Aubin v. Fudala

• Decision Date: 28 January 1986
• Docket Number: No. 85-1400,85-1400
• Citation: 782 F.2d 287
• Parties: Lionel AUBIN, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Stanley FUDALA, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 287

782 F.2d 287

Lionel AUBIN, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Stanley FUDALA, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 85-1400.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Argued Oct. 10, 1985.

Decided Jan. 28, 1986.

Joseph F. McDowell, III with whom Elizabeth Cazden was on brief, for plaintiffs, appellants.

William P. Tocchi with whom Michael B. O'Shaughnessy was on brief, for defendants, appellees Town of Bedford, et al.

Theodore Wadleigh with whom Robert A. Casassa and Wadleigh, Starr, Peters, Dunn & Chiesa were on brief for defendants, appellees Fudala, Morency, Biron and Audette.

Before BREYER and TORRUELLA, Circuit Judges, and HILL, ^* Senior District Judge.

BREYER, Circuit Judge.

Lionel Aubin won a $300,000 negligence verdict against the town of Bedford, New Hampshire, two of its policemen, and its chief of police. He and his parents obtained nominal damage awards on accompanying civil rights claims. Subsequently, Lionel asked the district court for about $80,000 in prejudgment interest. The plaintiffs also sought compensation "for all of their attorneys' fees involved in this matter," under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. The district court denied the request for prejudgment interest. It awarded $146.34 in attorneys' fees. The Aubins appeal these decisions. In our view, Lionel Aubin is entitled to prejudgment interest on his state law negligence claim. The district court should reconsider the request for fees.

I

The suit underlying this appeal is a combined 'federal civil rights/state common law' action that Maurice and Normande Aubin and their sons Lionel and Norman brought against the town of Bedford, its police chief, four police officers, and a state trooper. The claims arose out of a burglary investigation on New Year's Eve, 1979. In the course of the investigation, one of the defendants, Officer Fudala, mistook Lionel Aubin for a suspect and shot him in the right shoulder. Defendant Trooper Meaney, mistaking Lionel's brother Norman for an accomplice, arrested and handcuffed him. Defendant Officers Biron and Morency then went to the door of the Aubin residence and prevailed upon a third Aubin son, Ronald, to let them search the house. The Aubin parents, Maurice and Normande, returned home later that night to learn that one of their sons was in the hospital and another at the police station.

The Aubins later filed this suit, which, after a jury trial, yielded the following results:

1. The jury awarded Lionel Aubin $300,000 on his state law negligence claim against Officers Fudala and Biron, the chief of police, and the town. It also awarded him $500 on his parallel federal civil rights claim against Fudala for 'unreasonable force.'

2. The jury found in favor of Lionel's parents, Maurice and Normande Aubin, on their federal civil rights claim complaining that their house had been unlawfully searched, but awarded only nominal damages of $1.

3. The jury found against Norman Aubin on his tort and civil rights claims stemming from his alleged false arrest and wrongful imprisonment.

4. The court directed a verdict against all plaintiffs on a civil rights claim alleging that the defendants had conspired to cover up their mistake in shooting Lionel.

On December 8, 1982, the court entered judgments embodying these results. Both sides appealed. We affirmed the judgments in all respects, in an opinion to which the reader may refer for a fuller account of the facts. Aubin v. Fudala, 782 F.2d 280 (1st Cir.1983).

Subsequently, when Lionel Aubin sought to collect his judgment, the defendants (or, rather, one of their insurance companies) refused to pay prejudgment interest on the $300,000 awarded Lionel under New Hampshire law. The plaintiffs then asked the district court to "add ... to the negligence verdict" an amount reflecting about $80,000 in prejudgment interest. They also asked the court to "issue an execution in favor of the plaintiffs" in that amount.

In addition, the plaintiffs sought attorneys' fees, see 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988, on the ground that they had prevailed on two of their civil rights claims and that their remaining claims--in particular, Lionel's negligence claim--were, as a practical matter, inseparably bound up with the civil rights claims on which they prevailed.

The district court treated the request for prejudgment interest as "a motion to alter or amend judgment" under Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e). It denied the request because it had not been made "10 days after the entry of the judgment." Fed.R.Civ.P. 59(e). And, as noted earlier, the court awarded the plaintiffs only $146.34 in attorneys' fees.

II

We conclude that Lionel Aubin is entitled to prejudgment interest--despite the judgment's failure to mention it--for the following reasons. First, when a plaintiff secures a jury verdict based on state law, the law of that state governs the award of prejudgment interest. See Hobart v. O'Brien, 243 F.2d 735, 745 (1st Cir.) (diversity case), cert. denied, 355 U.S. 830, 78 S.Ct. 42, 2 L.Ed.2d 42 (1957); Mallis v. Bankers Trust Co., 717 F.2d 683, 692 n. 13 (2d Cir.1983) (state law governs award of prejudgment interest on pendent state law claims even if federal claims provide basis for jurisdiction); compare Furtado v. Bishop, 604 F.2d 80, 97 (1st Cir.1979) (federal rule governs award of prejudgment interest on federal claims in Sec. 1983 suit), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1035, 100 S.Ct. 710, 62 L.Ed.2d 672 (1980). Second, the law of New Hampshire automatically entitles a successful tort plaintiff to prejudgment interest from the date suit is filed. The relevant statute says:

In ... civil proceedings ... in which a verdict is rendered ... for pecuniary damages ..., there shall be added forthwith by the clerk of the court to the amount of damages interest thereon from the date of the writ or the filing of the petition to the date of such verdict....

N.H.Rev.Stat.Ann. Sec. 524:1-b. Third, the amount of the state law negligence award was set forth separately in the judgment, making the computation of the appropriate interest a simple, mechanical, nondiscretionary task for the clerk to perform. Finally, Lionel's delay in asking for the award is understandable in light of the standard practice in New Hampshire federal district court, see infra, and the delay does not appear to have prejudiced the defendants.

The award of prejudgment interest here at issue is thus quite different from an award of prejudgment interest under federal law, which is generally not automatic but is rather a matter for jury determination. See, e.g., Segal v. Gilbert Color Systems, Inc., 746 F.2d 78, 81-84 (1st Cir.1984). It also differs from the state law prejudgment interest at issue in appellees' strongest authority, Wojtkowski v. Cade, 725 F.2d 127 (1st Cir.1984). In Wojtkowski the jury issued a general verdict providing for damages on both federal and pendent state claims. Since the general verdict in Wojtkowski did not segregate the damages into state and federal components, the clerk could not automatically calculate the interest due on the state portion. See id. at 129. The appellees here point to language in Wojtkowski that, in their view, leaves 'open' the entitlement question before us; the pertinent passage says that "perhaps, although we do not decide the point," state law interest on the state law claim would have been available had the jury rendered a special verdict. Id. (emphasis added). On the facts of this case, however, the issue is 'open and shut,' for neither the parties nor the members of this panel have been able to think of any serious legal or factual reason why Lionel Aubin would not have been entitled to prejudgment interest as of the time judgment was entered. That is to say, the entitlement was automatic, and the computation left for the clerk was simple, clear, and mechanical.

Our only uncertainty concerns the precise procedural device appropriate to secure Lionel the award. Ordinarily, we would instruct the court below to grant his motion to amend the judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P 60(a), which allows the district court, "at any time," to correct "clerical mistakes ... arising from oversight or omission." The scope of the rule is limited, see Elias v. Ford Motor Co., 734 F.2d 463, 465-67 (1st Cir.1984); Scola v. Boat Frances, R., Inc., 618 F.2d 147, 152-54 (1st Cir.1980); Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. v. Third National Bank, 545 F.2d 758, 759-60 (1st Cir.1976), but this case falls within that limited scope. See Scola, 618 F.2d at 153 (cases hold that "where the prevailing party has an unconditional statutory right to pre-judgment interest on the award, the failure to include the interest in the judgment is 'clerical mistake' that can be corrected under Rule 60(a)"); see also Hayden v. Scott Aviation, Inc., 684 F.2d 270, 271-72 (3d Cir.1982) (citing Glick v. White Motor Co., 458 F.2d 1287, 1293-94 (3d Cir.1972)); Lee v. Joseph E. Seagram & Sons, Inc., 592 F.2d 39, 41-42 (2d Cir.1979) (applying Rule 60(a) to the portion of prejudgment interest that "was to be computed ... and added to the judgment automatically by the court clerk"); Flowers Transportation, Inc. v. M/V Peanut Hollinger, 94 F.R.D. 99, 101 (E.D.La.1982); In re Merry Queen Transfer Corp., 266 F.Supp. 605, 607 (E.D.N.Y.1967).

The parties have informed us, however, that the New Hampshire federal district court's standard practice in preparing the form of judgment is to mention only the amount of the damage award, and not to mention anything about costs or interest, even when there is no question about a party's entitlement to the latter items. The court clerk explicitly adds those items to the amount of damages only if execution should prove necessary, and in that event, the items are mentioned only in the writ of execution, not in the original form of judgment.

Whether the District of New Hampshire wishes to continue this practice seems to be a matter for it to decide. We note that the model form of judgment accompanying the Federal...