MacDougall v. Town of Charlestown Zoning Bd. of Review
| Decision Date | 09 April 2013 |
| Docket Number | C.A. No. WC 2004-0564,C/w C.A. No. WC 2007-0474 |
| Parties | DONALD B. MACDOUGALL, JR. v. TOWN OF CHARLESTOWN ZONING BOARD OF REVIEW |
| Court | Rhode Island Superior Court |
DECISION
This matter is before this Court on Plaintiff Donald B. MacDougall's Motion to Award Interest Pursuant to R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-21-10. Plaintiff seeks an award of prejudgment interest, pursuant to Rhode Island's general interest statute, on a prior award of attorney's fees and expenses in the amount of $50,201.38. This Court awarded Plaintiff these reasonable litigation expenses pursuant to the Rhode Island Equal Access to Justice Act, R.I. Gen. Laws §§ 42-92-1 et seq. (the "Act"), in connection with his tortuous quest to obtain dimensional zoning relief from the Town of Charlestown Zoning Board of Review. For the reasons set forth in this Decision, this Court denies Plaintiff's motion for an award of prejudgment interest.
As this is the fourth published decision of this Court in this case, the facts and travel of the case, as outlined in the prior reported decisions, are incorporated herein by reference. See MacDougall v. Charlestown Zoning Bd. of Review, C.A. Nos. WC 2007-0474, WC 2004-0564, 2008 WL 1699279 (Super. Ct. Feb. 21, 2008) (Thompson, J.) (original zoning case); MacDougall v. Charlestown Zoning Bd. of Review, C.A. Nos. WC 2007-0474, WC 2004-0564,2011 WL 486037 (Super. Ct. Feb. 1, 2011) (Savage, J.) (); MacDougall v. Charlestown Zoning Bd. of Review, C.A. Nos. WC 2007-0474, WC 2004-0564, 2011 WL 3153296 (Super. Ct. July 19, 2011) (Savage, J.) ().1 Using this Court's most recent decision as a guide, and without prejudice to either party contesting the prior decisions of this Court with respect to attorney's fees and expenses, the parties agreed upon the amount of reasonable litigation expenses due and owing from the Zoning Board to MacDougall in accordance with those decisions. At the parties' request, this Court then entered an Order dated December 6, 2011 that requires the Zoning Board to pay MacDougall $42,000 in attorney's fees and $8201.38 in costs for a total award of reasonable litigation expenses of $50,201.38. See MacDougall v. Charlestown Zoning Bd. of Review, C.A. Nos. WC 2007-0474, WC 2004-0564 (Order). As the parties disputed whether prejudgment interest should attach to that award, the Order is silent as to the issue of prejudgment interest. Id.
To address the outstanding issue of prejudgment interest, Plaintiff filed a Motion to Award Interest Pursuant to § 9-21-10, together with a supporting memorandum. He argues that an award of reasonable litigation expenses under the Rhode Island Equal Access to Justice Act is an award of pecuniary damages in a civil action to which prejudgment interest must be added under § 9-21-10—Rhode Island's general interest statute. He further contends that such an award against the municipality is not barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Plaintiff seeks an award of prejudgment interest on attorney's fees and expenses running from the date that he paid those fees and expenses. He also seeks an additional award of "fees on fees" tocompensate him for the attorney's fees that he incurred in litigating both his request for attorney's fees and expenses and his claim for prejudgment interest.
The Zoning Board filed a memorandum in opposition to Plaintiff's motion to award prejudgment interest. It argues that any award of prejudgment interest under the Rhode Island Equal Access to Justice Act should follow the federal model. As the federal Equal Access to Justice Act does not provide for an award of prejudgment interest, it contends that the Rhode Island Equal Access to Justice Act similarly should not provide for such an award. The Zoning Board argues further that the general interest statute cannot be read as allowing for an award of prejudgment interest in this case and that awards of that nature are discouraged by most courts.
In reply, Plaintiff maintains that the federal Equal Access to Justice Act and the Rhode Island Equal Access to Justice Act are not parallel with respect to interest awards, in that the federal Equal Access to Justice Act provides for the award of post-judgment interest while the Rhode Island Equal Access to Justice Act is silent as to the award of interest. This difference regarding post-judgment interest, Plaintiff argues, warrants deviating from the federal model as to prejudgment interest as well. He also argues that a judgment for reasonable litigation expenses under the Rhode Island Equal Access to Justice Act is a primary damages remedy designed to compensate him for the injury of having to expend resources to challenge agency misconduct—as opposed to the usual fee request that is made secondary to prevailing on an underlying cause of action. As such, Plaintiff contends that his request for prejudgment interest is a demand for pecuniary damages that falls squarely within the State's general interest statute in § 9-21-10.
The primary question before this Court, therefore, is whether a plaintiff who receives an award of reasonable litigation expenses under the Rhode Island Equal Access to Justice Act is entitled to recover prejudgment interest on that award, either under the terms of that Act or the State's general interest statute. To answer this question, this Court first must examine the nature of prejudgment interest. It then must consult settled precepts of statutory construction applicable to interpreting statutes that arguably provide for an award of prejudgment interest. Mindful of these precepts and the nature of prejudgment interest, it then must determine if either the Rhode Island Equal Access to Justice Act or the general interest statute allow for the award of prejudgment interest in this case.
Prejudgment interest is a remedy that did not exist at common law. See In re McBurney Law Services, Inc., 798 A.2d 877, 883-884 (R.I. 2002). Indeed, all forms of interest were banned by the laws of usury in early agrarian economies. See James L. Bernard, Prejudgment Interest and the Copyright Act of 1976, 5 Fordham Intel. Prop. Media & Ent. L.J. 427, 432 (1995). The decline of the agrarian economy and the rise of the more modern mercantilist and industrial economies ultimately led to the repeal of those usury laws that prohibited interest. Id. at 433. Interest came to be seen as a stimulant to trade in the new economies. Id.
As statutes began providing for prejudgment interest, courts used two theories to justify awarding such interest: the loss theory and the unjust enrichment theory. See id. at 435. The loss theory rests on "the unarticulated assumption that the inherent income-producing ability ofmoney cannot be separated from the money itself; hence, denial of interest would be denial of an inexorable economic fact." Recent Developments, Prejudgment Interest as Damages: New Application of an Old Theory, 15 Stan. L. Rev. 107, 109 (1962). Similarly, the unjust enrichment theory states that "[t]o the extent defendant has had the free use of the income-producing ability of plaintiff's money without having to pay for it, he [or she] has been unjustly enriched." Id.
The influence of these two approaches arguably can be found in the language of Rhode Island's general interest statute, which states:
In any civil action in which a verdict is rendered or a decision made for pecuniary damages there shall be added by the clerk of the court to the amount of damages interest at the rate of twelve percent per annum thereon from the date the cause of action accrued, which shall be included in the judgment entered therein.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-21-10(a).2 Today, "the purpose of [Rhode Island's] prejudgment interest statute is to accelerate the settlement of claims." Andrade v. State, 448 A.2d 1293, 1297 (R.I. 1982) (citing Pray v. Narragansett Improvement Co., 434 A.2d 923 (R.I. 1981); Isserlis v. State Director of Public Works, 111 R.I. 164, 300 A.2d 273 (1973)).
As prejudgment interest did not exist at common law, it can be awarded only by statute. McBurney, 798 A.2d at 883-884; Andrade, 448 A.2d at 1294. The statute must expresslyprovide for an award of prejudgment interest by its plain language. Id. This precept differs from the well-accepted rule of statutory construction that allows courts to "extend statutes by implication and inference because legislation cannot practically or conveniently, or perhaps even possibly, specify all of the detailed operational effects it should have in all of the various circumstances to which it may apply." 2B Norman J. Singer, Sutherland Statutory Construction § 55:2 at 451 (2012). Indeed, courts often read provisions into statutes by necessary implication, which is an implication "that is so strong in its probability that the contrary thereof cannot reasonably be supposed."3 Id. § 55:3 at 453 (internal quotation omitted). This precept is particularly applicable when multiple statutes are involved because "[l]egislation never is written on a clean slate, never is read in isolation, and never applies in a vacuum." Id. § 53:1 at 373-74. Indeed, "[h]armony and consistency are positive values in a legal system because they promote impartiality and minimize arbitrariness." Id. at 375. Thus, courts typically "have a duty to construe statutes harmoniously where reasonable." Id. at 375-76.
Our Supreme Court has made clear, however, that any statute providing for an award of prejudgment interest, being in derogation of the common law, must be strictly construed so as not to alter the purpose and scope of the statute, as intended by the...
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