Pinkstaff v. Pennsylvania R. Co.

• Court: Illinois Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: UNDERWOOD
• Citation: Pinkstaff v. Pennsylvania R. Co., 31 Ill.2d 518, 202 N.E.2d 512 (Ill. 1964)
• Decision Date: 24 November 1964
• Docket Number: No. 38461,38461
• Parties: Kenneth W. PINKSTAFF, Appellant, v. The PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellee.

Page 512

202 N.E.2d 512

31 Ill.2d 518

Kenneth W. PINKSTAFF, Appellant, v. The PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD COMPANY, Appellee.

No. 38461.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

Nov. 24, 1964.

James A. Dooley, Chicago, for appellant.

Robert H. Bierma, A. L. Foster, Kirkland, Ellis, Hodson, Chaffetz & Masters, Chicago (Max E. Wildman and Frederick W. Temple, Chicago, of counsel), for appellee.

UNDERWOOD, Justice.

In 1957 plaintiff, Kenneth W. Pinkstaff, won a judgment on a jury verdict in a Federal Employer's Liability Act suit in the circuit court of Cook County against defendant Pennsylvania Railroad Company in the amount of $50,000. Dissatisfied with the amount of the judgment, plaintiff took a sequence of unsuccessful appeals terminating in the denial by the United States Supreme Court on April 17, 1961, of certiorari to review our decision (20 Ill.2d 193, 170 N.E.2d 139) affirming an Appellee Court opinion (23 Ill.App.2d 507, 163 N.E.2d 728) sustaining the trial court judgment. Thereafter a dispute arose between the parties as to whether defendant was liable for interest during the period of 3 1/2 years while appeals were pending.

On August 31, 1961, defendant paid into the office of the clerk of the circuit court the sum of $49,250.70 computed on the following basis:

Judgment ......................................... $50,000.00
                Costs in trial court .................................. 36.10
                Interest from 4/17/61 (the date when the United
                    States Supreme Court denied certiorari) to
                    8/31/61 (the date of tender) ..................... 931.50
                                                                   ----------  ----------
                TOTAL ........................................................ $50,967.60
                    Less Railroad Retirement lien .................. 1,576.00
                NET ........................................................... 49,391.60
                    Less Appellate Court Costs of defendant .......... 140.90
                                                                   ----------  ----------
                NET BALANCE .................................................. $49,250.70
                

Plaintiff refused to accept this deposit in satisfaction of the judgment, claiming the deduction of Appellate Court costs and lien were improper, and that interest had been incorrectly computed. Subsequently, on plaintiff's motion the trial court entered an order finding 'that at no time had the defendant made such a tender of the payment of the judgment, interest and costs as would stop the running of interest on the said judgment,' and directing that 'plaintiff have and recover the sum of $50,000, plus the costs in the trial court and plus the statutory sum of interest at the rate of 5% on the said judgment * * * from November 5, 1957, until the same is satisfied in full.' Defendant appealed and the parties joined in a stipulation in the Appellate Court which limited the question on appeal to a determination of defendant's liability for interest under the Interest Act as determined by the circumstances of this case. The Appellate Court reversed the order of the circuit court, construing the amendatory proviso of section 3 of the Interest Act as inapplicable to appeals by the judgment creditor, and holding that the tender and deposit by the defendant were proper. We have granted leave to appeal to determine the propriety of the Appellate Court's construction of the Interest Act because this case presents questions not heretofore determined by this court.

The problem before this court is to construe, as amended in 1955, section 3 of the Interest Act. (Ill.Rev.Stat.1963, chap. 74, par. 3.) The statute now provides: ' § 3. Judgments recovered before any court or magistrate shall draw interest at the rate of 5% per annum from the date of the same until satisfied. When judgment is entered upon any award, report or verdict, interest shall be computed at the rate aforesaid, from the time when made or rendered to the time of rendering judgment upon the same, and made a part of the judgment; Provided, however, that the judgment debtor may by tender of payment of judgment, costs and interest accrued to date of tender, stop the further accrual of interest on such judgment notwithstanding the prosecution of appeal, writ of error, or other steps to reverse, vacate or modify the judgment.' (Italics ours.) The proviso in the statute as shown by our italics was added in 1955.

The controlling issue which requires a contemporary construction of section 3 is whether an appealing judgment creditor is entitled to interest on the judgment which he is appealing during the period of his appeal, a question not considered by any reviewing court of this State since the addition to the statute of the 1955 proviso.

At common law interest could be recovered in no case except those where an express agreement therefor existed, but because of delays in the payment of final judgments, the legislature provided a statutory remedy in section 3 of the Interest Act by way of interest on such judgments to compensate for such delays. Blakeslee's Warehouses v. City of Chicago, 369 Ill. 480-483, 17 N.E.2d 1, 120 A.L.R. 715.

Prior to the addition of the proviso, the appellate courts of this State were unanimous in holding an appealing judgment creditor was not entitled to interest on his judgment pending disposition of the appeal, since the delay in payment thereof was either wholly or partly occasioned by his action in appealing or cross-appealing. (Kinne v. Duncan, 323 Ill.App. 363, 55 N.E.2d 545 (abst. only); McGowan v. London & Lancashire Indemnity Co., 237 Ill.App. 561, 569; Warner Construction Co. v. Lincoln Park Comrs., 278 Ill.App. 42, 53; see also, Moll v. Sanitary District of Chicago, 228 Ill. 633, 81 N.E. 1147.) This rule has recently been criticized for its inequities (64 Yale Law Journal, 1019) for the reason that it deprives an unsuccessful appealing judgment creditor of the interim use of the money due on a judgment when, by virtue of such unsuccessful appeal, the propriety of the original judgment, as here, is affirmed.

Since the addition of the proviso in 1955, only one court has had occasion to consider the instant issue under Illinois law. The Federal Court of Appeals in Quality Molding Co. v. American National Fire Ins. Co. (7th cir. 1961) 287 F.2d 313, followed the rule enunciated by the Kinne case in 1944, but did not attempt to construe newly amended section 3 of the Interest Act which would have been controlling.

Defendant relies on the above developed case law in contending that the plaintiff was not entitled to interest on his judgment from 1957 to 1961, and argues that the proviso was intended 'to protect the right of the judgment debtor to suspend interest by a tender, without thereby losing the right to appeal.' In support of this thesis defendant states that, 'Absent such a statutory provision as the tender proviso enacted in 1955, an appealing judgment debtor could not make full tender so as to stop the running of interest without running the risk of losing his appeal by estoppel * * *.' In this, defendant has misconstrued the prevailing law in Illinois, for it is well established that the payment or satisfaction of a money judgment by a judgment debtor does not bar the prosecution of a writ of error or an appeal by such judgment debtor. Richeson v. Ryan, 14 Ill. 74; Hatch v. Jacobson, 94 Ill. 584; Armstrong v. Douglas Park Building Ass'n, 176 Ill. 298, 301, 52 N.E. 886; Lott v. Davis, 262 Ill. 148, 104 N.E. 199; Jacksonville Hotel Building Corp. v. Dunlap Hotel Co., 350 Ill. 451, 183 N.E. 397; First Nat. Bank of Jonesboro v. Road District No. 8, 389 Ill. 156, 58 N.E.2d 884; Kars v. Knauf, 13 Ill.App.2d 219, 141 N.E.2d 410.

The following language found in the Richeson case is as pertinent today as then: 'Ryan recovered a judgment against Richeson. The latter paid the judgment before an...