Court Opinion

ID: 9494896
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:49:32.214142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:41.423053
License: Public Domain

TALLMAN, Circuit Judge,
Dissenting from Part II. of the Opinion:
I agree that Schneider is entitled to both nominal damages on his due process claim and prejudgment interest on his § 1983 claim. I dissent only from the Court’s ill-advised departure from our applicable precedent. The Court holds, for the first time, that in calculating prejudgment interest in certain § 1983 “takings actions,” a district court can no longer rely solely on the easily determined and simply applied 52 week Treasury Bill rate applicable to other tort judgments awarded by federal courts. Because the Court’s opinion reaches out to decide this issue by drawing a dubious distinction between § 1983 claims seeking just compensation and other § 1983 tort claims that was neither presented by the parties, nor considered by the district court, I respectfully dissent.
As the Supreme Court has recognized, actions brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 sound in tort and are to be evaluated by the courts in light of the principles of tort liability:
[T]here can be no doubt that claims brought pursuant to § 1983 sound in tort. Just as common-law tort actions provide redress for interference with protected personal or property interests, § 1983 provides relief for invasions of rights protected under federal law. Recognizing the essential character of the statute, ‘[w]e have repeatedly noted that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 creates a species of tort liability,’ and have interpreted the statute in light of the ‘background of tort liability.’
City of Monterey v. Del Monte Dunes at Monterey, Ltd., 526 U.S. 687, 709, 119 S.Ct. 1624, 143 L.Ed.2d 882 (1999) (quotations omitted). Our opinion appears to agree that Schneider’s § 1983 claim for the County’s removal of his nuisance vehicles is governed by principles of tort law.
The opinion correctly recognizes that in calculating prejudgment interest in tort cases governed by federal law, courts in our Circuit generally follow the reasoning of Western Pacific Fisheries, Inc. v. SS President Grant, 730 F.2d 1280, 1288 (9th Cir.1984). In fact, the opinion cites several cases in which our district courts have applied the reasoning of Western Pacific Fisheries to § 1983 claims. Nowhere does the Court disapprove of the computation of prejudgment interest in those cases under 28 U.S.C. § 1961.
Where I part company with my colleagues, however, is their conclusion that we must now carve out an exception from this accepted practice for § 1983 actions which seek just compensation under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. In doing so, the Court relies on a line of cases, exemplified by our holdings in United States v. Blankinship, 543 F.2d 1272 (9th Cir.1976) and 50.60 Acres of Land, 931 F.2d 1349 (9th Cir.1991), which require trial courts to consider a variety of marketable investments in calculating prejudgment interest on awards of just compensation. The opinion fails to recognize, however, that these cases involve land condemnation proceedings under a completely separate statute from the Civil Rights Act, the Declaration of Taking Act, 40 U.S.C. § 258a, and were brought by the United States in an effort to acquire land for public use by eminent domain.
In sharp contrast, Schneider chose to bring a tort claim for damages stemming from the County’s improper removal from his land and destruction of personal property, junked commercial vehicles, in an effort to abate a public nuisance. Schneider could have styled his claim as one for *797recovery of just compensation under the Takings Clause of the Constitution, but instead chose to invoke the benefits of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Presumably, he did so for purely strategic reasons, such as the ability under § 1983 to recover punitive damages, attorneys fees, and costs if he prevailed. By choosing to style his claim as one sounding in tort, Schneider implicitly agreed to have his action evaluated against the “background of tort liability.” The judgment he won should therefore be treated for what it is, as a tort judgment, and prejudgment interest should be calculated in the manner applicable to all other § 1983 actions.
In fact, this is the approach advocated by Schneider himself in this ease. Schneider argued on appeal that he should have been awarded prejudgment interest calculated at the rate required by 28 U.S.C. § 1961, the same approach dictated in Western Pacific Fisheries. He assigned error to the district court’s refusal to do so. Moreover, in his appellate brief, Schneider specifically requested that we not remand this ease to the district court, but that we instead remand for entry of an order awarding prejudgment interest at a rate consistent with his interpretation of § 1961. While I disagree with his application of § 1961 to the facts of this case, I believe that he identified correctly the body of law applicable to the calculation of prejudgment interest due on an award of just compensation.1
In addition to ignoring the arguments Schneider made to us, the Court also fails to address the reasoning and approach taken by the district court. After recognizing the general applicability of Western Pacific Fisheries, the district court relied on Blanton v. Anzalone, 813 F.2d 1574, 1575 (9th Cir.1984), for the proposition that the equities of the case require a different result than would be afforded by a perfunctory application of 28 U.S.C. § 1961. The district court then went on to fashion an award by using a variable interest rate, based on the 52 week Treasury Bill, but refused to compound the interest annually.2 The district court justified this approach by reference to the fact that the County had produced evidence that the seven old buses for which updated values were available would have declined to a fair market value of zero by January 1999. Thus, the district court reasoned that the declining value of the underlying property justified a discount in the amount of prejudgment interest.
While it is unclear how the district court’s refusal to compound interest is related to the equities of the case, the district court and Schneider both were correct in recognizing that the judgment in favor of Schneider is based in tort, and thus prejudgment interest should be calculated in the manner prescribed in Western Pacific Fisheries. By creating an unprecedented exception to the method of calculating prejudgment interest in federal tort cases, and unnecessarily complicating its calculation with the need for a “mini-trial” on reasonable rates of return to fix interest on the judgment, the Court’s opinion unnecessarily confuses what should have *798been a simple and straight-forward application of 28 U.S.C. § 1961. I would have awarded prejudgment interest according to the analysis set forth in the Western Pacific Fisheries line of cases, and ordered the County to pay the $2 in nominal damages, thereby bringing this lengthy litigation to its richly deserved end. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. Schneider requested an award of prejudgment interest at a fixed rate of 7.66%, compounded annually, for the period between the removal and the judgment (12/12/89 1/26/99). This interest rate is based on the 52 week Treasury bill rate closest to the date of the seizure, and would result in an interest award of $64,931.07. The district court recognized, however, that under 28 U.S.C. § 1961(a), the applicable 52 week Treasury Bill rate is "for the the calendar week preceding the date of judgment.” This would yield an interest rate of 4.513%.

. This approach resulted in a prejudgment interest award of $34,145.54.