United States First Circuit

In a suit brought by a plaintiff and his wife against a hotel for negligence, arising from a swimming accident at the hotel which rendered the plaintiff a quadriplegic, and against a hospital that treated the plaintiff for medical malpractice (which resulted in a settlement for $1.4 million), district court's grant of plaintiff's request for postjudgment interest from the date of the original judgment on remand, after granting the hotel's motion to alter the original $1.844 million judgment and reducing the amount it owed to $553,200, in finding that the hospital was 70 percent at fault, is affirmed where: 1) where the damages that are ultimately awarded are embodied in an original money judgment that is later reduced but that is otherwise unassailable, there is no good reason why the defendant should not be required to compensate plaintiff for her loss of the use of the money embodied in the original judgment from the time that the original judgment issued; and 2) defendant has forfeited its right to raise its alternative arguments by failing to present a timely challenge to the Rule 54(b) judgment in the district court.

Appellate Information

• Decided 12/02/2010
• Published 12/02/2010

Judges

• BARBADORO

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Jennifer Suzanne Carroll, Eric A. Tulla