September 12, 2013 Utah Court of Appeals Case Summaries

Sundial v. The Villages at Wolf Hollow, 2013 UT App 223, No. 20121026-CA (September 12, 2013)

ISSUES: Pre-Judgment Interest

Judge McHugh,

Sundial Inc.(Sundial) appeals from a judgment awarding it damages for unjust enrichment on the ground that the trial court failed to include prejudgment interest. We affirm.

At ¶ 1.

“[T]he legal rate of [prejudgment] interest for . . . any . . . chose in action shall be 10% per annum.” Utah Code Ann. § 15-1-1(2) (LexisNexis 2009). Sundial does not dispute that its unjust enrichment claim against the HOA was a “chose in action.” See Snow, Nuffer, Engstrom & Drake v. Tanasse, 1999 UT 49, ¶ 9, 980 P.2d 208 (“A ‘chose in action’ has been defined as ‘a claim or debt upon which a recovery may be made in a lawsuit. It is not a present possession, but merely a right to sue; it becomes a “possessory thing” only upon successful completion of a lawsuit.’” (quoting Barron’s Law Dictionary 71 (3d ed. 1991))). However, an award of prejudgment interest pursuant to section 15-1-1(2) is not automatic. Prejudgment interest is appropriate only “when the loss ha[s] been fixed as of a definite time and the amount of the loss can be calculated with mathematical accuracy in accordance with well-established rules of damages.” Iron Head Constr., Inc. v. Gurney, 2009 UT 25, ¶ 11, 207 P.3d 1231 (alteration in original) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). “[W]here damages are incomplete or cannot be calculated with mathematical accuracy, . . . the amount of the damages must be ascertained and assessed by the trier of . . . fact at the trial, and in such cases prejudgment interest is not allowed.” Cornia, 898 P.2d at 1387 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, “equitable claims typically do not support an award of prejudgment interest because in most equitable cases the damages are not readily calculable to a mathematical certainty.” Kimball v. Kimball, 2009 UT App 233, ¶ 41, 217 P.3d 733. Notwithstanding that general rule, this court has cautioned that “rel[ying] on the nature of the claim” to determine whether prejudgment interest is allowed is inappropriate. Shoreline Dev., Inc. v. Utah Cnty., 835 P.2d 207, 211 (Utah Ct. App. 1992).

At ¶ 8.

In the present case, the amount of damages could not have been determined with mathematical certainty prior to the trial court’s ruling. Tellingly, Sundial calculated its unjust enrichment damages at $30,064.66 before trial, yet the trial court awarded only $5,403. This discrepancy occurred, in large part, because there are no “well‐established rules” for calculating the unjust benefit that was conferred on the HOA. See Iron Head, 2009 UT 25, ¶ 11 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). . . .

At ¶ 9.

. . . Until the trial court selected a methodology, the amount of damages could not be ascertained with precision. As the trial court correctly noted, “three or four different judges could have heard this same case and maybe come up with different numbers.” Another judge calculating damages might have concluded that the full amount of the overpayment, none of it, or some different percentage constituted the value of the unjust benefit enjoyed by the HOA. Thus, the damage amount here was determined by the broad discretion of the trier of fact. See Encon Utah, LLC v. Fluor Ames Kraemer, LLC, 2009 UT 7, ¶ 53, 210 P.3d 263 (“[L]osses that cannot be calculated with mathematical accuracy are those in which the damage amounts are to be determined by the broad discretion of the trier of fact . . . .” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).

At ¶ 10.

Allied Construction v. Labor Commission, 2013 UT App 224 No. 20120729-CA (September 12, 2013)

This decision reviews an agency decision for sufficiency of the evidence; accordingly, I will not be summarizing it.