Epsom v. Crandall

• Court: Vermont Supreme Court
• Decision Date: 07 May 2021
• Docket Number: SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2020-319
• Citation: Epsom v. Crandall, SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2020-319 (Vt. May 07, 2021)
• Parties: Paul Epsom* & Kristine Kelley* v. David S. Crandall & Mark Johnson

Paul Epsom* & Kristine Kelley* v. David S. Crandall & Mark Johnson

SUPREME COURT DOCKET NO. 2020-319

Supreme Court of Vermont

MAY TERM, 2021

May 7, 2021

Note: In the case title, an asterisk (*) indicates an appellant and a double asterisk (**) indicates a cross-appellant. Decisions of a three-justice panel are not to be considered as precedent before any tribunal.

ENTRY ORDER

APPEALED FROM:

Superior Court, Windsor Unit, Civil Division

DOCKET NOS. 429-9-15 Wrcv & 503-10-16 Wrcv

Trial Judge: Robert P. Gerety, Jr.

In the above-entitled cause, the Clerk will enter:

Plaintiffs appeal from the trial court's denial of their request for an award of interest running from the date of a jury verdict in their favor. We affirm.

This is the second appeal in this timber-trespass case. The jury returned special verdicts in plaintiffs' favor on April 2, 2018. Following the verdicts, the court issued a ruling on April 4, 2018, indicating that plaintiffs would be entitled to a judgment against defendant Crandall, the adjoining landowner, for the actual damages found by the jury ($19,500) plus a $1000 civil penalty, for a total of $20,500. It rejected plaintiffs' request for treble damages against Crandall. The court concluded that plaintiffs were also entitled to the entry of final judgment against defendant Johnson, the logger hired by Crandall, in the amount of total actual damages, $19,500. Crandall was required to indemnify Johnson. The court indicated that it would prepare a proposed final judgment order consistent with its decision and would serve it on the parties, who would have an opportunity to file written objections.

Plaintiffs then filed various motions, including a motion for a new trial, judgment notwithstanding the verdict, a request for additional damages and costs, reconsideration of the treble-damages conclusion, and a request for prejudgment interest. Plaintiffs mistakenly labeled April 4, 2018, as the "date of entry of judgment," and they sought prejudgment interest from the date of a mill receipt for the cut timber (September 24, 2014) to the date of the entry of judgment.

On August 28, 2018, the court denied plaintiffs' requests, with the exception of their request for costs. It concluded that plaintiffs were not entitled to prejudgment interest because the damages were not readily ascertainable and because plaintiffs failed to show how their financial position was harmed by defendants' tortious conduct such that prejudgment interest was necessary to restore them to the position they enjoyed before the tort. See Smedberg v. Detlef's Custodial Serv., Inc., 2007 VT 99, ¶ 39, 182 Vt. 349 ("Prejudgment interest on compensatory damage awards is meant to restore—to the extent possible—harmed plaintiffs to the financial position they would have enjoyed but for the tort . . . .").

The following day, Crandall's insurer sent a check to plaintiffs for $22,948, representing the damages and penalty plus costs, which plaintiffs refused. The court issued a final judgment order on September 7, 2018.

Plaintiffs appealed, challenging among other things the denial of their request for prejudgment interest running "from the time between the date of the mill receipt [(in late 2014)] and the date of entry of judgment." Epsom v. Crandall, 2019 VT 74, ¶ 37, 211 Vt. 94. We rejected their argument and affirmed the trial court's decision.

Following our decision, plaintiffs wrote to defendants' counsel requesting payment including interest running from April 4, 2018—the date of the trial court's order following the jury verdict—to the date of plaintiffs' post-appeal letter. Defendants refused, explaining that post-judgment interest did not begin to run until entry of the final judgment order in September 2018 and they did not owe any post-judgment interest because they tendered full payment to plaintiffs on August 29, 2018. Defendants mailed plaintiffs another check, which plaintiffs refused.

Plaintiffs then filed a motion with the court, arguing that they were entitled to interest running from the date of the jury verdict—April 2, 2018—to the present. Defendants opposed their request. The court denied the motion, agreeing with defendants that the question of plaintiffs' entitlement to prejudgment interest had been litigated and decided against plaintiffs in 2018 and affirmed on appeal; it concluded that plaintiffs were not entitled to post-judgment interest because defendants had tendered full payment to them in August 2018. This appeal followed.

On appeal, plaintiffs reiterate their argument that they are entitled to interest running from the date of the jury verdict. They contend that their damages became liquidated either on that date or on April 4, 2018, when the court issued a ruling that included a proposed final judgment order. Based on their argument that interest began to run from April 2018, plaintiffs contend that Crandall's tender on August 29, 2018, was not full payment and it did not stop interest from accruing.

We find no error. The question of plaintiffs' entitlement to prejudgment interest—that is, interest accruing up to the point of entry of judgment—was litigated and decided against them by the trial court in 2018 and affirmed by this Court in 2019. "It is a rule of general application that a decision in a case . . . of last resort is the law of that case on the points presented throughout all the subsequent proceedings therein, and no question then necessarily involved and decided will be reconsidered by the...