Opinion ID: 1434840
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Date of Interest (Issue 8)

Text: We also reverse that part of the district court's order denying defendants' post-trial motion with respect to the issue of the date from which prejudgment interest should be assessed. Defendants argued in a post-trial motion to the district court that the jury did not choose a single reasonable intermediate date from which to award interest, as it was required to do under New York law. The district court denied the motion because this issue was properly considered and resolved by the jury in accordance with the jury charge which accurately stated the law, and [t]he jury reasonably selected May 4, 1998 as the date from which prejudgment interest may be awarded. Defendants argue that May 4, 1998, is not a single reasonable intermediate date because, even though defendants began exploiting plaintiffs' copyright earlier, that date represents the earliest date of the statute of limitations period. New York law provides that, Interest shall be computed from the earliest ascertainable date the cause of action existed, except that interest upon damages incurred thereafter shall be computed from the date incurred. Where such damages were incurred at various times, interest shall be computed upon each item from the date it was incurred or upon all of the damages from a single reasonable intermediate date. N.Y.C.P.L.R. § 5001(b) (McKinney 2007). The single reasonable intermediate date must be a date after the earliest ascertainable date the cause of action existed. The obvious intent of this provision is to estimate prejudgment interest on damages that plaintiffs receive. Reading the statute to mean that the date the cause of action existed can be a date earlier than the limitations period and that a single reasonable intermediate date can be the beginning of the limitations period necessarily awards prejudgment interest for damages incurred prior to the beginning of the limitations period. Because plaintiffs could not recover damages for infringement that occurred outside of the limitations period, they likewise could not receive prejudgment interest on damages incurred outside of the limitations period. Therefore, May 4, 1998, was not a reasonable intermediate date. New York law suggests that a remand for the district court to determine an appropriate date is appropriate. Defendants ask this court to select an intermediate date of April 1, 2002, the approximate midpoint between the date the limitations period began and the date the verdict was rendered. The district court, however, is in a better position, having heard the testimony in this case, to decide a reasonable intermediate date from which to assess interest. The statute provides that the date from which prejudgment interest should be calculated shall be specified in the verdict, but that [i]f a jury is discharged without specifying the date, the court upon motion shall fix the date. Id. § 5001(c). Although the statute does not speak to the situation where a jury returns a date inconsistent with the statute, this situation is analogous to one in which the jury returns no date at all. Therefore, the district court should fix the date for prejudgment interest.