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Prejudgment Interest for ... Lawyers Who Don't See The Issue Often Enough

By Michael C. Smith

Affinity Labs of Texas, LLC v. BMW North America, LLC et al, 9:08-cv-00164 (3/28/11)

Judge: Ron Clark

Holding: Motion for Prejudgment Interest GRANTED

Prejudgment interest is one of those annoying issues (not unlike court costs and postjudgment interest) that even in a practice where you see the far side of a jury trial fairly often, it's sometimes still not quite often enough to remember the law from case to case.  Here to help out is Judge Ron Clark of Beaumont who puts all the law you need to know about the subject into a useful opinion, and provides a reasoned analysis of the rate and compounding period he believed were correct for this case.

In Affinity Labs, the jury found both patents infringed and assesed approximately $13 million, most ($10.15 million) against Volkswagen.  Plaintiff sought prejudgment interest, and Judge Clark granted the motion, assessing interest at the prime rate, compunded quarterly.  Judge Clark considered the T-bill rate as too low, the state rate (or the infringer's borrowing rate) as too high, but the prime rate, compounded quarterly (as opposed to annually), to be just right.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on March 28, 2011 (boomark / email).