California Court of Appeal

In this case, plaintiff was injured as a result of a truck accident and sued defendant. A jury found defendant negligent and awarded $126,594.74 in economic damages and $1,145,000 in noneconomic damages. The trial court denied defendant’s motion for new trial, granted plaintiff’s motion for prejudgment interest, and awarded plaintiff $34,830 in costs. The court thereafter ordered prejudgment interest to be calculated on the entire judgment. The judgment of the trial court is reversed as to the award of prejudgment interest on costs, and affirmed in all other respects, where the clear purpose of Civil Code section 3291 is to compensate plaintiffs for the loss of use of the money awarded for personal injury damages, not for the loss of use of money for costs, and so, pursuant to section 3291 the prejudgment interest should have been awarded only on the damages that the jury awarded in its verdict.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/10/2015
• Published 03/10/2015

Judges

• Aaron

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel