Opinion ID: 378296
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Date of Entry of Judgment

Text: 33 In a separate appeal, No. 80-1122, Zotos challenges Judge Lord's February 7, 1980, amendment of the judgment changing the date of entry from November 29, 1979, to November 30, 1978, nunc pro tunc. Judge Lord's order was in response to this Court's remand order of January 18, 1980, for the limited purpose of determining what interest on the judgment petitioner is entitled to. The order apparently expresses the District Court's opinion that interest should be allowed from November 30, 1978. 34 Zotos relies on various statutes and rules regarding the award of post-judgment interest in civil cases in federal district courts. 28 U.S.C. § 1961; Fed.R.App.P. 37. We do not see this question as simply one of post-judgment interest. It is more nearly a question of whether under Minnesota law plaintiffs are entitled to interest between the time of the Magistrate's first Recommended Order and the clerk's entry of judgment. Minn.Stats. § 549.09 provides: 35 When a judgment is for recovery of money, including a judgment for the recovery of taxes, interest from the time of the verdict or report until judgment is finally entered shall be computed by the clerk and added thereto. 36 The Minnesota Supreme Court recently decided an analogous case. The Court held that under § 549.09 interest is to be computed upon an award of damages by a court-appointed referee from the date of the referee's report, rather than from the later date when the report is adopted by the court. Pacific Indemnity Co. v. Thompson-Yaeger, Inc., 258 N.W.2d 762 (1977). The referee had been appointed pursuant to Minn.R.Civ.P. 53, a provision cognate with Fed.R.Civ.P. 53, under which Magistrate Renner was appointed as master in this case. 37 Whether this Court's holding in Duryea v. Third Northwestern National Bank, 602 F.2d 809 (8th Cir. 1979), rendered the November 30, 1978, judgment defective is not dispositive. Were the plaintiffs relying on 28 U.S.C. § 1961, the situation would be different. That statute provides for post-judgment interest in civil cases in district courts. Such interest shall be calculated from the date of the entry of the judgment, at the rate allowed by State Law (emphasis supplied). The statute has to do with interest on a judgment only, and not with interest on a debt before it is reduced to judgment. 38 Section 966, (now 28 U.S.C. § 1961) while providing only for interest upon judgments, does not exclude the idea of a power in the several states to allow interest upon verdicts, and where such allowance is expressly made by a state statute, we consider it a right given to a successful plaintiff, of which he ought not to be deprived by a removal of his case to the federal court. 39 Massachusetts Benefit Association v. Miles, 137 U.S. 689, 691, 11 S.Ct. 234, 235, 34 L.Ed. 834 (1891). In this diversity case where the right of action arises under state law, interest should be accrued from November 30, 1978, the date of Magistrate Renner's Recommended Order for Judgment. 8 40 The judgments are affirmed in all respects.