2d 951, 501 N.Y.S.2d 480 (3d Dep't 1986), has rejected it, since it is far from clear that Soulier achieves a result different from that in Lin. The terse statement in Soulier declin[ing] to adopt [Lin 's] reasoning, id. at 954, 501 N.Y.S.2d at 482, was unaccompanied by a disclosure of the method of discounting used in that case or of that court's reasoning. If the Soulier postjudgment damage award was discounted to the date of the decedent's death, Soulier reaches the same result achieved by Lin. If the Soulier award was discounted only to the date of the judgment, the methodology does not appear to conform to New York practice, the result was a double recovery that does not conform to the compensatory goal of the EPTL, and the court has provided no reasoning as to why this was the proper result. In light of our inability to determine whether the methodology used was consistent with that envisioned by Lin, and in light of the absence of any reasoning in support of the result produced if the methodology used was inconsistent with Lin and apparently inconsistent with prior New York practice, we conclude that Soulier is an inappropriate basis on which to determine that Lin is inconsistent with New York law. 90 In the present case, since the jury was instructed to discount its award for future losses only back to the date of its decision, the court should not have awarded prejudgment interest on those losses.