No. 57918-5-I.The Court of Appeals of Washington, Division One.
June 18, 2007.
Appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court for King County, No. 01-2-06590-4, Dean Scott Lum, J., entered February 14, 2006.
Reversed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
PER CURIAM.
In a prior appeal, we affirmed the trial court’s judgment and ordered appellant Charles Vulliet to pay an award of appellate attorney fees to his former lawyer, William McInerney, as a sanction for filing a frivolous appeal. After the Supreme Court denied Vulliet’s petition for review of that decision, he paid the appellate fee award in full. A trial court nonetheless ruled that prejudgment interest had begun to accrue on the appellate fee award from the day the amount of the award was fixed by an order of this court to the day Vulliet paid it. The trial court therefore entered a new judgment against Vulliet for over $7,000 in prejudgment interest. Because McInerney has failed to supply authority or analysis that would justify prejudgment interest on an appellate fee award, we vacate the judgment.
In February 2000, William McInerney represented Charles Vulliet in an arbitration proceeding against Vulliet’s former law firm. Things did not go well for Vulliet. In February 2001, McInerney sued Vulliet for over $32,000 in unpaid legal bills. Vulliet filed several counterclaims. McInerney prevailed, and the trial court entered judgment against Vulliet in May 2001 for $41,118.25 for unpaid legal bills and other costs. After ruling that many of Vulliet’s claims were frivolous and brought in bad faith, the court then entered a supplemental judgment for $56,800 in attorney fees and costs. Vulliet appealed, but we affirmed both judgments in an unpublished opinion issued in August 2004.[1] Concluding that the issues Vulliet raised on appeal were frivolous and brought in bad faith, we ordered him to pay McInerney’s attorney fees on appeal.
In September 2004, our commissioner determined that the award to McInerney would include his reasonable appellate attorney fees of $42,270 and another $72.03 in costs. The Supreme Court denied review in July 2005 and awarded McInerney another $1,120 in attorney fees. We issued the mandate on January 18, 2006. By that time, Vulliet had paid McInerney for the underlying judgment, but had not paid the appellate attorney fee awards.
McInerney filed a motion in superior court for entry of judgment on January 27, 2006. The proposed judgment was for $50,827.64. This amount purportedly[2] consisted of the appellate fee awards plus $7,007.64 in “Prejudgment Interest.”[3] By February 13, 2006, before judgment was entered, Vulliet paid the fee awards. He opposed entry of the proposed judgment because he said he did not owe prejudgment interest on the appellate fee awards. The court entered judgment against Vulliet and his marital community for $7,007.64 on February 14, 2006. Vulliet appealed.
Vulliet contends the trial court lacked authority to order him to pay prejudgment interest. We agree.
“We review a trial court’s decision regarding prejudgment interest for abuse of discretion.” Hadley v. Maxwell, 120 Wn. App. 137, 141, 84 P.3d 286 (2004). A rule authorizing prejudgment interest in a given context should be adopted “only after a thorough study of its probable impact and the conflicting interests and policy considerations involved.” Boeing Co. v. State, 89 Wn.2d 443, 453, 572 P.8 (1978) (declining to adopt a prejudgment interest rule in ordinary negligence cases). In contract cases, prejudgment interest is awardable in two situations: “(1) when an amount claimed is liquidated or (2) when the amount of an unliquidated claim is for an amount due upon a specific contract for the payment of money and the amount due is determinable by computation with reference to a fixed standard contained in the contract, without reliance on opinion or discretion.” Prier v. Refrigeration Eng’r Co., 74 Wn.2d 25, 32, 442 P.2d 621 (1968) (quotations omitted). A liquidated claim is “one where the evidence furnishes data which, if believed, makes it possible to compute the amount with exactness, without reliance on opinion or discretion.” Prier, 74 Wn.2d at 32 (citing C. McCormick, Damages (Hornbook Series) §§ 54 (1935)). Our courts now also apply these rules in tort cases. Hansen v. Rothaus, 107 Wn.2d 468, 475, 730 P.2d 662 (1986) (undertaking the analysis suggested in Boeing and finding “no basis to distinguish liquidated damages in negligence actions from those in contract actions”).
The question on this appeal is whether prejudgment interest is awardable for appellate attorney fee awards to cover the time that elapses between the determination of the amount owed and the entry of the judgment that makes the award collectible. McInerney has not considered the possible impact and the conflicting interests and policy considerations involved in making prejudgment interest available in this context. He simply argues that the appellate fee awards were “undeniably liquidated” from the day they were entered: “Only elemental multiplication is required to determine the prejudgment interest.”[4]
The cases he relies on all involve prejudgment interest being awarded for the original claim (contract or personal injury) that formed the basis of the lawsuit. None of them provide authority for categorizing an appellate attorney fee award as liquidated damages. See Hadley, 120 Wn. App. at 144
(prejudgment interest available when a personal injury defendant loses on liability and damages in a first trial, successfully appeals the liability decision, then loses on liability in a second trial); Colonial Imports v. Carlton Northwest, Inc., 83 Wn. App. 229, 245, 921 P.2d 575
(1996) (trial court has authority to deny prejudgment interest on equitable grounds even though an equitable estoppel claim is liquidated); Ernst Home Ctr., Inc. v. Sato, 80 Wn. App. 473, 487-88, 910 P.2d 486 (1996) (prejudgment interest available on back rent as required by a commercial lease).
Having been presented with no authority supporting prejudgment interest in this context, we conclude the judgment must be reversed. Accordingly, we need not address Vulliet’s further argument that the trial court erred by including his marital community as a judgment debtor.
We reject Vulliet’s claim that McInerney violated CR 11 by pursuing the judgment and defending that judgment on appeal. Neither party is entitled to an award of attorney fees on this appeal.
Reversed. The judgment is vacated.