Zuniga v. Whiting-Turner Contracting Co.

270 A.3d 897

Henry ZUNIGA, et al., Appellants,

v.WHITING-TURNER CONTRACTING CO. and Commercial Interiors Inc., Appellees.

No. 20-CV-77

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued April 13, 2021

Decided March 3, 2022

Matthew B. Kaplan, Arlington, VA, with whom Matthew K. Handley was on the brief, for appellants.

Michael J. Jack, of the bar of the State of Maryland, pro hac vice, by special leave of court, for appellees. Aindrea M. Conroy, Rockville, MD, was on the brief for appellees.

Stephen B. Pershing, Reston, VA, and Daniel A. Katz, Silver Spring, MD, filed an amicus curiae brief for Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association.

Before Glickman and McLeese, Associate Judges, and Thompson, Senior Judge.^*

Glickman, Associate Judge:

This appeal arises from a lawsuit for unpaid wages filed by appellants in Superior Court. After appellants prevailed in that action, they applied for and received a judgment awarding them attorneys’ fees and costs. When the fee award remained unpaid, appellants requested the trial court to amend the award to clarify appellees’ joint and several liability for its payment. The court granted that request. Appellees then complied with the award.

Appellants thereafter requested the court to award them (1) interest on the fee award for the months it had remained due and unpaid, and (2) additional attorneys’ fees and costs they had incurred, mainly in their efforts to enforce the fee award. The trial court denied both requests. It ruled that appellants were not entitled to interest on the unpaid fee award, and that their motion for additional fees and costs was untimely under Superior Court Civil Rule 54 (which imposes a 14-day deadline for such motions) because it was filed four months late. Appellants challenge those rulings in the present appeal.

We hold that appellants are entitled to interest on the fee award, and we remand for calculation of that interest and an order directing appellees to pay it. We also hold that the trial court properly denied appellants’ application for fees and costs incurred to enforce the award. However, to the extent appellants also sought to recover fees and costs incurred to obtain other relief (for example, the interest they still were seeking on the initial fee award), we hold it was error to deny their request as untimely under Rule 54. Whether appellants may recover such fees and costs therefore remains to be determined in the proceedings on remand.

I.

In July 2018, appellants filed a complaint against appellees in Superior Court, alleging they had not been paid for approximately two weeks of work on a District of Columbia construction project and had not been compensated properly for overtime work, in violation of the District's Wage Payment and Collection Law (DCWPCL)¹ and Minimum Wage Revision Act.² Appellants sought an award of their proper wages, liquidated damages, and attorneys’ fees from the general contractor, Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., and its subcontractor Commercial Interiors, Inc.³

In response, Commercial Interiors paid appellants back wages amounting to $8,536 and made offers of judgment on behalf of both it and Whiting-Turner for an additional payment of $8,536 (for a total recovery of $17,702) plus reasonable attorneys’ fees to be determined by the trial court. Appellants accepted the offers of judgment, and the Superior Court entered judgment on November 7, 2018, dismissing the complaint against both appellees with prejudice.

Within a week, appellants timely moved for an award of costs, including attorneys’ fees. On February 12, 2019, the Superior Court awarded fees and expenses to appellants in the amount of $41,573.43 ($41,245.83 in attorneys’ fees and $327.60 in expenses). However, while the court's order stated that appellants were "awarded $41,573.43 in attorneys’ fees and expenses," it did not specifically name the parties who were obligated to pay the award. The caption on the order identified the defendants as "Whiting-Turner Contracting, Co. et al."

When appellees did not immediately pay the awarded fees and expenses, appellants informed them they would seek to enforce the order and would be entitled to a supplemental fee award for the legal work related to that effort. Appellants then attempted to obtain a writ of attachment to execute on appellees’ assets, but because the February 12 order did not specifically name the parties liable to pay the award, the Superior Court Clerk's Office refused to issue the writ.

On April 10, 2019, appellants filed a motion requesting the court to modify the February 12 order so that it specifically identified the liable parties, because the order as written was (in appellants’ words) "seemingly unenforceable against any Defendant." Appellants asked that the corrected order "be issued nunc pro tunc to February 12, 2019, the date of the original Order, so as to avoid any potential uncertainty about ... the date on which the calculation of interest should commence." Appellees did not oppose the motion, and on May 13, 2019, the Superior Court issued a corrected order providing that "Defendants Whiting-Turner Contracting Company and Commercial Interiors, Inc. are jointly and severally liable for payment of the amount awarded by this Order." As requested, the court dated the order as nunc pro tunc to February 12, 2019. Within two days of the order's issuance, appellants received a check from appellees for $41,573.43.

Thereafter, on June 10, 2019, appellees filed a motion asking that the Superior Court enter the judgments against them as "paid, settled, and satisfied." Appellants opposed this motion on June 17, 2019, arguing that the judgments had not been fully satisfied because "judgment interest provided for by law and attorneys’ fees provided for both by law and by the terms of the Judgment have not been fully paid." On September 16, 2019, the trial court granted the motion. In doing so, the court stated it was "not persuaded" that appellants were entitled to interest on the February 12 attorneys’ fee award for the three-month period in which that award remained unpaid, or to additional attorneys’ fees (which appellants had not yet quantified or requested).

On September 25, 2019 (approximately four-and-a-half months after the court issued its May 13 order), appellants filed two motions: (1) a motion for reconsideration of the court's September 16 order, in which appellants asserted their right to interest on the February 12 fee award; and (2) a motion for additional attorneys’ fees and costs incurred after that award. On December 31, 2019, the Superior Court denied both requests, on the grounds that interest did not accrue on an award of attorneys’ fees and that the motion for additional fees was untimely because it was not filed within fourteen days of the May 13 order as required by Superior Court Civil Rule 54(d)(2)(B). The court saw no reason for appellants to have "waited 135 days from the date the amended order was issued to file their motion for additional attorneys’ fees."

II.

Appellants argue that the trial court erred in denying each of their requests. They claim entitlement to interest on the delayed payment of the fee award under D.C. Code § 28-3302(c) (2013 Repl.). That statute provides for interest to accrue on "judgments and decrees." Appellants claim entitlement to an additional award of attorneys’ fees pursuant to D.C. Code § 32-1308(b)(1) (2019 Repl.). In pertinent part, that statute provides that a prevailing employee plaintiff is entitled to the award of costs, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, "in any proceeding to enforce" a favorable judgment. We address each claim in turn.

A. Interest on Attorneys’ Fee Awards Under D.C. Code § 28-3302(c)

Whether D.C. Code § 28-3302(c) provides for the accrual of interest on awards of attorneys’ fees is a question of statutory interpretation, as to which our review is de novo.⁴ Our "judicial task is to discern, and give effect to, the legislature's intent."⁵ If "the plain meaning of the statutory language is unambiguous, ordinarily, judicial inquiry need go no further."⁶

Section 28-3302(c) states that "[t]he rate of interest on judgments and decrees," where the "judgment or decree is not against the District of Columbia, or its officers, or its employees acting within the scope of their employment or where the rate of interest is not fixed by contract, shall be 70% of the rate of interest set by the Secretary of the Treasury... for underpayments of tax to the Internal Revenue Service. ..." The statute allows the court to "lower the rate of interest under this subsection for good cause shown or upon a showing that the judgment debtor in good faith is unable to pay the judgment ...." The statute does not contain a definition of the terms "judgment" or "decree"; nor, as this court has noted, does any other section of the District of Columbia Code, though the words appear in other sections as well.⁷ We conclude, however, that the plain meaning of those terms encompasses judicial orders awarding attorneys’ fees and costs.

In legal usage, the term "judgment" is commonly understood to include any final court order from which an appeal may be taken. For example, Civil Rule 54(a) defines "judgment" as including "a decree and any order from which an appeal lies."⁸ Black's Law Dictionary likewise defines "judgment" as "a court's final determination of the rights and obligations of the parties in a case," and as "includ[ing] an equitable decree and any order from which an appeal lies."⁹ Since a trial court's award of attorneys’ fees is a final, appealable order,¹⁰ it is a "judgment" under this ordinary definition.

Federal courts have uniformly interpreted 28 U.S.C. § 1961,¹¹ the "federal analogue" of § 28-3302,¹² as providing for post-judgment interest on orders awarding attorneys’ fees. The reason is simple: "[T]here exists no real distinction between judgments for attorneys’ fees and judgments for other items of damages ....[O]nce a...