Zivkovic v. Laura Christy LLC
- Gregory Woods
- 1:17-cv-00553
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Zivkovic v. Laura Christy LLC, Judge Woods denied defendants’ request to shorten prejudgment interest and required plaintiffs to recalculate it.
The ruling affects the plaintiff class and the defendants by determining that prejudgment interest must continue through the jury’s verdict date, while requiring a new calculation before judgment.
What happened
In Zivkovic v. Laura Christy LLC, the parties had agreed on nearly all calculations for damages under New York labor law claims, but disagreed about how long prejudgment interest should accrue.
Plaintiffs asked for interest at New York’s 9 percent annual rate from January 12, 2015, through the jury’s April 11, 2022 verdict. Defendants asked the court to stop interest in early November 2019, arguing that the case would have ended then absent a later motion and pandemic-related trial delays.
Judge Gregory H. Woods denied defendants’ request and adopted plaintiffs’ approach because New York law requires interest to be calculated through the verdict date. The court did not adopt plaintiffs’ calculation, however, and directed them to recalculate the amount using the damages midpoint date. The parties and plaintiffs also received deadlines to submit proposed judgment and damages-distribution materials.
The detailed version
- Zivkovic v. Laura Christy LLC · No. 1:17-cv-00553
- Gregory Woods
- May 26, 2022
Background
The parties had reached agreement on nearly all calculations of damages for the class-wide New York Labor Law claims. Their remaining dispute concerned prejudgment interest—interest added to compensate for the time between when damages arose and when they were determined.
Plaintiffs proposed applying New York’s 9 percent annual interest rate from January 12, 2015, through April 11, 2022, the date of the jury’s verdict. Defendants proposed ending the interest period in early November 2019, which they described as the time when the case would have concluded if plaintiffs had not filed a second motion for partial summary judgment and the COVID-19 pandemic had not delayed the trial that had been scheduled for October 28, 2019.
Court’s analysis
The court relied on New York Civil Practice Law and Rules § 5001(c), which provides that prejudgment interest “shall” be calculated through the date of the verdict. The court treated “shall” as mandatory language and concluded that it lacked discretion to end the interest period on a hypothetical earlier date. Defendants had not identified precedent or legislative history supporting their proposed reduction.
The court also stated that defendants’ approach would conflict with the purpose of prejudgment interest: making an injured party whole because the defendant had the use of the money during the dispute. The court cited a New York Court of Appeals decision rejecting a similar argument that a party should not bear interest because another party caused delay. The court explained that interest compensates for the use of another person’s money rather than punishes a party.
Ruling and next steps
Judge Gregory H. Woods denied defendants’ request to stop prejudgment interest on the hypothetical early-resolution date and adopted plaintiffs’ proposed approach for determining the interest period. The court did not adopt plaintiffs’ actual calculation because it appeared to use the number of days from the damages start date to the verdict date rather than from the damages midpoint date to the verdict date. Plaintiffs were directed to submit a revised calculation, a detailed plan for distributing damages, and a plan for notifying class members by June 8, 2022. The parties were also directed to submit a joint letter about when judgment should be entered and a proposed judgment order by that date. The order did not state the final prejudgment-interest amount or enter judgment.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.