Smith v. Volkswagen Southtowne, Inc.

547 P.3d 198

2024 UT App 33

Lois SMITH, Appellee,

v.VOLKSWAGEN SOUTHTOWNE, INC., Appellant.

No. 20220957-CA

Court of Appeals of Utah.

Filed March 14, 2024

Third District Court, Salt Lake Department, The Honorable Barry G. Lawrence, No. 130908362

Rodney R. Parkerand Nathanael J. Mitchell, Salt Lake City, Attorneys for Appellant

Michael A. Worel, Colin P. King, Salt Lake City, and Walter M. Mason, Attorneys for Appellee

Judge David N. Mortensen authored this Opinion, in which Judges Ryan D. Tenney and John D. Luthy concurred.

Opinion

MORTENSEN, Judge:

¶1 A plaintiff in a personal injury case, Lois Smith, obtained a verdict of $2,700,000, but that verdict and judgment were set aside by the trial court. Three years later, the Utah Supreme Court determined that the trial court had erred in setting aside the verdict. On remand, the trial court awarded over $400,000 in postjudgment interest. The defendant, Volkswagen SouthTowne, Inc. (Volkswagen) appeals the award of interest. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

¶2 In December 2013, Lois Smith sued Volkswagen for, among other claims, product liability and negligence after a cracked fuel line in the car she purchased resulted in her suffering carbon monoxide poisoning.

¶3 In June 2018, following an eight-day trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Smith. The jury awarded Smith $2,700,000 in general damages. On August 27, 2018, the trial court entered judgment on the verdict (2018 Judgment) for $2,700,000 in general damages plus $10,030.35 in costs, see Utah R. Civ. P. 54(d) (providing for an award of costs to the prevailing party), as well as "[post-judgment] interest at the rate of 3.76%" pursuant to Utah Code section 15-1-4.

¶4 Volkswagen filed motions for judgment as a matter of law,¹ see id. Utah R. Civ. P. 50, and a new trial, see R. 59.² In April 2019, the trial court granted Volkswagen’s motion for judgment as a matter of law and conditionally granted the motion for a new trial. Smith appealed.

¶5 Three years later, in June 2022, the Utah Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s decision. See Smith v. Volkswagen SouthTowne, Inc., 2022 UT 29, ¶ 4, 513 P.3d 729. Our supreme court ordered "the jury’s verdict reinstated." Id. ¶ 150.

¶6 Following the remand, on September 19, 2022, the trial court entered a new judgment (2022 Judgment) identical to the 2018 Judgment except that it included accrued interest "beginning August 27, 2018 in the amount of $407,588.56 with a per diem of $279.17 after August 26, 2022." This brought the total judgment entered to $3,117,618.91. The trial court also noted that it denied Volkswagen’s objection to the proposed judgment, an objection which Volkswagen made to the award of postjudgment interest from August 28, 2018, to the date of the 2022 Judgment.³ Volkswagen appeals.

ISSUE AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

[1] ¶7 On appeal, Volkswagen argues that the trial court erred by awarding Smith postjudgment interest from the date of the 2018 Judgment. "We review the award of postjudgment interest, a question of law," for correctness. Bailey-Allen Co. v. Kurzet, 876 P.2d 421, 427 (Utah Ct. App. 1994).

ANALYSIS

¶8 Volkswagen’s argument against the trial court’s order of postjudgment interest is twofold—first, that the court misinterpreted the postjudgment interest statute and second, that the court violated the mandate rule. We address each argument in turn.

I. Postjudgment Interest Statute

¶9 In Utah, "final civil and criminal judgments of the district court and justice court shall bear interest at the federal postjudgment interest rate … plus 2%." Utah Code § 15-l-4(3)(a). The parties’ dispute on appeal is not over whether postjudgment interest applies here; rather, the disagreement is over what point in time the court had statutory authority to apply the interest. In reaching its decision to award postjudgment interest from the 2018 Judgment date to the present, the trial court relied on Hewitt v. General Tire & Rubber Co., 5 Utah 2d 379, 302 P.2d 712 (1956), where our supreme court stated that it could not "see any good reason why [a] plaintiff should lose [post-judgment] interest because [a] defendant was able to convince the trial court to make an erroneous ruling." Id. at 714.

¶10 Volkswagen argues that the trial court erred in relying on Hewitt as the statutory scheme has since changed. At the time of the decision in Hewitt, the postjudgment interest statute stated that "any judgment rendered on a lawful contract" was subject to post-judgment interest. Id. at 713 (cleaned up). The statute was amended in 1999 to more broadly address other civil and criminal judgments. See Act of Feb. 23, 1999, ch. 279, § 1, 1999 Utah Laws 919, 919. Then in 2014, the legislature added the modifier "final" to judgments which fell under subsection 3(a), and it defined "[f]inal judgment" as "the judgment rendered when all avenues of appeal have been exhausted." See Act of Mar. 13, 2014, ch. 281, § 1, 2014 Utah Laws 1174, 1174. In 2017, the legislature deleted the definition for final judgment but kept "final" as a modifier for judgments in subsection (3)(a). See Act of Mar. 9, 2017, ch. 379, § 1, 2017 Utah Laws 2090, 2090. The legislature also added subsection (4) to outline postjudgment interest for a "judgment under $10,000 in an action regarding the purchase of goods and services," but that subsection did not employ the "final" modifier. Id. Any amendments since that time do not include changes relevant here. See Utah Code § 15-1-4. Volkswagen would have this court apply the definition for final judgment deleted from the 2014 version of the statute, arguing that despite this deletion, there is "no indication that the legislature intended" the statute as amended today "to change the nature of the finality requirement for judgments over $10,000." Volkswagen further contends, in reference to subsections (3)(a) and (4), that "reading the statute to permit interest from the date of entry of both ‘final’ judgments over $10,000 and ‘judgments’ under $10,000 violates the principle that readings should be avoided that render portions of the statute redundant." We disagree.

¶11 The statute is not redundant under its express terms, as subsection (3)(a) applies to judgments not covered by subsection (4) while subsection (4) applies only to certain judgments under $10,000. See id. § 15-1-4(3)(a)—(4). We acknowledge that throughout the statute’s evolution, the legislature could have chosen to amend the statute to combine the two subsections into a single subsection, but the legislature did not do so, nor did it have to.

[2, 3] ¶12 More importantly, we cannot ignore the legislature’s choice to leave final judgment undefined when it deleted the definition from the current postjudgment interest statute. When interpreting a statute, "we presume that the legislature was deliberate in its choice of words." 2 Ton Plumbing, LLC v. Thorgaard, 2015 UT 29, ¶ 31, 345 P.3d 675 (cleaned up). If the legislature removes or replaces language in a statute, "in the absence of any clear legislative indication to the contrary, we take the [l]egislature at its word." State v. Wallace, 2006 UT 86, ¶¶ 10–12, 150 P.3d 540; see id. ¶ 16 (concluding that courts cannot insert terms that the legislature "explicitly removed by amendment"); accord Joe v. Lebow, 670 N.E.2d 9, 19 (Ind. Ct. App. 1996) ("When a statute contains language which is deleted by the legislature, we presume that the legislature intended the deletion to represent a change in the law."); State v. Eversole, 889 S.W.2d 418, 425 (Tex. App. 1994) ("It is a general rule of statutory construction that when the legislature amends a particular statute and omits certain language of the former statute in its amended version, the legislature specifically intended that the omitted portion is no longer the law. Every word excluded from a statute must be presumed to have been excluded for a reason."); Nello L. Teer Co. v. North Carolina Dep’t of Transp., 175 N.C.App. 705, 625 S.E.2d 135, 138 (2006) ("[I]f the legislature deletes specific words or phrases from a statute, it is presumed that the legislature intended that the deleted portion should no longer be the law."). So, quite the opposite of Volkswagen’s argument is true here, as the choice to delete the final judgment definition is in fact a clear indication that the legislature intended the nature of the finality requirement to change. Following our practice for statutory interpretation, we presume the legislature’s choices to delete the final judgment definition and add subsection (4) for postjudgment interest on certain judgments under $10,000—noticeably excluding the modifier "final" in that subsection—was deliberate. See 2 Ton Plumbing, 2015 UT 29, ¶ 31, 345 P.3d 675. As Smith points out, with the word "final" appearing only in subsection (3)(a), the sole effect of the definition’s deletion was to alter the meaning of subsection (3)(a) rather than subsection (4). Thus, having determined that the deleted definition of final judgment no longer applies, we are left to determine how to define the term in the context of this case.

[4–6] ¶13 "When the legislature borrows terms of art in which are accumulated the legal tradition and meaning of centuries of practice, it presumably knows and adopts the cluster of ideas that were attached to each borrowed word in the body of learning from which it was taken." Oliver v. Utah Labor Comm’n, 2017 UT 39, ¶ 33, 424 P.3d 22 (cleaned up); see also Rueda v. Utah Labor Comm’n, 2017 UT 58, ¶ 33, 423 P.3d 1175 ("The legislature is entitled to invoke specialized legal terms that carry an extraordinary meaning. And when it does so we credit the legal term of art, not the common understanding of the words." (cleaned up)); id. ¶ 107 ("[W]e presume that the legislature is aware of legal terms and their meanings …. "). As the legislature chose not to define final judgment, which is a legal term of art, we will use the traditional legal definition. Based on the legal...