Opinion ID: 431798
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: relief awarded for appellees' counterclaims

Text: 56 We next consider appellants' attack on the award of prejudgment interest and the order requiring them to make future franchise and lease payments as they come due. Although appellants' obligations to pay franchise fees and rent under the Gettysburg and Gatlinburg agreements ended in 1982, Williamsburg's obligation to pay 2 1/2% of gross receipts runs in perpetuity. 57 We find no merit to appellants' position on the issue of prejudgment interest. The district court properly followed the District of Columbia's statutory prescription, which states: 58 In an action ... to recover a liquidated debt on which interest is payable by contract or by law or usage, the judgment for the plaintiff shall include interest on the principal debt from the time when it was due and payable, at the rate fixed by the contract, if any, until paid. 11 59 D.C.Code Sec. 15-108 (1981). 60 We find more convincing appellants' contentions that the district court did not properly justify granting injunctive relief requiring future payment of fees as they become due. The district court apparently did not consider the contract to have been terminated or repudiated. 12 By requiring future payments, it essentially ordered appellants to continue performing their contractual obligations. The court thus denied the appellants any opportunity to repudiate the contract and thereby obligate appellees to mitigate damages flowing from any future breach. See Restatement (Second) of Contracts Sec. 350. 61 The district court, however, entered its order before it determined that the appellees did not owe continuing operating services under the franchise agreements. Thus, after it entered its order, it may have concluded that appellees did not in fact owe anything more to appellants under the franchise agreements. In that case, appellants' failure to pay the fees may have been a total breach. See id. Sec. 243 (Effect of a Breach by Non-Performance as Giving Rise To a Claim for Damages for Total Breach). But, if that is the case, the damages flowing from the total breach should have been reduced to a sum certain, if possible. The only justification for ordering future payments as they become due would be a finding of total breach (after appellees performed their part of the contracts) and so great an uncertainty about the amount of damages (based on future gross receipts) that ordering future payments was necessary to ensure their accurate assessment. See id. Secs. 359, 360 (specific performance justified where damages not provable with reasonable certainty). The court's rationale is not sufficiently developed for us to determine if injunctive relief ordering payment of franchise fees as they become due is warranted under this theory. We remand to the district court for a determination of whether the breach was total or partial, and if total, whether the nature of the promised payments justifies its order of future payments.