Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Ins. Co. v. State
| Decision Date | 29 April 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 3-86-131-CV,3-86-131-CV |
| Citation | 729 S.W.2d 372 |
| Parties | The HARTFORD STEAM BOILER INSPECTION AND INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellant, v. STATE of Texas, et al., Appellees. |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
Diane M. Henson, Graves, Dougherty, Hearon & Moody, Austin, for appellant.
Jim Mattox, Atty. Gen., Sammie K. Glasco, Asst. Atty. Gen., Austin, for State of Texas, et al.
Before POWERS, GAMMAGE and CARROLL, JJ.
The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company recovered summary judgment against the State of Texas and certain State officials. 1 The judgment awards Hartford recovery for the excess amounts it had paid the State involuntarily, in specified years, for the gross-premiums tax imposed in Tex.Rev.Civ.Stat.Ann. art. 7064 (1960), a statute presently found at Tex.Ins.Code Ann. art. 4.10 (1981 & Supp.1987). The trial court rejected Hartford's plea for pre-judgment "interest" on the excess taxes and from this part of the judgment Hartford appeals. Believing Hartford was entitled to such "interest," we will reverse that part of the trial-court judgment only, and remand the cause to the trial court for the calculation of pre-judgment interest and its incorporation in a final judgment. There is no dispute between the parties concerning Hartford's entitlement to the principal damages it recovered.
The Legislature consented to Hartford's suit by a resolution in the following terms:
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... Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company is granted permission to sue the State of Texas ... for any relief to which it may be entitled as a result of [its] claim; ...
... That in the event suit is filed, ... [it shall] be tried as other civil suits; ...
... That nothing in this resolution may be construed as an admission ... of liability or of the truth of any allegation asserted by [Hartford], but the alleged cause of action must be proved under the laws of this state as in other civil suits; ...
... That nothing in this resolution may be construed as a waiver of any defense, of law or fact, available to the State of Texas ..., but every defense is specifically reserved except the defense of immunity from suit without legislative permission; ...
... That nothing in this resolution affects the State's ability [sic] to plead res judicata to any issue; and ... further
... That nothing in this resolution may be construed as a waiver of the State's sovereign immunity under the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution or as granting permission to sue the State in any federal court.
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(emphasis added). The resolution thus consents to Hartford's suit but neither precludes nor permits, in specific terms, any recovery for pre-judgment interest. The parties draw different inferences from this aspect of the resolution.
The State contends the Legislature's omission to provide specifically and expressly for a waiver of immunity, as to prejudgment interest, leaves unimpaired the State's sovereign immunity as to Hartford's claim for such interest, as exemplified in State v. Tennessee Gas Transmission Company, 289 S.W.2d 309 (Tex.Civ.App.1956, writ ref'd n.r.e.), and Walker v. State, 103 S.W.2d 404 (Tex.Civ.App.1937, no writ). In the opinion in each of these cases, it was said that the State is not liable for pre-judgment interest in the absence of a statute or express contract making the State liable therefor, implying that the State may be held liable (1) when a statute so provides or (2) when the State contracts expressly to pay such interest. To these two exceptions, the State would add only two others. It concedes it may be adjudged liable for pre-judgment interest (3) when the Legislature expressly waives its sovereign immunity as to pre-judgment interest in the resolution whereby it consents to the suit against the State; and (4) when the claim for prejudgment interest is essential to effectuate adequate or just compensation in a suit founded upon the self-executing provisions of Tex. Const. Ann. art. I, § 17 (1984), as in State v. Hale, 136 Tex 29, 146 S.W.2d 731 (1941). None of the four possible exceptions being applicable in Hartford's case, the State argues that the trial-court judgment must be sustained.
Hartford distinguishes between conventional interest, or interest eo nomine, to which the foregoing rules properly apply, and "interest" as damages, calculated only by analogy to conventional interest, to which such rules do not apply. The company contends the pre-judgment "interest" for which it prayed was of the latter character and therefore recoverable as part of its claim for compensatory damages occasioned by the State's wrongful collection of excessive taxes. Cavnar v. Quality Control Parking, Inc., 696 S.W.2d 549 (Tex.1985); Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Stahl Petroleum Co., 569 S.W.2d 480 (Tex.1978). The State's waiver of immunity as to Hartford's "claim" thus amounted to a waiver of sovereign immunity as to all damages properly includable in that "claim" in order that the company might have the full indemnity contemplated by the Legislature's resolution and by the body of State law to which the Legislature referred the "claim" for adjudication.
We hold Hartford was entitled to the pre-judgment "interest" for which it sued. Had the State been a private litigant, there is no doubt that it would have been liable for pre-judgment "interest" as a matter of law and as an element of the compensatory damages it was obliged to pay for its receipt and use of money under a mistaken claim or demand. This results from the proposition that Hartford's principal damages (the amount of the excess in the taxes it paid) were fixed by conditions existing at the time the sums were paid, from which it follows as a matter of law that Hartford was entitled to both the excessive taxes and the pre-judgment "interest" in order to effectuate full indemnity for the loss occasioned by the State's wrongful act. Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Stahl Petroleum Co., supra; Texas Company v. State, 154 Tex. 494, 281 S.W.2d 83 (1955); Watkins v. Junker, 90 Tex. 584, 40 S.W. 11 (1897). But the legislative resolution expressly reserved for the State any "defense" it might interpose to Hartford's claim, and this is sufficient to reserve the rule of Tennessee Gas and Walker, if it existed at all as urged by the State and if it survives Stahl and Cavnar.
We conclude Hartford is correct in its contention that its claim for pre-judgment "interest" was, in legal contemplation, not a claim for interest as such but a claim for part of the damages recoverable for the wrongful act of the State which resulted in Hartford's injury. The difference between conventional interest (or interest eo nomine ) and "interest" as damages is an essential part of the discussion in Stahl and Cavnar that we need not repeat here. Suffice it to say that Stahl recognized the common-law rule, accepted in Texas for a long period of time, "that pre-judgment interest cannot be allowed eo nominee [sic] (under that name) unless provided for by contract or statute." 569 S.W.2d at 483. Stahl recognized as well that pre-judgment "interest" has long been allowed in cases like the present, on equitable grounds, in order to avoid unjust enrichment and to effectuate full compensation for the injury sustained, even in the absence of a statute or contract, sometimes following an "unnecessary" or "round-about" fiction or rationale of "allowing indemnity under the name of damages measured by the legal rate of interest." Id. at 487. Stahl determined that the equitable exception existed when a defendant held the plaintiff's money without consent, "thereby enjoying a very considerable benefit, [while paying] nothing for the use of the money." Id. at 485 citing Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Adams, 513 F.2d 355 (5th Cir.1975). Cavnar subsequently re-emphasized the equitable exception but extended it to a previously doubtful area (personal-injury recoveries) of unliquidated claims. 696 S.W.2d at 551-55. The distinction between liquidated and unliquidated claims is, of course, immaterial in the present case. Hartford's claim was liquidated and a kind of claim in which pre-judgment interest has always been recoverable, even before Stahl and Cavnar. Both decisions expressly recognize that the word "interest" is a misnomer when used to refer to "interest" as damages. See Heidenheimer v. Ellis, 67 Tex. 426, 3 S.W. 666 (1887).
Neither Stahl nor Cavnar purports to diminish the general rule that a plaintiff may not recover interest as interest, that is to say, conventional interest or interest eo nomine, in the absence of a statutory or contractual provision authorizing such interest to be charged for the use or detention of money. Instead, the central theme of both decisions is an analysis of the numerous exceptions that pertain under that rule in order to effectuate full compensation for an injury to the plaintiff, in which instances additional sums are calculated by analogy to conventional interest and added to the principal damages in order to reach the sum necessary for full indemnity. But Stahl and Cavnar are also noteworthy in that they speak of the general rule in a way that has no particular applicability to the State; that is, the general rule seems to apply to any defendant against whom a claim for conventional interest is levied. He is not liable for such interest unless he has contracted to pay it or a statute declares that he must.
It is quite apparent, nevertheless, that Tennessee Gas and Walker do speak of the general rule as if it has peculiar applicability to the State as an aspect of sovereign immunity. In Tennessee Gas, the court merely quotes from Walker the following passage:
It is a very well-established rule that a State is not liable for interest in the absence of a statute or express contract providing for the payment thereof. 59 C.J. 297, par. 455; Auditorial Board v. Arles, 15 Tex....
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