C.E. v. Elizabeth Public School District, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2025).  This opinion by Judge Smith today was the second ruling by the Appellate Division in this case.  The previous decision was summarized here. 

 

The appeal presented several issues.  Two of those questions were addressed only in an unpublished portion of the Appellate Division’s opinion.  The remaining issue, which involved the date from which post-judgment interest should run, was the subject of the published portion of the opinion. 

 

This was an Open Public Records Act case in which plaintiffs prevailed on the merits.  The trial court awarded attorneys’ fees to plaintiffs’ counsel and entered an order of judgment on August 28, 2020, which the Appellate Division thereafter affirmed.  But as Judge Smith recounted, things went off the rails after that: 

 

“After the parties disagreed on the process for satisfying the attorney’s fee award, plaintiffs sought a judgment for the award in the Civil Judgment and Order Docket, which the Superior Court Clerk's Office entered on July 20, 2022.  On August 29, 2022, the trial court ordered defendants to submit a certification detailing the extent of their compliance with the August 28, 2020 order, and it also ordered plaintiffs to submit a proposed order for post-judgment interest running from July 20, 2022 to August 29, 2022.  In its accompanying statement of reasons, the trial court found that ‘[p]laintiff [wa]s only entitled to an award of post-judgment interest from the date of judgment docketing, July 20, 2022’ to the date of the order.”

 

Plaintiffs appealed, contending that post-judgment interest should have run from August 28,  2020, when the order of judgment was entered, rather than from July 20, 2022.  There was no dispute about the end date for post-judgment interest, August 29, 2022. 

 

Judge Smith discussed the standard of review.  “A trial court's order regarding attorney's fees is reviewed for an abuse of discretion.”  But appellate review of post-judgment interest “necessarily involves a mixed question of law and fact,” and appellate courts “defer to the supported factual findings of the trial court, but … review de novo the trial court’s application of legal rules to the factual findings.”

 

Judge Smith then turned to Rule 4:42-11(a), which “states that ‘judgments, awards and orders for the payment of money, taxed costs and attorney’s fees shall bear simple interest . . . .”  He then discussed Marko v. Zurich North American Insurance Co., 386 N.J. Super. 527 (App. Div. 2006), which canvassed other cases and concluded that “[b]oth the court rule and our case law clearly indicate that a judgment creditor is entitled to post-judgment interest at the rate specified in R[ule] 4:42-11(a) absent an extraordinary and equitable reason.”  Finally, the panel cited the comment to Rule 4:42-11(a) that says “[p]ost-judgment interest runs when the judgment is entered, not when all appeals have been disposed of.”  That led to the ultimate question:  when is a judgment “entered” for purposes of Rule 4:42-11(a)?

 

Neither that Rule, its comments, nor caselaw had answered that question.  Judge Smith looked to Rule 4:47 and its comments as “instructive.  Rule 4:47 states that ‘[t]he notation of a judgment in the Civil Docket constitutes the entry of the judgment, and the judgment shall not take effect before such entry unless the court in the judgment shall . . . direct that it take effect from the time it is signed . . . .’ (Emphasis added).  The rule’s comments also state that “[i]t is . . . entry on the Civil Docket which triggers the time for appeal.’ Pressler & Verniero, Current N.J. Court Rules, cmt. 3 on R. 4:47 (citing Pogostin v. Leighton, 216 N.J. Super. 363, 370 (App. Div. 1987)).”

 

“The presumptive start date for the accrual of post-judgment interest was August 28, 2020—the day when the Law Division entered its order of judgment awarding attorney’s fees,” Judge Smith said.  There was an “absence of trial court findings to support a modified accrual date, and a dearth of any factual predicate proffered by defendants which would warrant such a modification.”  The panel thus reversed the Law Division on that issue and remanded the case for  entry of an order applying post-judgment interest from August 28, 2020 to August 29, 2022 on the fee award.