v. Ford Motor Co

The summaries of the Colorado Court of Appeals published opinions
constitute no part of the opinion of the division but have been prepared by
the division for the convenience of the reader. The summaries may not be
cited or relied upon as they are not the official language of the division.
Any discrepancy between the language in the summary and in the opinion
should be resolved in favor of the language in the opinion.
SUMMARY
November 19, 2020
2020COA164
No. 19CA1243, Walker v. Ford Motor Co. — Damages — Interest
on Damages — Prejudgment Interest
A division of the court of appeals considers how section 13-21-
101, C.R.S. 2019, governing interest on personal injury money
judgments, applies to a judgment won after the previous judgment
in the same case had been overturned on appeal. The division
concludes that the plaintiff is entitled to the prejudgment interest
rate set forth in section 13-21-101(1), on the amount of the new
judgment, from the date the first judgment is entered to the date
the second judgment is entered.
COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS 2020COA164
Court of Appeals No. 19CA1243
Boulder County District Court No. 11CV912
Honorable Nancy W. Salomone, Judge
Forrest Walker,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Ford Motor Company,
Defendant-Appellant.
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED
Division I
Opinion by JUDGE GROVE
Dailey and Welling, JJ., concur
Announced November 19, 2020
Purvis Gray Thomson, LLP, John A. Purvis, Michael J. Thomson, Boulder,
Colorado; Chalat Hatten & Banker, PC, Evan P. Banker, Denver, Colorado, for
Plaintiff-Appellee
Wheeler Trigg O’Donnell, LLP, Edward C. Stewart, Theresa Wardon Benz,
Kristen L. Ferries, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant
¶1 Defendant, Ford Motor Company, appeals the district court’s
award of prejudgment interest to plaintiff, Forrest Walker, during
the period that followed the entry of an earlier judgment that was
reversed on appeal. We hold that, notwithstanding Ford’s
successful prior appeal, the district court correctly awarded
prejudgment interest to Walker from the date that his claim accrued
through the date that it finally entered judgment in Walker’s favor.
We therefore affirm.
I. Background
¶2 Walker was injured when, on September 20, 2009, he was
rear-ended while driving his 1998 Ford Explorer. Walker sued the
other driver for negligence. And, asserting that the driver’s seat in
his vehicle was defective and contributed to his injuries, he also
sued Ford. After Walker settled his claim against the other driver,
he and Ford proceeded to trial. The jury returned a verdict of
$2,915,971.20 in Walker’s favor, but a division of this court
reversed the judgment and remanded the case for a new trial.
Walker v. Ford Motor Co., 2015 COA 124. The supreme court
affirmed the division’s opinion on different grounds, Walker v. Ford
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Motor Co., 2017 CO 102, and this court issued the mandate on
December 26, 2017.
¶3 The parties retried the case in February 2019. Walker
prevailed again, and, on May 9, 2019 — nearly ten years after the
crash — the district court entered judgment against Ford in the
amount of $2,929,881.20. Walker requested that the court award
him prejudgment interest at the statutory rate of nine percent for
the entire ten years that had passed since his claim accrued. Ford
objected. While Ford conceded that it owed prejudgment interest on
the jury award up until the date that the first judgment was
entered, it maintained that once it filed its first appeal interest
should accrue at the (lower) postjudgment interest rate until the
conclusion of the case. The district court agreed with Walker and
ruled that “the statutory rate for pre-judgment interest applie[d]
from the inception of the lawsuit.” It therefore awarded him more
than $3.6 million in interest.
II. Analysis
¶4 Ford contends that the district court erred by awarding
interest at the statutory prejudgment rate from the inception of the
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case through the entry of judgment after the retrial in May 2019.
We disagree.
A. Standard of Review
¶5 The interpretation of section 13-21-101(1), C.R.S. 2019, is a
question of law that we review de novo. Morris v. Goodwin, 185
P.3d 777, 779 (Colo. 2008). We begin with the plain language of the
statute and, if it is clear and unambiguous on its face, we look no
further. See Francis ex rel. Goodridge v. Dahl, 107 P.3d 1171, 1176
(Colo. App. 2005). Because an interest statute is in derogation of
the common law, we strictly construe its language. Rodriguez v.
Schutt, 914 P.2d 921, 925 (Colo. 1996).
B. Analysis
¶6 Ford concedes that it owes interest on the judgment.
However, relying on the last sentence of section 13-21-101(1), Ford
contends that its first appeal triggered application of the
postjudgment rate for the remainder of the case.
1. Plain Language
¶7 The last sentence of section 13-21-101(1) states in relevant
part that
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if a judgment for money in an action brought
to recover damages for personal injuries is
appealed by the judgment debtor,
postjudgment interest must be calculated on
the sum . . . from the date of judgment
through the date of satisfying the judgment
and must include compounding of interest
annually.
The district court’s order did not mention this language, and
instead focused on an earlier part of the same subsection:
it is the duty of the court in entering judgment
for the plaintiff in the action to add to the
amount of damages . . . interest on the amount
calculated at the rate of nine percent per
annum, . . . and calculated from the date the
suit was filed to the date of satisfying the
judgment.
Id.
¶8 Ford argues that we should reverse because the district court
ignored the last sentence of subsection (1), which, according to
Ford, “explicitly states that the postjudgment interest rate applies
whenever a judgment is ‘appealed by the judgment debtor,’
regardless of whether the judgment is eventually affirmed or
reversed.” But that is only true if the last sentence of subsection (1)
is considered in isolation. When it is construed together with the
remainder of section 13-21-101, it becomes clear that the switch
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from prejudgment to postjudgment interest does not just depend on
the judgment debtor’s decision to file a notice of appeal, but also on
the outcome of that appeal.
¶9 In particular, subsection (2)(a) provides that interest accrues
at the postjudgment rate if the judgment is affirmed on appeal and
subsection (2)(b) provides that if a money judgment “is modified or
reversed with a direction that a judgment for money be entered in
the trial court,” postjudgment interest accrues from the date of
judgment through the date of satisfying the judgment.1 If, as Ford
argues, every appeal triggered a switch from prejudgment to
postjudgment interest, then subsections 2(a) and 2(b) would be
mere surplusage. See Treece, Alfrey, Musat & Bosworth, PC v. Dep’t
of Fin., 298 P.3d 993, 996 (Colo. App. 2011) (noting that a court
interpreting a statute should reject interpretations that will render
words or phrases superfluous). But the fact that the General
Assembly chose to include those subsections demonstrates that it
did not intend for postjudgment interest to accrue in every case
1 Sections 13-21-101(3) and (4), C.R.S. 2019, outline the process for
calculating the postjudgment interest rate, which is tied to the
federal discount rate and adjusted on an annual basis by the
Colorado Secretary of State.
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once an appeal is filed. Indeed, under the presumption that the
General Assembly does not choose statutory language idly, Carlson
v. Ferris, 85 P.3d 504, 509 (Colo. 2003), it follows that subsection
2(b) — the only provision of the statute that contemplates a
successful appeal by the judgment debtor — applies only if a money
judgment is “modified” on appeal or is “reversed with a direction
that a judgment for money be entered in the trial court.”
§ 13-21-101(2)(b). Neither of those events occurred here. The
result of Ford’s appeal was not a modification of the judgment or a
remand with instructions to enter a particular judgment. Instead,
both the division and the supreme court reversed the judgment
outright. And, as we explain next, reversal of that judgment left
nothing for postjudgment interest to accrue on while the retrial was
pending.
2. Single Judgment
¶ 10 “Except as otherwise permitted by statute or rule of court,
there can be only one final judgment in any one action.” Jones v.
Galbasini, 134 Colo. 64, 68, 299 P.2d 503, 506 (1956) (citation
omitted). When the mandate issued after the supreme court
overturned the first verdict and ordered a new trial, the first
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judgment ceased to exist. See Butler v. Eaton, 141 U.S. 240, 244
(1891) (holding that when a judgment is vacated it is, essentially,
“without any validity, force, or effect, and ought never to have
existed”); Bainbridge, Inc. v. Douglas Cty. Bd. of Comm’rs, 55 P.3d
271, 274 (Colo. App. 2002) (concluding that where a judgment has
been successfully appealed, upon remand that judgment no longer
exists). The effect of that reversal was to put the parties in the
same posture they were in before the original judgment was entered
on April 1, 2013. See Sharon v. SCC Pueblo Belmont Operating Co.,
LLC, 2019 COA 178, ¶ 17. For the purposes of section 13-21-101,
that position was “pre-judgment.”
¶ 11 According to section 13-21-101, interest on personal injury
damages accrues at a rate of nine percent per annum from the date
the injury occurred, through the date of satisfaction of the
judgment, unless the judgment debtor appeals the judgment. But,
because interest can only accrue if there is a judgment, the interest
that did accrue up until the point that the supreme court issued its
opinion reversing the outcome of the first trial vanished along with
the judgment. Ford and Walker were, at that time, free to proceed
in any way they saw fit, including by settling the case. The parties
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chose to proceed again to trial, and the jury again awarded Walker
nearly $3 million.
3. Practical Considerations
¶ 12 Our conclusion finds further support in the fact that adopting
Ford’s theory would require the district court to apply postjudgment
interest to a judgment that did not yet exist. That is, under Ford’s
theory, even though the judgment on which it was accruing interest
was entered on May 9, 2019, the district court should have
retroactively charged postjudgment interest on that amount
beginning on April 1, 2013. Nothing in section 13-21-101 suggests
that the General Assembly contemplated the type of retroactive
application of postjudgment interest that Ford urges us to apply.2
2 The statute does, however, contemplate retroactive application of
the postjudgment interest rate in another way. Section
13-21-101(1), C.R.S. 2019, provides in pertinent part that “if a
judgment for money in an action brought to recover damages for
personal injuries is appealed by the judgment debtor, postjudgment
interest must be calculated . . . from the date of judgment through
the date of satisfying the judgment.” (Emphasis added.) Thus, if,
as is often the case, any time passes between the entry of judgment
and the judgment debtor’s notice of appeal, any prejudgment
interest that would have accrued during that time (and would have
continued to accrue, if no appeal were filed) is wiped out and
replaced by postjudgment interest from the date of the judgment.
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¶ 13 Finally, while we acknowledge the large monetary gap between
the parties’ positions in this case, we remain cognizant of the fact
that, because interest statutes derogate common law, they must be
strictly construed. Rodriguez, 914 P.2d at 925. Judicial attempts
to construe section 13-21-101 in a manner that aligns with
perceived legislative intent have, in the past, created more problems
than they have solved. See Sperry v. Field, 205 P.3d 365, 370-71
(Colo. 2009) (Eid, J., concurring in the judgment). Because the
district court’s ruling was consistent with the plain language of
section 13-21-101, we may not delve further into whether it was
also consistent with the General Assembly’s intent.
III. Conclusion
¶ 14 The judgment is affirmed.
JUDGE DAILEY and JUDGE WELLING concur.
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