Greenmoss Builders, Inc. v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 86-047
| Docket Nº | No. 86-047 |
| Citation | 543 A.2d 1320, 149 Vt. 365 |
| Case Date | February 26, 1988 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Vermont |
Page 1320
v.
DUN & BRADSTREET, INC.
Page 1321
Thomas F. Heilmann, P.C., Burlington, for plaintiff-appellant.
Young, Monte & Lyford, Northfield, for defendant-appellee.
Before ALLEN, C.J., and PECK, GIBSON, DOOLEY and MAHADY, JJ.
[149 Vt. 366] GIBSON, Justice.
Plaintiff appeals the trial court's ruling granting defendant relief from a previous order of the court determining the interest due on plaintiff's judgment for damages. We affirm.
I.
This case has had a long procedural history, including an appeal to the United States Supreme Court that established important new First Amendment precedent. See Greenmoss Builders, Inc. v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 143 Vt. 66, 461 A.2d 414 (1983), aff'd, 472 U.S. 749, 105 S.Ct. 2939, 86 L.Ed.2d 593 (1985). The underlying facts that led to the original judgment are not relevant to this appeal, which deals solely with the issue of the computation of interest on the judgment. For a factual background, see Case Comment, Greenmoss Builders v. Dun & Bradstreet, 10 Vt.L.Rev. 205, 209-13 (1985). It is, however, necessary to reiterate some of the procedural history of this case.
The original complaint for defamation was filed on October 21, 1977. On April 10, 1980, the trial court entered judgment on the jury's verdict of $50,000 compensatory and $300,000 punitive damages. On October 20, 1980, the trial court granted defendant's motion for a new trial. Plaintiff filed an interlocutory appeal of this order, and on April 15, 1983, 461 A.2d 414, this Court reversed the grant of a new trial and reinstated the jury verdict.
On remand, plaintiff moved that the trial court reenter the judgment, including interest accrued since the original award of damages in 1980. While plaintiff did not specifically bring its method of calculating interest to the attention of either defendant or the trial court, plaintiff, in effect, added accrued interest annually to the principal amount due, and calculated future interest on this amount of accrued interest at annual periods, or more simply, it compounded interest on the judgment. At a hearing on the motion, defense counsel stated that "I won't take time now to argue against the computations that were made. I ask the [c]ourt to note our objection for the record, so that our rights are reserved in connection with the calculation of interest...." The trial court then entered judgment, implicitly accepting plaintiff's method of compounding interest on the judgment award.
Defendant appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court, which affirmed
Page 1322
the decision of this Court on June 26, 1985. Defendant subsequently paid plaintiff $572,845.06, representing [149 Vt. 367] the original award of damages, costs, and simple interest from the date of the verdict to the date of payment. Plaintiff acknowledged this payment as partial satisfaction of the judgment. On August 5, 1985, defendant moved in the trial court to amend the judgment to recalculate the interest due on the judgment by the method of simple interest instead of the compounding method previously employed, thus making defendant's previous payment full satisfaction of the judgment. On November 20, 1985, the trial court granted defendant's motion. It is from this action that plaintiff brings its appeal to this Court, raising two allegations of error: first, that the trial court erred in granting defendant's motion for relief under V.R.C.P. 60(a), and second, that the trial court erred by holding that a judgment may bear only simple and not compound interest.II.
Plaintiff's first claim of error is theoretically correct, but does not afford a basis for reversing the instant case. Defendant based its motion for relief upon V.R.C.P. 60(a), which provides in pertinent part that "[c]lerical mistakes in judgments ... arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time of its own initiative or on the motion of any party...." Plaintiff properly points out that this rule cannot serve as a basis for relief, since no "clerical mistakes" arose in the entry of the judgment. While the trial court may not have been aware of the method by which the interest had been computed when it entered judgment for plaintiff in 1983, this act would not constitute a clerical mistake....
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