In Re Invensure Insurance Brokers, Inc.

I. Background1

The question on appeal is when interest began to accrue on a court’s award of attorney and expert fees. In 2015, appellant won a jury verdict against the appellee in state court. The appellee dutifully paid off the judgment and the appellant filed an acknowledgment of full satisfaction of judgment with the court. However, that did not end the litigation. A couple weeks later, the appellant appealed the court’s ruling on his request for attorney and expert fees. The appellate court reversed and remanded. In 2019, on remand, the trial court awarded appellant attorney fees (which were previously denied) and additional expert fees. Shortly thereafter, appellee filed for bankruptcy. At issue here is whether, under California law, interest on this 2019 award began to accrue back in 2015 when the initial judgment was issued. In this bankruptcy action, appellant filed a claim for $824,710.93 which consisted of: (1) a pre-petition, post-judgment order entered in state court on May 14, 2019 of $578,847.58 for expert and attorney’s fees, and 2) post-judgment interest on that order of $245,863.35.2 Appellee did not object to the $578,847.58 amount for expert and…