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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAn award of post-judgment interest paid by a losing party does not include the time a court takes in tallying the bill, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled.
“When the losing party pays a judgment in full, does post-judgment interest keep running on the whole amount until the trial court calculates the amount due for the period between the judgment and the payment? The trial court here said yes. The statute and the cases are otherwise,” Senior Judge Randall Shepard wrote in a unanimous opinion in Pac-Van, Inc. v. Wekiva Falls Resort, 49A02-1204-CT-337.
In April 2011, Wekiva Falls won a jury verdict of $102,285 on a breach of contract and negligence complaint. In January 2012, Marion Superior Judge David Dreyer awarded Wekiva $6,368.27 in interest on the jury verdict and $5,075.81 in interest on the attorney fees award.
The court reversed Dreyer’s award, holding that post-judgment interest should have been awarded only for the period of time between the jury’s ruling and Pac-Van’s payment of the judgment, 48 days.
“The trial court’s award of interest on fees for five months after the fees were paid was error,” Shepard wrote. “We reverse the trial court’s award of post-judgment interest and remand with instructions to issue a new order reflecting $1,076.09 in interest on the verdict and $919.43 in interest on the fees, for a total of $1,995.52.”
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