Hannah v. Walmart

Filing 668

ORDER ON PRE-JUDGMENT INTEREST: The Court awards Plaintiff $15,645.27 in pre-judgment interest. Signed by Judge Victor A. Bolden on 12/18/2017.(Giammatteo, J.)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT

MICHAEL BARHAM
Plaintiff,
No. 3:12-cv-01361 (VAB)

v.
WAL-MART STORES, INC. and
WAL-MART STORES EAST, L.P.,
Defendants.

ORDER ON PRE-JUDGMENT INTEREST
On August 30, 2017, this Court ordered Michael Barham (“Mr. Barham or “Plaintiff”) to
recalculate pre-judgment interest. See Memorandum and Ruling Re: Economic Damages and
Defendants’ Motion For Remittitur (“August 30th Ruling”) at 19-20, ECF No. 618 (finding
plaintiff had erroneously calculated pre-judgment interest rate based on Connecticut statutory
rate instead of federal rate and ordering recalculation).
Following this calculation and an objection from Defendants, the Court has undertaken
its own analysis and for the reasons that follow, awards Plaintiff $15,645.27 in pre-judgment
interest.
I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
The history of this litigation, both factually and procedurally, is captured in other rulings

issued by this Court. See, e.g., Bench Ruling, ECF No. 561; August 30th Order; Ruling on
Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment and Motion to Sever, ECF No. 255. For purposes
of this ruling, the Court only addresses those issues pertinent to this ruling.
On August 30, 2017, the Court issued an order detailing the relief to be awarded to Mr.
Barham. See August 30th Ruling at 22. This relief included reinstatement and back pay in the
amount of $238,678. Id. The Court also ruled that Mr. Barham is entitled to a pre-judgment
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interest on his damages award. See id. at 19 (“The decision to award prejudgment interest is left
to the sound discretion of the court, and it is ordinarily considered an abuse of discretion not to
award pre-judgment interest when awarding lost wages” (citing Gierlinger v. Gleason, 160 F.3d
858, 873 (2d Cir. 1998)). The Court, however, took issue with his proposed pre-judgment
interest methodology. See August 30th Ruling at 19. The Court then ordered Plaintiff to
recalculate the pre-judgment interest:
Calculating the award should be done as follows: ‘First, the award [] should be
divided pro rata over the appropriate time period. Second, once the award is
divided, the average annual United States treasury bill rate of interest referred to in
28 U.S.C. § 1961 will be applied. Third and finally, in order to guarantee complete
compensation to the plaintiff, the interest will be compounded annually.’”
Accordingly, Mr. Barham is directed to use this methodology to calculate the
interest on the back pay award of $238,678 from February 25, 2011 to the judgment
date of October 27, 2017.
Id. at 20 (quoting Thomas v. iStar Fin., Inc., 508 F. Supp. 2d 252, 264 (S.D.N.Y. 2007).
Plaintiff submitted his calculation on November 13, 2017. Pl. Resp., ECF No. 655. He
calculated pre-judgment interest to be $23,997.37. Defendants objected to that figure, arguing
that Plaintiff misuses an online calculator and failed to properly compound the interest annually
over the pendency of the case. Defs. Obj at 2-3, ECF No. 660. Defendants argue that “the
Plaintiffs pre-judgement [sic] interest calculation deviates from standard procedure and explicit
court instructions. As a result, the Plaintiffs proposed instruction should be rejected and the
calculation provided herein by the Defendants should be used instead.” Id. at 1.
II.

DISCUSSION
“Title VII authorizes a district court to grant pre-judgment interest on a back pay award.”

Saulpaugh v. Monroe Community Hospital, 4 F.3d at 145, 145 (2d Cir. 1993). The decision to
award pre-judgment interest “is ordinarily left to the discretion of the district court . . . which is
to take into consideration “(i) the need to fully compensate the wronged party for actual damages
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suffered, (ii) considerations of fairness and the relative equities of the award, (iii) the remedial
purpose of the statute involved, and/or (iv) such other general principles as are deemed relevant
by the court.” Gierlinger v. Gleason, 160 F.3d 858, 873 (2d Cir. 1998) (internal citations
omitted).
It, however, is usually an “abuse of discretion not to include pre-judgment interest in a
back-pay award” in order to prevent an employer from enjoying “an interest-free loan for as long
as it can delay paying lost wages.” Saulpaugh, 4 F.3d at 145 (internal citations and quotations
omitted). The Court therefore granted pre-judgment interest in this case.
Under the law, pre-judgment interest in Title VII actions should be calculated by
applying the federal interest rate. Thomas v. iStar Fin., Inc., 629 F.3d 276, 280 (2d Cir. 2010)
(“As the district court stated, and we now hold, judgments that are based on both state and
federal law with respect to which no distinction is drawn shall have applicable interest calculated
at the federal interest rate.”). Courts in the Second Circuit generally use the annual average
Treasury bill rate as stated in 28 U.S.C. § 1961(a) and compound that rate annually. See, e.g.,
Vera v. Alstom Power, Inc., 189 F. Supp.3d 360, 389-390 (D. Conn. 2016) (collecting cases). As
a result, both parties erred in their calculations.
The Court ordered that the award, $238,678, should be divided pro rata over the
appropriate time period, from February 25, 2011 to the judgment date of October 27, 2017. The
parties agree that step yields an award of $35,837.53 per year. The average annual United States
Treasury bill rate of interest referred to in 28 U.S.C. § 1961 shall be applied. The parties agree
that rate for the appropriate time period is 1.53%.
From there, the parties diverge in their calculations, and the Court rejects the
methodologies of both parties. Plaintiff begins the calculation as if he had already accrued one

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year of harm. See Def. Obj. at 2. Defendants, however, fail to account for the fact that the
principal on which interest would be calculated would grow each year by $35,837.53, in addition
to the previous year’s interest.
The Court thus calculates the interest as follows:
Past
Backpay ($)

Period
Feb. 25, 2011 - Feb.
24, 2012
Feb. 25, 2012 - Feb.
24, 2013
Feb. 25, 2013 - Feb.
24, 2014
Feb. 25, 2014 - Feb.
24, 2015
Feb. 25, 2015 - Feb.
24, 2016
Feb. 25, 2016 - Feb.
25,, 2017
Feb. 25, 2017- Oct.
25, 2017

Newly
Accrued
Backpay ($)

Year-End
Total ($)

Interest
Rate (%)

Interest
Accrued
($)

0

35,837.53

35,837.53

1.53

548.31

36,385.84

35,837.53

72,223.37

1.53

1,105.02

73,328.39

35,837.53

109,165.92

1.53

1,670.24

110,836.16

35,837.53

146,673.69

1.53

2,244.11

148,917.80

35,837.53

184,755.33

1.53

2,826.76

187,582.09

35,837.53

223,419.62

1.53

3,418.32

226,837.94

23,652.77

250,490.71

1.53
3,832.51
Total
$15,645.27

CONCLUSION
For the reasons discussed above, the Court therefore awards Plaintiff $15,645.27 in prejudgment interest.
SO ORDERED this 18th day of December, 2017, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
/s/ Victor A. Bolden
VICTOR A. BOLDEN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 

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