50-State Surveys › Prejudgment Interest Rules by State
Prejudgment Interest Rules by State
Does this state award prejudgment interest on a civil judgment, at what rate, and from what date does it start running?
51 of 51 jurisdictions verified
every entry statute-checked, oldest 2026-07-05
What this survey covers
When a lawsuit takes years to resolve, the money at stake keeps losing value the whole time it sits unpaid. Prejudgment interest is how the law compensates for that: an amount added to a money judgment for the period BEFORE the judgment was entered, covering the time the plaintiff was owed money but didn't have it. Get the rate and the start date right and it can change a judgment's value substantially — sometimes by tens of percent, in a state with a high fixed rate and a claim that took years to resolve.
Every state answers this differently, and the differences are not small. Some states set one flat rate for everything; others peg the rate to a market benchmark that moves monthly. Some states start the clock on the date a debt became due; others wait until a lawsuit is filed. Most states treat a contract claim and a personal-injury or property-damage claim differently — sometimes with a different rate, sometimes with a different trigger date, sometimes with one available as of right and the other left to a court's discretion. This survey answers one question, state by state: what's the rate, when does it start, and does a contract claim get treated differently than a tort claim? Each state's page states the rule in plain English, quotes the statute it comes from, and shows the date we last verified the statutory text.
How to read the table
Each column is one feature of the state's prejudgment interest rule, answered the same way for every state, with the statutory citation compressed into the cell. Where a state's rule genuinely differs for contract versus tort claims, the cell says so rather than picking one and ignoring the other. Click a state for the full plain-English page: the rule dimension by dimension, the practical traps people actually hit, and the verbatim statutory text with official source links.
The patterns across all 51 pages
A contract-versus-tort split is the most common axis, but it isn't the only one. A large group of states (Washington, Arizona, Maryland, Wisconsin, Colorado, Kentucky, Oregon, Idaho, Vermont, Wyoming, Mississippi, Arkansas, and South Carolina among them) instead split by whether the damages are liquidated or ascertainable, a line that cuts across claim type: a fixed medical bill in a tort case and a fixed contract debt are treated the same way, while pain-and-suffering damages and an unliquidated contract claim are treated the same way too, usually left to a court's discretion. A smaller cluster of states (Hawaii, Minnesota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Alaska, and D.C.'s liquidated-debt track) go further and drop the contract/tort distinction entirely, applying one statute and one mechanism no matter what kind of claim it is.
Government defendants are a real fault line of their own, independent of the contract/tort or liquidated/unliquidated axis: some states bar prejudgment interest against the government outright (Wyoming, Iowa on tort claims, South Carolina), some fold it inside an existing damages cap (Maine), some exclude it from the cap (New Hampshire), and several simply never resolved the question in any reported case (Nevada, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, D.C.). A handful of states also gate an entire claim type on a procedural precondition rather than a substantive test -- a settlement demand that must beat the eventual verdict (Delaware, Missouri, Utah, Nebraska), or a jury-fact-finding step that can be waived by omission (South Dakota's June 2026 Fischer v. Fischer-Olson decision is the sharpest example: a mandatory right lost entirely because nobody asked the jury to fix a disputed date). The rate itself ranges from a fixed low single digit to double digits, and a few states (Colorado, and Vermont's borrowed general rate) compound annually rather than running simple interest, which was the default everywhere else this survey could confirm one way or the other.
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| State | Governing law | Interest rate | When interest starts running | Contract vs. tort claims | Mandatory or discretionary | Simple or compound | Claims against the government | Other exceptions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama verified 2026-07-05 | Contract claims: Ala. Code § 8-8-8 (interest accrues on breach of contract), read together with § 8-8-1 (the general legal/maximum interest rate). Tort claims: NO statute -- the right comes entirely from Alabama common law (Nelson v. AmSouth Bank, N.A., 622 So. 2d 894 (Ala. 1993); Lapeyrouse Grain Corp. v. Tallant, 439 So. 2d 105 (Ala. 1983)), borrowing the same § 8-8-1 legal rate | 6% a year in the absence of a written contract; a written contract can set its own rate up to a statutory cap of $8 per $100 per year (8%). The 6% "legal rate" is the same rate courts apply to a qualifying tort claim's prejudgment interest by common law, since no separate tort rate exists | Contract: from the day the money (or thing, valued in money) should have been paid or the act performed, per § 8-8-8's own text. Tort: from whenever the loss became fixed and ascertainable by a known standard of value or by mathematical computation -- for example, the date of injury to property with a market value, or the date a legal determination fixed a previously-disputed share of a fund -- not automatically from the date of injury or the date suit was filed | Genuinely different mechanisms, not just different rates: contract prejudgment interest is a statutory entitlement running from the day payment was due, full stop. Tort prejudgment interest doesn't exist by statute at all -- it's a common-law rule that applies only where the damages themselves are provably certain or reducible to certainty by computation or known valuation standards; the Alabama Supreme Court has been explicit that § 8-8-8 does not apply to tort claims (Nelson v. AmSouth Bank) | Contract: effectively automatic once a payment date passed -- the statute says such contracts "bear interest," not that a court may award it. Tort: not discretionary once the ascertainability test is met -- the Alabama Supreme Court has REVERSED a trial court's denial of prejudgment interest where the damages were in fact fixed and calculable, treating it as something a qualifying tort plaintiff is entitled to, not a favor a court can withhold | Neither statute nor the common-law tort rule mentions compounding; Alabama's interest and usury statutes speak throughout in terms of a flat rate "per annum," consistent with simple interest, and no case was located describing Alabama prejudgment interest as compounding | The State of Alabama itself cannot be sued in any court at all (Ala. Const. art. I, § 14), so a judgment against the State -- and therefore prejudgment interest on one -- generally cannot arise in the first place. Counties and municipalities are not shielded by that same absolute immunity and can be sued in ordinary negligence (Ala. Code § 11-47-190 for municipalities), but any judgment against a governmental entity is capped at $100,000 per person (or $300,000 in the aggregate when more than two people are injured in one occurrence) and $100,000 for property damage under § 11-93-2 -- a statute that caps damages but does not itself mention prejudgment interest either way, and no case was located resolving whether interest counts toward that cap | Punitive damages against a governmental entity are barred outright (Ala. Code § 6-11-26). A written contract's own interest rate controls over the 6% default, up to the 8% statutory ceiling; a rate above that ceiling risks the separate consequences of Alabama's usury law |
| Alaska verified 2026-07-05 | One statute, AS 09.30.070 ('Interest on judgments; prejudgment interest'), covers both contract and tort claims -- Alaska doesn't split this into separate mandatory and discretionary tracks the way many other states do. A companion provision, AS 09.50.280, applies the same § 09.30.070 rate to a judgment against the State specifically, while barring punitive damages against the State outright | A floating rate, but fixed for the life of a given judgment rather than reset annually as it accrues: 3 percentage points above the 12th Federal Reserve District discount rate in effect on January 2 of the year the judgment or decree is entered (6.75% for a judgment entered in 2026, per the Alaska Court System's own published table). If the parties have a written contract specifying its own interest rate, up to the legal ceiling for that type of contract, the contract rate controls instead and is written into the judgment | From whichever happens first: the day process was served on the defendant, or the day the defendant received written notification that an injury occurred and that a claim might be brought over it -- unless the court finds the parties agreed to a different date. The written notification must be of a kind that would lead a prudent person to expect a claim for personal injury, death, or property damage | Genuinely unified, like Hawaii, Rhode Island, and a handful of other states in this survey -- Alaska doesn't use separate statutes, separate rates, or a mandatory-vs-discretionary split for contract versus tort claims. One section, AS 09.30.070, applies the same floating rate and the same basic mechanism to both. The only real difference in practice is which accrual trigger tends to matter: a contract claim's interest more often runs from a demand or the date the debt was due (captured by the 'written notification' language), while a tort claim's interest typically runs from the date process was served or an earlier injury notice | Framed as essentially automatic once the accrual date is established -- the statute doesn't give the court discretion to decline interest once a money judgment is entered. The one place discretion enters is the accrual date itself: the default triggers (service of process or written injury notice) apply 'except when the court finds that the parties have agreed otherwise,' meaning the parties can contract around the default starting point | Simple interest only. The Alaska Supreme Court has held directly that AS 09.30.070 'does not provide for compound interest on judgments,' rejecting a request for prejudgment interest compounded annually and instead affirming a simple-interest calculation from the date of the taking to judgment | A judgment against the State of Alaska draws the same prejudgment interest as any other judgment, calculated under AS 09.30.070 -- but AS 09.50.280 expressly bars punitive damages against the State in the same breath, a rule the Alaska Supreme Court has enforced by reversing a punitive-damages award entered against a state corporation. Municipalities have no comparable blanket immunity: AS 09.65.070 lets an action be maintained against a municipality in its corporate capacity, subject to specific carve-outs (fire department employees performing department functions, certain property-inspection failures, and other listed exceptions). This survey found no separate prejudgment-interest rule or damages cap specific to municipalities -- ordinary AS 09.30.070 rules appear to apply | AS 09.30.070(c) states outright that 'prejudgment interest may not be awarded for future economic damages, future noneconomic damages, or punitive damages' -- three flat carve-outs from the statute's own text, applying regardless of claim type. Separately, subsection (b)'s accrual-date default can be displaced entirely if the court finds the parties agreed to a different starting point |
| Arizona verified 2026-07-05 | A.R.S. § 44-1201 is Arizona's single, comprehensive interest statute -- covering ordinary debts, judgments generally, medical debt, and condemnation proceedings all in one section, and expressly barring prejudgment interest on unliquidated, future, punitive, or exemplary damages. A body of case law (Fleming v. Pima County; Employers Mutual Casualty Co. v. McKeon) establishes that a LIQUIDATED claim draws prejudgment interest as a matter of right, regardless of whether it sounds in contract or in tort | For an ordinary debt or obligation other than medical debt: 10% a year, unless a different rate is agreed to in writing. For a judgment on that kind of written agreement: the agreement's own rate. For any other judgment, including prejudgment interest on a liquidated claim with no contract rate: the lesser of 10% a year or 1% plus the prime rate (as published by the Federal Reserve), which is fixed at whatever it is once the judgment is entered and does not change afterward. Medical debt, and any judgment on medical debt, is capped separately at the lesser of a one-year Treasury constant-maturity yield or 3% | For a liquidated claim, interest runs from the date the debt or obligation became due -- typically the date of breach, demand, or when the amount was fixed -- not from the date suit was filed or judgment entered. For an unliquidated claim, there is no prejudgment interest at all: the statute expressly forbids a court from awarding it | Arizona's real dividing line is liquidated versus unliquidated damages, not contract versus tort. "Prejudgment interest is a matter of right on a liquidated claim regardless of whether the claim sounds in contract or in tort" (Fleming v. Pima County, as stated in Employers Mutual Casualty Co. v. McKeon). A claim is liquidated if the evidence lets its amount be computed with exactness, without reliance on a judge's or jury's opinion or discretion -- true of many contract debts and of some tort claims with an exactly fixed loss, but not of most personal-injury verdicts | Mandatory once a claim is liquidated -- "prejudgment interest on a liquidated claim is a matter of right and not a matter of discretion" (Employers Mutual Casualty Co. v. McKeon). For an unliquidated claim, the statute goes further than leaving it to discretion: it affirmatively PROHIBITS a court from awarding prejudgment interest on it at all | The statute never uses the word "compound"; it describes an annual rate applied to a principal sum, and Arizona courts and practitioners calculate it as simple interest | Arizona doesn't bar or generally discount interest against the state or its agencies -- the ordinary § 44-1201 rate structure applies, and courts have enforced the FULL, undiscounted rate against a state entity: when the Arizona State Retirement System had to refund an over-collected charge to Arizona State University, the Court of Appeals held the University was entitled to the full 10% rate for an "indebtedness" under subsection (A), not the lower prime-plus-1% "judgment" rate under subsection (B), because the debt existed independently of any judgment (Arizona State University Board of Regents v. Arizona State Retirement System). A condemnation judgment against a city, county, the state transportation department, or certain special districts uses a separate rate statute specific to that body (§ 44-1201(C)) -- outside this survey's scope, which excludes eminent-domain-specific rates | No prejudgment interest is allowed on unliquidated damages, and no interest at all -- pre- or post-judgment -- is allowed on future damages, punitive damages, or exemplary damages found by the trier of fact; this is a categorical statutory bar, not a discretionary call. Medical debt and judgments on medical debt are carved out of the general 10%/prime-plus-1% framework entirely, capped instead at the lesser of a one-year Treasury constant-maturity yield or 3%. A condemnation judgment's rate depends on which government body brought the proceeding, each set by its own separate statute |
| Arkansas verified 2026-07-05 | Ark. Code Ann. § 16-65-114 (sets the rate for judgments, including prejudgment interest 'if appropriate'); § 4-57-101(d) (6% default contract rate); Ark. Const. amend. 89 (rate ceiling); the entitlement test itself comes entirely from case law (Woodline Motor Freight v. Troutman Oil) | Contract judgment: the contract's own rate, or the Federal Reserve primary credit rate plus 2%, whichever is greater; any other judgment: Federal Reserve primary credit rate plus 2%; both capped at 17%/yr by Ark. Const. amend. 89 | From the date the damages became fixed or ascertainable (typically the date of breach for a contract claim); case law folds the start date into the same ascertainability test as the entitlement question itself | The entitlement test (ascertainability) applies uniformly to both claim types per Woodline; only the applicable RATE differs by contract vs. non-contract judgment under § 16-65-114 | Mandatory as a matter of law once damages are shown to be ascertainable; the only real discretion is in the antecedent factual finding of ascertainability itself | No Arkansas statute or case located that authorizes compounding; every rate is stated as a simple per-annum figure, so simple interest is the working assumption | The State of Arkansas cannot be sued in its own courts at all (Ark. Const. art. 5, § 20); claims go to the State Claims Commission instead, capped at $15,000 without legislative approval, and no located provision authorizes the Commission to award prejudgment interest; county judgments never bear any interest, statutorily | A judgment against a county on a county warrant or other county indebtedness bears no interest at all (§ 16-65-114(b)); no Arkansas rule located that categorically bars prejudgment interest on a punitive-damages component distinct from the ascertainability analysis |
| California verified 2026-07-05 | Civ. Code §§ 3287-3291 (Interest as Damages); Cal. Const. art. XV, § 1 sets the default rate | 7%/yr default for tort/other non-contract claims; contract's own rate, or 10%/yr if the contract is silent | Contract: the day the right vested or (for the 10% default) the date of breach; Tort: left to the jury, typically the date of the loss | Governed by separate sections with different default rates and different mandatory/discretionary rules | Mandatory once damages are certain or calculable (§ 3287(a)); discretionary for an unliquidated contract claim and for any tort claim | Simple interest only; does not compound absent a contract term saying so | The general rule reaches government debtors too; a tax or fee judgment against a public entity instead gets a separate, capped Treasury-yield rate | Beating a rejected settlement offer gives a personal-injury plaintiff 10%/yr from the offer date, but never against a public entity or public employee |
| Colorado verified 2026-07-05 | Two entirely separate statutes split by claim type, each expressly excluding the other. C.R.S. § 13-21-101 covers personal-injury and wrongful-death TORT claims only. C.R.S. § 5-12-102 ("Except as provided in section 13-21-101...") covers everything else -- contract debts, property damage, and any other claim for money or property "wrongfully withheld" -- and expressly applies even to unliquidated amounts | For a personal-injury tort claim: a flat 9% a year, compounded annually, under § 13-21-101 (set in 1975; compounding added in 1979). For everything else under § 5-12-102: either 8% a year compounded annually, or, at the claimant's election, an amount that "fully recognizes the gain or benefit realized" by the party that wrongfully withheld the money or property (roughly a disgorgement measure) if that money or property was an identifiable separate asset. Medical debt is capped separately at 3% a year (added 2023). If a personal-injury judgment is appealed, a different floating post-judgment rate applies instead during the appeal (2 percentage points above a Kansas City Federal Reserve discount rate, certified annually by the secretary of state) | For a personal-injury tort claim: from the date the action accrued (the date of injury), continuously through to the date the judgment is satisfied -- one uninterrupted clock, not separate pre- and post-judgment periods, unless the judgment is appealed, which triggers the separate floating post-judgment rate for the appeal period. For a § 5-12-102 claim: from the date the money or property was wrongfully withheld, or from the date it became due (on a contract, note, account, or settlement), through to the date of payment or judgment entry, whichever comes first | Colorado's real dividing line is personal-injury tort versus everything else -- not liquidated versus unliquidated damages the way several other states split it. Personal-injury and wrongful-death claims get their own dedicated statute (§ 13-21-101) at a distinct 9% compounding rate running continuously from injury to payment. Every other claim type -- contract, property damage, and other torts like conversion -- falls under § 5-12-102's 8% compounding rate instead, and that statute goes further than most states by expressly applying "even if the amount is unliquidated at the time of wrongful withholding or at the time when due" -- Colorado does not require liquidated damages the way Arizona, Washington, or Maryland do for their general prejudgment-interest right | Both statutes use mandatory language, not equitable discretion. Under § 13-21-101, once a plaintiff claims interest in the complaint, "it is the duty of the court" to add it to the judgment. Under § 5-12-102, "creditors shall receive interest" once money or property has been wrongfully withheld or a debt has become due -- an entitlement, not a judgment call, though a court still determines the dollar amount when the claimant elects the gain-or-benefit measure instead of the flat 8% rate | Both statutes compound annually -- explicitly, in their own text. Section 5-12-102 says "eight percent per annum compounded annually" in three separate subsections. Section 13-21-101 requires "compounding of interest annually from the date the suit was filed" for actions filed on or after July 1, 1979, and again for post-judgment interest during an appeal. This is a genuinely different default than most states surveyed so far, which apply simple interest absent an express statutory compounding instruction | The Colorado Governmental Immunity Act (CGIA), C.R.S. §§ 24-10-101 to -120, bars ALL tort claims against a public entity or employee UNLESS the claim fits one of a short list of enumerated waiver categories (operating a motor vehicle, a dangerous condition of a public building/highway/hospital/jail, and operating certain public utilities and facilities, among a few others) -- outside those categories, a tort claim against the government can't proceed at all, so a prejudgment-interest question never arises. Where a CGIA waiver DOES apply, total damages recoverable from the public entity are capped (currently $424,000 per person / $1,195,000 per occurrence for claims accruing 2022-2026, rising to $505,000 / $1,421,000 for claims accruing 2026-2030, adjusted for inflation every four years) -- no statutory language was found either including or excluding interest from that cap, unlike some other states' explicit rules on this exact point. The CGIA doesn't apply to breach-of-contract claims against the government at all | Section 5-12-102(3)'s express coverage of unliquidated amounts is itself Colorado's biggest departure from most other states' approach. A separate limit comes from case law: the Colorado Supreme Court held in Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Holmes (2008) that a claimant suing for the cost of FUTURE repairs (not yet incurred) hasn't lost the time value of any money and so isn't entitled to prejudgment interest on that future-cost component under § 5-12-102(1)(b) -- only past, already-incurred costs draw interest. Medical debt is separately capped at 3% rather than the general 8%. A 2024 bill (HB 24-1230) that would have added a dedicated 6%/8% prejudgment-interest mandate specifically for residential construction-defect claims died without a floor vote before the session ended; a near-identical 2025 bill (HB 25-1261) proposing the same construction-defect-specific rate also died -- current law has no construction-defect-specific prejudgment-interest rule |
| Connecticut verified 2026-07-05 | Conn. Gen. Stat. § 37-3a (general discretionary interest-as-damages statute, covering contract claims and non-negligence torts) -- which by its own terms EXCLUDES negligence claims, sending those instead to the separate, near-postjudgment § 37-3b. A third statute, § 52-192a (the offer-of-compromise statute), layers a separate mandatory interest penalty on top of either track | Up to 10% a year -- a discretionary CAP, not a fixed rate -- under § 37-3a for a qualifying contract or non-negligence-tort claim; the court can award anywhere from 0% to 10%. For a debt arising from hospital services specifically, the cap is 5%. The offer-of-compromise interest under § 52-192a is a flat 8% | Ordinarily from the date the money became due and payable to the plaintiff -- for a contract claim, the date of breach. For the separate offer-of-compromise interest under § 52-192a, from the date the complaint was filed (if the offer was filed within 18 months of the complaint) or from the date of the offer itself (if filed later) | The real line is negligence vs. everything else, not contract vs. tort as such. Contract claims and non-negligence torts (fraud, intentional torts) can draw discretionary interest under § 37-3a. Negligence-based personal-injury and property-damage claims are expressly excluded from § 37-3a and instead draw only § 37-3b's own interest, which runs from a date tied to the verdict or judgment (20 days after judgment or 90 days after verdict, whichever is earlier) -- meaning negligence claims have no real prejudgment interest at all | Discretionary for a § 37-3a claim: the court must first find the defendant "wrongfully detained" money due the plaintiff (a factual question for the jury in a jury trial), and even then the decision whether to award interest, and at what rate up to 10%, is an equitable determination left to the court. The § 52-192a offer-of-compromise interest, by contrast, is mandatory and does not depend on any finding about the underlying case -- it applies automatically once the recovery meets the offer | Not addressed by § 37-3a, and Connecticut courts and the offer-of-compromise interest formula under § 52-192a both compute the interest as a straightforward, non-compounding calculation (rate × principal × time) -- simple interest, not compound | The general sovereign-immunity scheme (Conn. Gen. Stat. Title 4, Chapter 53) bars a money-damages claim against the state at all unless the claimant first obtains permission from the Office of the Claims Commissioner or a legislative waiver -- so a plaintiff must clear that gate before any interest question, discretionary or otherwise, is even reached | A rejected offer of compromise under § 52-192a adds a mandatory, separately-computed 8% interest penalty when the plaintiff's eventual recovery equals or exceeds the offer -- available in contract actions and actions seeking money damages generally, with a longer 365-day offer window specifically for health-care-negligence claims. A debt for hospital services is capped at 5% instead of 10%, and interest there is expressly discretionary. Interest on a condemnation award runs under a wholly separate, Treasury-yield-based statute, § 37-3c, outside this survey's scope |
| Delaware verified 2026-07-05 | Two different sources, not one dedicated prejudgment-interest statute. 6 Del. C. § 2301(a) is a general legal-interest-rate statute that Delaware courts have read, through case law, as supplying the rate for an ordinary prejudgment-interest award on a law claim (contract or ascertainable-damages tort) once the common-law right attaches. Section 2301(d) is a separate, narrower, purpose-built provision covering only a tort action for compensatory bodily-injury, death, or property-damage claims in Superior Court or the Court of Common Pleas. The Court of Chancery draws on neither -- interest there rests on the court's own inherent equitable discretion | A floating rate: 5 percentage points over the Federal Reserve discount rate (including any surcharge), fixed as of the date from which interest is due -- not the date of judgment or trial. A written contract's own stated rate displaces this default. The Court of Chancery isn't bound by § 2301(a) at all; it has 'broad discretion, subject to principles of fairness,' including the discretion to select a rate higher than the statutory one | For a common-law (contract or ascertainable-damages) claim: the date payment became due -- generally the date of breach for a contract claim. For a § 2301(d) tort claim that meets its settlement-demand condition: the date of injury, by the statute's own text -- a materially earlier date than the common-law rule would otherwise use | A genuine mechanism split, not just a different rate. A contract claim (or a tort claim for ascertainable property damage) draws interest as a matter of right at common law once damages are liquidated or easily calculable -- no settlement-demand precondition required. A personal-injury or wrongful-death tort claim can draw interest ONLY under § 2301(d)'s narrower statutory mechanism, and only if the plaintiff extended a written settlement demand, valid at least 30 days, for an amount LESS than what the judgment eventually awards; the Delaware Supreme Court has held that if the plaintiff's own demand exceeded the eventual award, no tort prejudgment interest is available under the statute at all. Where a verdict blends tort and contract theories without breaking out the amounts, a plaintiff can still recover interest on the contract portion under the common-law right even if the tort portion is barred under § 2301(d) | In Superior Court and the Court of Common Pleas, prejudgment interest is 'awarded ... as a matter of right and not of judicial discretion' once the common-law ascertainability threshold is met, and § 2301(d) itself says interest 'shall be added' once its settlement-demand condition is satisfied -- both mandatory, not discretionary. The Court of Chancery is the opposite: whether to award interest at all, and at what rate, is left to the court's own equitable discretion, and interest is less likely to be awarded pre-judgment where the underlying claim is equitable in nature | Simple interest is the default and the near-universal outcome for law claims in Superior Court and the Court of Common Pleas. The Court of Chancery has separate, broader discretion of its own -- including 'the lesser authority to award compounding' -- but Delaware's Chancery Court has said it will typically award simple interest instead when the underlying claim could have been brought in Superior Court, denying compound interest in that situation | Delaware's Tort Claims Act broadly immunizes the State and its officers or employees from any 'judgment, damages, penalties, costs or other money entitlement' for a discretionary official act performed in good faith without gross or wanton negligence; a parallel County and Municipal Tort Claims Act immunizes local governmental entities from tort claims except in a short list of enumerated categories (motor vehicles, public buildings, sudden pollution releases), capped at $300,000 per occurrence absent excess insurance. Sovereign immunity is separately waived only 'as to any risk or loss covered by the state insurance coverage program.' This survey found no case addressing whether § 2301's ordinary rules, or § 2301(d)'s settlement-demand mechanism, apply differently once a claim against a Delaware governmental entity clears this immunity threshold -- an open question, not a located rule | The core limit comes from case law, not the statute: a common-law prejudgment-interest award requires damages that are 'liquidated or ... easily calculable from the evidence,' which is why an ordinary personal-injury, wrongful-death, pain-and-suffering, emotional-distress, or reputational-injury claim draws no common-law prejudgment interest at all unless it separately qualifies under § 2301(d)'s narrower mechanism -- and for the same reason, prejudgment interest isn't available on an award of punitive damages. Procedurally, the right isn't self-executing: a party must specifically request interest in its pleadings or raise the issue at trial, though a damages demand large enough to cover the underlying loss plus interest can be read as implicitly requesting it |
| District of Columbia verified 2026-07-05 | Three provisions work together, not one dedicated statute. D.C. Code § 15-108 gives a near-mandatory right to interest on a liquidated debt (one on which interest is payable by contract, by law, or by usage), running from the date it became due. D.C. Code § 15-109 covers everything else: for a breach-of-contract claim, the judgment itself draws interest only 'from the date of the judgment,' but the statute expressly lets the court or jury include prejudgment interest as an element of the damages award if necessary to fully compensate the plaintiff -- a judicially developed discretionary doctrine. For a tort ('a wrong') claim, § 15-109 says only that 'the judgment for the plaintiff shall bear interest,' which courts and practice guides read as a postjudgment-only rule. D.C. Code § 28-3302 supplies the actual rate for all of this | 6% a year under § 28-3302(a) -- 'the rate of interest in the District upon the loan or forbearance of money... in the absence of expressed contract' -- is the rate D.C.'s courts apply both to a § 15-108 liquidated-debt award and to a § 15-109 discretionary compensatory-interest award, rejecting a claimant's attempt to use a higher market rate of return instead. A written contract's own stated rate controls if there is one. A separate, lower rate applies specifically to a judgment against the District government or its officers or employees: § 28-3302(b) caps that rate at 'not exceeding 4% per annum' | For a § 15-108 liquidated debt: from 'the time when it was due and payable.' For a § 15-109 discretionary contract award: courts look to when the plaintiff was actually deprived of the use of money owed -- in the leading case, that meant the date the District finally accepted a contractor's completed work and the payment became due, not an earlier date of substantial performance. For an ordinary tort claim: there is no comparable prejudgment accrual date at all, because § 15-109's tort clause has been read as addressing only the postjudgment period | A genuine three-way split, not just a difference in rate. A liquidated contract debt draws interest close to as a matter of right under § 15-108. A non-liquidated or general breach-of-contract claim draws interest only if a court or jury exercises discretion under § 15-109 to include it 'as an element of damages' -- and D.C.'s courts have held that this discretion doesn't turn on whether the debt was liquidated or unliquidated, only on whether the plaintiff was in fact deprived of the use of money owed. An ordinary tort ('wrong') claim is the outlier: § 15-109's own text gives that judgment interest only from the date of judgment, with no statutory or case-law doctrine importing the contract side's 'element of damages' theory into an ordinary personal-injury or property-damage tort claim | A genuine three-way split. § 15-108's liquidated-debt interest is essentially mandatory -- the judgment 'shall include' it. § 15-109's contract 'element of damages' interest is squarely discretionary: 'the decision whether to award prejudgment interest is confided to the discretion of the trial court,' though that discretion must rest on correct legal principles and a stated factual basis, not a bare, unexplained denial. An ordinary tort claim presents no prejudgment-interest decision to make at all under the statute's plain terms, mandatory or discretionary, because no mechanism reaches back before the date of judgment | No District of Columbia statute or case located by this survey squarely addresses whether a § 15-108 or § 15-109 interest award compounds; this is noted as an open question rather than assumed one way or the other | A judgment against the District of Columbia government, or one of its officers or employees acting within the scope of employment, draws interest at a rate capped at 'not exceeding 4% per annum' under § 28-3302(b) -- a full 2 percentage points below the 6% rate that applies to every other judgment debtor. This survey found no case addressing whether this reduced 4% cap governs only the postjudgment period or also limits a § 15-109 discretionary prejudgment-interest award entered against the District specifically | § 15-109's contract clause is itself an exception to the ordinary rule that a judgment draws interest only from its own entry date -- but that exception only opens the door to a compensatory-interest award if the fact-finder is persuaded the plaintiff was genuinely 'deprived of the use of money withheld' and should be made whole for that loss; a plaintiff who can't show that deprivation gets no more than ordinary postjudgment interest even on a contract claim. The reduced 4% rate for a judgment against the District government (§ 28-3302(b)) is itself the clearest carve-out in the rate structure |
| Florida verified 2026-07-05 | No dedicated prejudgment-interest statute; Fla. Stat. §§ 55.03 and 687.01 (judgment interest rate) combine with the common-law "loss theory" (Argonaut Ins. Co. v. May Plumbing Co.) | The § 55.03 statutory rate (Fed Reserve NY discount rate average + 400 basis points, set quarterly, locked in at judgment and adjusted annually after), unless a written contract states its own rate | The date of the plaintiff's pecuniary loss, if fixed as of a definite date — not necessarily the date of breach or injury; if no such date can be shown, courts often default to the date of the verdict | No hard fork by claim type — the same "loss theory" applies to both, as long as the loss is wholly pecuniary and fixed as of a definite time; personal-injury/noneconomic damages usually don't qualify | Mandatory, "as a matter of law," once a loss date is fixed — not left to a jury's or judge's discretion | Simple interest only; Florida does not allow compounding as a default | A government entity is not exempt, but courts have adjusted the accrual date on equitable grounds (e.g., to the date the government received notice of the claim) in a back-pay case against a county | Punitive damages and other non-fixed-date damages don't qualify; a narrow equitable exception can deny interest altogether "based on considerations of fairness" |
| Georgia verified 2026-07-05 | Contract/liquidated debts: O.C.G.A. § 7-4-15, using the § 7-4-2 legal rate; tort/unliquidated damages: § 51-12-14, the 'Unliquidated Damages Interest Act,' a demand-notice-triggered mechanism; claims against the state are barred from prejudgment interest entirely under the Georgia Tort Claims Act, § 50-21-30 | Contract (liquidated demand): the § 7-4-2 legal rate, 7%/yr simple interest, unless the parties agreed to a different rate; tort (unliquidated demand under § 51-12-14): the Federal Reserve's prime rate (per its H.15 release) plus 3%, fixed as of the 30th day after the demand notice | Contract: from the date the party became liable and bound to pay (or from the date of demand, if payable on demand); tort: only if a written demand notice is sent by certified or registered mail and goes unpaid for 30 days -- then from the 31st day after that notice, provided the judgment is not less than the amount demanded | Two entirely separate statutes: a liquidated contract debt draws interest automatically with no notice procedure at all (§ 7-4-15); an unliquidated tort claim gets no interest unless the plaintiff first sends a specific written demand by certified or registered mail and the defendant neither pays nor counters within 30 days (§ 51-12-14) | Contract: mandatory, 'awarded by a judge as a matter of law' and 'not premised on bad faith' (Rivergate Corp. v. Atlanta Indoor Adv. Concepts, Inc.). Tort: mandatory once the demand-notice procedure is satisfied and the judgment meets or exceeds the amount demanded -- but the plaintiff must take the affirmative step of sending a qualifying demand to trigger it at all | Simple interest throughout: § 7-4-2 expressly defines the default legal rate as '7 percent per annum simple interest,' and neither § 51-12-14 nor the postjudgment-interest statute, § 7-4-12, authorizes compounding | Georgia bars prejudgment interest against the state entirely: the Georgia Tort Claims Act states plainly that 'No award for damages under this article shall include punitive or exemplary damages or interest prior to judgment' (§ 50-21-30) -- a flat exclusion with no good-faith or liquidated-demand exception | The § 51-12-14 demand mechanism is cut off if the defendant counters, within 30 days, with a written offer to pay the demand plus accrued interest through that date, and the plaintiff doesn't accept it within a further 30 days; evidence of the demand and the interest itself is kept away from the jury and added by the court only after judgment; a separate, narrower rate applies to certain open/commercial accounts under § 7-4-16, outside this survey's scope |
| Hawaii verified 2026-07-05 | Haw. Rev. Stat. § 636-16 gives the court discretion to award prejudgment interest and set its start date in any civil case; § 478-2 (the general 'legal rate' statute) supplies the rate once interest is awarded; a separate provision, § 478-3, sets 10% interest on the judgment itself after entry (the postjudgment companion) | 10% a year under § 478-2's general legal rate — the same rate used for a § 636-16 prejudgment award — except that an obligation of the State itself draws that calendar quarter's Wall Street Journal prime rate instead, capped at 10%; a written contract's own stated rate controls instead of either default | Whatever date the judge finds fits the case's circumstances (§ 636-16), a discretionary standard meant to correct for how long a case took to reach judgment — except that the date can never be earlier than the date of injury for a tort claim or the date of breach for a contract claim | Not split into separate statutes or rates: a single provision, § 636-16, covers civil cases generally, giving the court the same discretionary power over both the decision to award interest and the start date regardless of claim type. The only claim-type difference is which event (injury vs. breach) marks the earliest possible starting point | Fully discretionary for every claim type: the statute says the judge 'is authorized to designate' a commencement date, and Hawaii courts routinely deny prejudgment interest where the case wasn't unreasonably delayed, reviewed only for abuse of discretion | No statute addresses whether judgment interest compounds; case law and practice describe it as a flat rate 'per annum,' consistent with simple interest. The one Hawaii statute barring compound interest, § 478-7, is limited by its own text to consumer credit transactions and credit-card agreements, not general civil judgments | The State is categorically immune from prejudgment interest on almost every claim against it. § 662-2 (State Tort Liability Act) says the State 'shall not be liable for interest prior to judgment,' confirmed as a deliberate, unwaived reservation of immunity in Taylor-Rice v. State, 105 Hawai'i 104, 94 P.3d 659 (2004). § 661-8 (general claims against the State) separately bars prejudgment interest on any claim against the State unless it's founded on a contract that expressly stipulates for interest, or a litigated-claims-fund refund, confirmed in Garner v. State, Dep't of Educ., 122 Hawai'i 150, 223 P.3d 215 (2009). Counties are not covered by the State Tort Liability Act, so this survey found no similar immunity for them | § 636-16's discretion is not limited to liquidated damages — an unliquidated tort claim can still draw prejudgment interest, unlike states that require a fixed or easily calculable sum. Conversely, a federal court applying Hawaii law has held there's no authority to award § 636-16 interest where the entire case was resolved through arbitration rather than litigated to judgment |
| Idaho verified 2026-07-05 | Idaho Code § 28-22-104(1), Idaho's general "legal rate of interest" statute, applied to prejudgment interest by case law (Farm Dev. Corp. v. Hernandez, 93 Idaho 918 (1970); Bouten Constr. Co. v. H.F. Magnuson Co., 133 Idaho 756 (1999)) — the statute never uses the phrase "prejudgment interest" | 12% per year (§ 28-22-104(1)), or the rate set in the parties' own written contract if there is one; a separate, floating rate under § 28-22-104(2) applies only to interest accruing after judgment | From the date the damages amount first becomes "fixed" or "ascertainable," which can be later than the date of the breach or injury itself if the exact figure wasn't calculable until some later event (Meldco, Inc. v. Hollytex Carpet Mills, 118 Idaho 5 (1990)) | Unified by case law — no separate tort statute exists; the same "liquidated or ascertainable by mere mathematical process" test governs both a contract claim (Bouten) and a personal-injury tort claim (Long v. Hendricks, 117 Idaho 1051 (1990)) | Settled as a matter of right once the claim is shown to be liquidated or ascertainable — courts don't describe this as a discretionary award, though whether a given claim clears that ascertainability threshold is itself frequently and heavily litigated | Simple interest only; § 28-22-104 contains no compounding language, and a federal court applying Idaho law expressly declined to compound prejudgment interest annually (Ivanov v. Fitness Elite Training Ctr., No. 1:20-cv-00380 (D. Idaho 2025)) | No express prejudgment-interest carve-out was located in the Idaho Tort Claims Act (Idaho Code §§ 6-901 to 6-929); the general ascertainability rule presumptively applies the same way it would to a private defendant, but any recovery still falls within the Act's overall $500,000-per-occurrence cap on "damages, costs and attorney's fees" (§ 6-926) and its bar on punitive damages (§ 6-918) — whether interest counts inside or on top of that $500,000 figure wasn't confirmed by any located case | A contract's own stated interest rate displaces the 12% statutory rate; if damages remain genuinely unliquidated or require a fact-finder's judgment call at the time of judgment, no prejudgment interest accrues at all — the claimant gets only postjudgment interest under § 28-22-104(2) going forward |
| Illinois verified 2026-07-05 | Contract/written-instrument debts: Interest Act, 815 ILCS 205/2; personal injury/wrongful death: 735 ILCS 5/2-1303(c), added in 2021 and upheld against a constitutional challenge in Cotton v. Coccaro (2023) | Contract (written instrument): 5%/yr under 815 ILCS 205/2; personal injury/wrongful death: 6%/yr under § 2-1303(c); the separate ordinary postjudgment rate is 9%/yr (6%/yr if the judgment debtor is a unit of local government or other governmental entity) | Contract: from the date the money became due, not the date of the written instrument itself; personal injury/wrongful death: the date the lawsuit was filed, NOT the date of the injury, with total accrual capped at 5 years | Two unrelated statutes with no overlap: a written-instrument debt draws 5% under the Interest Act. Personal injury and wrongful death claims are governed by a wholly separate, much newer rule -- Illinois had NO prejudgment interest at all for these tort claims until a 2021 amendment created one from scratch, at a different 6% rate | Contract: mandatory ('shall be allowed') once the debt is liquidated or readily calculable under a written instrument; a separate, genuinely discretionary equitable interest exists in chancery cases outside the statute. Personal injury/wrongful death: mandatory -- the statute says the plaintiff 'shall recover' interest on the judgment | Simple interest under both statutes: neither the Interest Act nor § 2-1303(c) contains compounding language, and § 2-1303(c)'s own 5-year cap only produces the widely-cited 30% ceiling (6% x 5 years) if the rate is simple, not compounded | The State, a unit of local government, a school district, a community college district, and any other governmental entity are expressly exempt from the 6% personal-injury/wrongful-death prejudgment interest rule entirely; the ordinary postjudgment rate is also lower against a government entity, 6%/yr instead of 9%/yr | A defendant's written settlement offer made within 12 months of filing (left open at least 90 days) cuts off further prejudgment interest on any amount up to the offer if the final judgment doesn't exceed it; punitive damages, sanctions, statutory attorney's fees, and statutory costs are excluded from the interest base; a voluntary dismissal and refiling tolls accrual for the gap in between |
| Indiana verified 2026-07-05 | IC 34-51-4 (the Tort Prejudgment Interest Statute, tort claims only, by its own terms); IC 24-4.6-1-102 and -103 (contract/debt prejudgment interest, outside the tort statute) plus a common-law requirement that contract damages be ascertainable | Tort: 6%-10%/yr simple, set by the court within that range (IC 34-51-4-9). Contract/debt: a flat 8%/yr under IC 24-4.6-1-102 (no agreed rate) or -103 (unspecified-rate written instrument; account stated or closed), or the parties' own contract rate if one exists | Tort: no fixed date -- the court sets the accrual period, but it cannot exceed 48 months and cannot begin before the LATEST of 15 months after the cause of action accrued, 6 months after filing, or (in a medical case) 180 days after a medical review panel forms. Contract/debt: from the date of settlement on a written instrument, or from the date an itemized bill was rendered and payment demanded on an account | Governed by two unconnected regimes: tort claims are eligible for prejudgment interest ONLY if the plaintiff made a timely qualifying settlement offer AND the defendant failed to make one; a contract or debt claim has no such settlement-offer precondition, but instead requires the damages to be ascertainable/calculable from the parties' own agreement | Tort: fully discretionary once the statute's settlement-offer conditions are met -- a court can deny it outright without explanation, and is barred entirely from awarding it if the defendant made a timely, sufficient settlement offer. Contract/debt: available once damages are shown to be ascertainable, though still not automatic if the amount required real judgment or discretion to calculate | Simple interest for tort claims -- IC 34-51-4-9 expressly requires 'the simple rate of interest'; the contract/debt statute (IC 24-4.6-1-103) likewise sets only a flat annual rate with no compounding mechanism | A tort claim against the State of Indiana or any political subdivision is barred from prejudgment interest entirely under IC 34-51-4-4 -- not a lower rate, no liability for prejudgment interest at all; the contract/debt interest statute (IC 24-4.6-1) does not contain an equivalent government carve-out | No prejudgment interest on any part of a judgment awarded as punitive damages (IC 34-51-4-3); a tort defendant who makes a timely, sufficient settlement offer (at least two-thirds of the eventual judgment, within 9 months of filing) escapes prejudgment-interest liability entirely, regardless of the case's merits; a medical-malpractice claim gets its own, later accrual trigger tied to when a medical review panel forms |
| Iowa verified 2026-07-05 | Iowa Code § 535.3(1)(a) (cross-refers to the rate) and § 668.13 (accrual/rate mechanics); applied to both contract and tort judgments | 1-year Treasury constant-maturity rate (Federal Reserve H.15 report) as of the auction before judgment, plus 2%; recently 5.88% (June 2026 auction: 3.88% + 2%), reset monthly | From the date the lawsuit was filed (commencement of the action); interest on future damages starts only at entry of judgment | Unified — the same accrual rule and rate formula (§§ 535.3(1)(a), 668.13) now applies to both contract and tort money judgments | Mandatory; both statutes say interest 'shall' be allowed once a money judgment is entered | Simple interest; the statute directs interest to be 'computed daily to the date of the payment,' with no compounding language | Barred entirely against the State of Iowa on a tort claim; interest runs only from the date of judgment forward (Iowa Code § 669.4(2)) | Punitive damages barred against the state; future-damages interest starts at judgment, not filing; a contract's own fixed rate controls instead (capped by § 535.2's usury ceiling); workers'-compensation and support payments use separate rate rules outside this survey's scope |
| Kansas verified 2026-07-05 | K.S.A. 16-201(a) (liquidated contract/debt claims); K.S.A. 16-201(b), added 2023, (tort claims filed on/after July 1, 2023); K.S.A. 16-204(e) (the floating judgment-interest rate both provisions reference); K.S.A. 75-6105(c) (Kansas Tort Claims Act interest bar) | Contract/debt: 10%/yr statutory default, or the contract's own rate; Tort (post-7/1/2023 suits only): 2 percentage points below the K.S.A. 16-204(e)(1) judgment rate, currently 5.75% (7.75% judgment rate minus 2%) | Contract/debt: from the date the debt became due, or the date an account balance was ascertained; Tort: no earlier than governed by the 2023 addition, with the court setting the specifics case by case | Sharply different: contract/liquidated claims have a 130+ year-old mechanism; general tort prejudgment interest didn't exist in Kansas at all until a 2023 statute, and even now only reaches suits filed on or after July 1, 2023 | Discretionary in both branches, reviewed only for abuse of discretion; a good-faith dispute over liability does not, by itself, defeat an award once the amount is liquidated | Simple interest during the prejudgment period; true interest-on-interest compounding is barred by statute, though accrued prejudgment interest merges into a new principal at judgment, so post-judgment interest runs on that combined sum | Flat bar on prejudgment interest against any governmental entity, and against an employee acting within the scope of employment — except an employee's own actual fraud or actual malice, and except claims for childhood sexual abuse, which fall outside the bar entirely | Tort suits filed before July 1, 2023 get no statutory PJI mechanism at all, only the older liquidated-damages doctrine; support-arrears judgments presume a flat 10% rate; limited-actions judgments get a flat 12% rate instead of the floating rate |
| Kentucky verified 2026-07-05 | KRS 360.010 sets the general 'legal rate of interest,' which Kentucky courts apply to prejudgment interest; KRS 360.040 governs POSTjudgment interest and separately provides that a judgment -- including one that already includes an award of prejudgment interest -- itself bears its own compounding postjudgment rate going forward. Whether prejudgment interest should be awarded at all on an unliquidated claim, and who decides that question, comes entirely from case law: Nucor Corp. v. General Electric Co., 812 S.W.2d 136 (Ky. 1991) | 8% a year -- the 'legal rate' under KRS 360.010 -- unless a written contract or obligation sets a different rate, which then controls instead. This 8% prejudgment rate is distinct from, and higher than, Kentucky's general 6% POSTjudgment rate on most judgments under KRS 360.040(1) | For a liquidated claim, interest runs from the date payment became due -- the date of an unpaid invoice, the maturity date of a note, the date a contract price was owed. For an unliquidated claim, there's no fixed statutory start date; the trial court sets the period case by case, weighing factors such as the date of injury, the date suit was filed, when the defendant had notice of a prejudgment-interest demand, and how soon the damages became reasonably ascertainable | Kentucky's real axis is liquidated vs. unliquidated, not contract vs. tort by label. A fixed contract debt draws interest 'as a matter of course.' An unliquidated claim -- whether it's a tort claim for property damage or a contract claim whose amount wasn't fixed until trial -- draws interest only if the trial judge, weighing equitable factors, decides fairness requires it; the label on the claim doesn't control, only whether the dollar amount was already fixed or ascertainable | Mandatory -- 'follows as a matter of course' -- for a liquidated claim. Discretionary for an unliquidated claim, and decided by the COURT alone as a matter of equity, never submitted to a jury: the Kentucky Supreme Court reversed a Court of Appeals ruling that would have let a jury decide the question, holding the decision belongs to the trial judge weighing considerations of fairness (Nucor Corp. v. General Electric Co.) | Not fixed by the prejudgment-interest statute, which is silent on the question. Kentucky courts have held that while simple interest is the traditional default, it is not legally required -- a trial court may award compound prejudgment interest where the equities of a long delay in payment justify it (Reliable Mechanical, Inc. v. Naylor Indus. Servs., Inc., 125 S.W.3d 856 (Ky. App. 2003)) | Claims against the Commonwealth generally go through the Board of Claims (the Kentucky Claims Commission), a limited statutory waiver of sovereign immunity covering only negligence claims. A single award is capped at $250,000 per claimant (or $400,000 total, divided among claimants, when one act of negligence produces multiple claims) -- but the statute expressly states this cap applies 'exclusive of interest and costs,' meaning interest is added on top of the cap rather than counted against it | A written contract's own agreed interest rate always displaces the 8% statutory legal rate. Kentucky's Supreme Court has held that once a creditor contracts for a rate HIGHER than the statutory 8%, it permanently forfeits the right to fall back on the statutory rate later, even after the account is closed or charged off (Unifund CCR Partners v. Harrell, 2017 Ky. LEXIS 86 (2017)) |
| Louisiana verified 2026-07-05 | Civil Code art. 2000 (damages for delay in paying a sum of money, i.e. the contract rule) and La. R.S. 13:4203 ("legal interest shall attach from date of judicial demand" on tort/"ex delicto" judgments), both keyed to the annual rate set by La. R.S. 13:4202 and R.S. 9:3500. A separate statute, R.S. 13:5112(C), sets a distinct rate and trigger for personal-injury or wrongful-death claims against the state or a political subdivision | The same floating "judicial interest" rate for both contract and tort claims: the Commissioner of Financial Institutions recalculates it every October, at 3.25 percentage points above the Federal Reserve Board's published discount rate, effective the following calendar year -- 7.5% for 2026 (was 8.25% for 2025, 8.75% for 2024). A written contract can instead set its own rate, which controls over the default judicial rate | Contract: from the day the money was due, under Civil Code art. 2000's own text ("from the time it is due"). Tort: from the date of JUDICIAL DEMAND -- meaning the date the lawsuit was filed -- not the date of injury, under R.S. 13:4203; Louisiana's Supreme Court has confirmed this attaches automatically even where a signed judgment mistakenly recites a different date | Same rate, different accrual trigger -- the reverse pairing of most other states surveyed here, where the RATE usually differs but not always the trigger. A contract claim's interest runs from the date performance was due; a tort claim's interest can never start earlier than the date suit was filed, even if the injury happened years before, unless a separate statute (like the government-claim rule below) sets a different trigger | Mandatory, not discretionary, once a claim qualifies. Civil Code art. 2000 lets an obligee recover contract delay-damages "without having to prove any loss." The Louisiana Supreme Court has held tort judicial interest "attaches automatically... as a matter of law" from the date of judicial demand regardless of what date a judgment happens to state (Bilalis v. Drennan, No. 2025-C-00453 (La. Dec. 18, 2025)) | Simple interest. Neither Civil Code art. 2000 nor R.S. 13:4202-4203 describes any compounding mechanism; each simply fixes an annual rate applied to the principal owed for the relevant period | A special, separate rule for personal-injury or wrongful-death claims against the state or a political subdivision: legal interest accrues at a flat 6% a year (not the floating judicial rate) from the date service of the petition was requested following judicial demand, only until the trial judge signs the judgment -- after that, interest reverts to the ordinary judicial-interest rate under R.S. 9:3500 (R.S. 13:5112(C)) | A written contract's own agreed interest rate displaces the default judicial rate entirely for a contract claim (Civil Code art. 2000). A distinct Prompt Pay Statute (R.S. 9:2784) sets a much higher, capped daily rate for a subcontractor's late-payment claim against a general contractor, outside the general judicial-interest framework |
| Maine verified 2026-07-05 | A single statute governs prejudgment interest statewide: 14 M.R.S. § 1602-B, which splits only by rate mechanism -- subsection 2 for a contract or note that states its own interest rate, subsection 3 for every other civil action. A companion section, § 1602-C, sets postjudgment interest separately, and § 1602-B(6) expressly prevents prejudgment interest from compounding into the postjudgment base | For a contract or note that itself states an interest rate: that stated rate (§1602-B(2)). For every other civil action -- most personal-injury and other tort claims, and any contract claim without its own rate provision -- the one-year U.S. Treasury bill rate (the weekly average one-year constant-maturity Treasury yield for the last full week of the calendar year before the year interest begins to accrue) plus 3 percentage points (§1602-B(3)). Small claims actions draw no prejudgment interest at all unless the claim itself carries a contract or note rate (§1602-B(1)) | From the time a sworn notice of claim was served on the defendant; if none was given, from the date the complaint was filed (§1602-B(5)). For a contract or note claim, the applicable rate itself is also locked in as of that same notice-or-filing date. A prevailing party's own request for a continuance longer than 30 days suspends the interest clock for the continuance period | Not really a contract-vs-tort split. A claim founded on a contract or note that itself states an interest rate gets that stated rate; every other civil claim -- including a contract claim with no stated rate -- gets the identical floating statutory rate as a personal-injury or other tort claim. An unliquidated or rate-silent contract claim is treated exactly like a tort claim, not like a rate-bearing contract claim | Mandatory by default -- the statute says interest 'is allowed,' not that a court may choose to allow it -- but with a narrow, express discretionary escape hatch: on the losing party's own petition and a showing of good cause, the trial court may fully or partially waive the interest otherwise due (§1602-B(5)) | The statute doesn't label the prejudgment rate itself as simple or compound, but it does bar interest from compounding across the pre/post-judgment boundary: §1602-B(6) says prejudgment interest 'may not be added to the judgment amount in determining the sum upon which post-judgment interest accrues' -- postjudgment interest runs on the underlying judgment only, not on judgment-plus-already-accrued-prejudgment-interest | Prejudgment interest against a Maine governmental entity or its employees isn't barred, but it's folded INSIDE the Maine Tort Claims Act's overall damages cap rather than sitting on top of it -- the opposite of some other states' approach. 14 M.R.S. § 8105(2) says 'court costs, prejudgment interest and all other costs that a court may assess must be included within the damage limit' (currently $400,000 per occurrence under §8105(1)), while 'accrued post-judgment interest may not be included within the damage limit' -- postjudgment interest is the one cost that sits outside the cap, not prejudgment interest. No punitive damages are allowed against a governmental entity at all (§8105(5)) | Small-claims actions draw no prejudgment interest at all unless the claim is itself based on a contract or note with its own interest provision (§1602-B(1)) -- an outright category exclusion, not just a lower rate. The trial court's good-cause waiver power under §1602-B(5) is the one true discretionary override on an otherwise mandatory, formula-driven system |
| Maryland verified 2026-07-05 | No single statute governs. The RIGHT to prejudgment interest comes from case law -- a "modified discretionary approach" (Buxton v. Buxton, building on I.W. Berman Properties v. Porter Bros.) -- while the RATE defaults to Md. Const. art. III, § 57's 6% "Legal Rate of Interest." Two narrow statutes cover specific mechanisms only: § 11-106 (a loan contract's own rate continues on a judgment through the loan's original maturity date) and § 11-301 (a discretionary, capped, delay-based interest award limited to motor-vehicle bodily-injury cases) | 6% a year -- the constitutional default rate under Art. III, § 57 -- unless a written contract sets its own rate, which then controls (and, for a loan-of-money judgment, continues through the loan's originally scheduled maturity date under § 11-106). The narrow § 11-301 motor-vehicle delay-interest mechanism is separately capped at 10%. This 6% prejudgment default is a different, lower rate than Maryland's 10% POST-judgment rate under § 11-107, which only applies once a judgment is actually entered | For a matter-of-right claim, from the specific date the debt became certain, definite, and due -- a breach date, a note's maturity date, a date rent was owed -- not the filing date. For the discretionary middle category of unliquidated contract claims, whatever date the trier of fact finds equitable; no statute fixes one. For a tort claim involving bodily harm, emotional distress, or similarly intangible damage, there is no true prejudgment accrual at all. The narrow § 11-301 delay-interest mechanism instead runs from a court-set date no earlier than when the action was filed | Maryland sorts by whether damages are certain and liquidated, not simply by contract versus tort, but layers an absolute tort-specific bar on top. A LIQUIDATED claim of either kind -- a contract debt due on a specific date, or a tort claim like conversion where the value taken is readily ascertainable -- draws interest as a matter of right. An unliquidated CONTRACT claim falls into a broad middle zone left to discretion. A tort claim for bodily harm, emotional distress, or similar intangible damage gets NO prejudgment interest at all, as a matter of law, not merely a discretionary denial | Mandatory ("a matter of right") once a claim -- contract or tort -- is certain, definite, and liquidated by a specific date before judgment. Discretionary, left to the judge or jury, for the broad middle category of unliquidated contract claims. Categorically UNAVAILABLE, not merely subject to discretion, for a tort claim recovering for bodily harm, emotional distress, or similarly intangible, unliquidated damage | Simple interest only. The Maryland Supreme Court has directly held that even where prejudgment interest on lost investment income was properly allowed, the claimant was "entitled to no more than simple interest at the rate of 6%" -- no Maryland statute or case authorizes compounding it | The State and local governments are treated differently. A tort claim against the STATE itself cannot include any prejudgment interest -- the Maryland Tort Claims Act's waiver of immunity expressly excludes "interest before judgment" (§ 5-522(a)(2)), an outright bar on top of whatever the common-law rules would otherwise allow. A tort claim against a LOCAL government has no comparable bar -- its separate damages cap expressly does NOT include "interest accrued on a judgment" within that cap (§ 5-303(a)(2)), so interest sits on top of the cap rather than inside it. A CONTRACT claim against the State has no express interest bar at all (only punitive damages are barred, under § 5-522(d)), so the ordinary case-law framework applies | The tort intangible-damage bar is itself the sharpest exception -- Maryland doesn't merely leave tort personal-injury prejudgment interest to discretion the way it does unliquidated contract claims; it forbids it outright. A narrow carve-out partly offsets that: in a motor-vehicle bodily-injury case specifically, § 11-301 lets a court assess delay-based interest, capped at 10% and running from no earlier than the filing date, if the DEFENDANT (or the defendant's insurer or counsel) caused unnecessary delay getting the case to trial -- a sanction for stalling, not classic prejudgment interest, and unavailable if the plaintiff caused the delay. A loan-of-money judgment keeps the loan's own contract rate through its original maturity date under § 11-106, rather than switching immediately to the general default |
| Massachusetts verified 2026-07-05 | G.L. c. 231, § 6B (tort) and § 6C (contract); § 6I sets a separate rate for contract judgments against the commonwealth | 12%/yr for both contract and tort claims (or the contract's own stated rate); a contract judgment against the commonwealth instead gets a Treasury-yield rate capped at 10%/yr | Contract: date of breach or demand if established, otherwise the date the action was filed; Tort: always the date the action was filed | Same 12% rate and same automatic mechanics under twin statutes, but different accrual triggers — breach/demand date for contract, filing date for tort | Mandatory and automatic — the clerk of court adds it to the judgment by operation of law, with no discretion for the judge or jury to withhold it | Simple interest; neither § 6B nor § 6C provides for compounding | A tort claim against a public employer gets NO prejudgment interest at all (barred by the Tort Claims Act); a contract claim against the commonwealth gets a lower Treasury-yield rate (§ 6I) instead of the standard 12% | The Tort Claims Act's $100,000 damages cap and its bar on punitive damages apply on top of the interest bar for a tort claim against a public employer; a bill to replace the fixed 12% rate with a floating Treasury-yield rate has been reintroduced and shelved via study order every session since at least 2017 |
| Michigan verified 2026-07-05 | MCL 600.6013 (Revised Judicature Act) governs interest on a money judgment in an ordinary civil action -- one statute covering both the 'prejudgment' and 'postjudgment' period as a single continuous calculation; the parallel MCL 600.6455 applies the same mechanism to a judgment against the State of Michigan in the Court of Claims | Default: 1% plus the average yield at auctions of 5-year U.S. Treasury notes over the preceding 6 months, certified by the State Treasurer and republished every January 1 and July 1 (the Treasury-yield component was 3.725% for the period starting January 1, 2026, making the total rate 4.725%), compounded annually. If the judgment is on a written instrument with its own specified rate, that rate applies instead, capped at 13%/yr compounded annually | From the date the COMPLAINT is filed (not the date of breach or injury) through the date the judgment is satisfied -- one continuous period, not a prejudgment clock that stops at verdict. Exception: no interest accrues, for the period between filing and entry of judgment, on the 'future damages' portion of a personal-injury verdict | Both claim types draw interest under the same base formula from filing to satisfaction, but two things differ: (1) a contract judgment on a written instrument with its own specified rate uses that rate instead of the Treasury-note formula; (2) only a tort judgment is subject to the statute's settlement-offer adjustment -- interest can be cut off early if the defendant's bona fide written settlement offer is rejected by the plaintiff, or increased by 2 points if the plaintiff's bona fide offer is rejected by the defendant | Mandatory. The statute says interest 'is allowed' and 'is calculated' on every qualifying money judgment; a court has no discretion to withhold it. The only judgment calls involved are factual -- whether a settlement offer was 'bona fide' and 'reasonable' -- not whether to award interest at all | Compounded annually -- stated expressly in every rate provision of § 6013 and in the parallel Court of Claims section, § 6455 | Michigan does not bar or discount prejudgment interest against the state: MCL 600.6455 applies the identical filing-to-satisfaction, Treasury-note-based formula, including the same tort settlement-offer adjustments, to a judgment against the State of Michigan in the Court of Claims. An older version of § 6455 barred any interest before judgment for claims filed 1984-1987, but that historical rule doesn't reach any currently filed claim | No interest on the 'future damages' portion of a personal-injury judgment for the period between filing and entry of judgment (future medical costs, future lost earnings, etc., as defined in MCL 600.6301(a)); interest under § 6013(8) is computed on the ENTIRE judgment including awarded costs and attorney fees, except that medical-malpractice cost/fee awards draw no interest for any period before judgment; a tort defendant's bona fide settlement offer (at least 90% of the eventual recovery) that the plaintiff rejects and that is filed with the court cuts off further interest as of that filing, while a rejected bona fide plaintiff's offer (no more than 110% of the eventual recovery) triggers a 2-point rate increase from the date of rejection |
| Minnesota verified 2026-07-05 | Minn. Stat. § 549.09, subd. 1 (rate and mechanics) and subd. 2 (accrual) -- a single statute covers contract and tort pecuniary-damage claims alike | Two tiers by judgment SIZE, not claim type: $50,000 or less (and any judgment for or against the state or a political subdivision, or in family court) draws simple interest at a rate the state court administrator sets each December from the 1-year Treasury yield, rounded to the nearest 1%, floored at 4% (4% for calendar year 2026); over $50,000, a flat 10%/yr applies regardless of the T-bill rate, except that a government or family-court judgment stays on the lower tier no matter how large | The earliest of: commencement of the action or a demand for arbitration, a written notice of claim (only if suit is then filed within 2 years of that notice), or -- for special damages -- the date those special damages were incurred if later. A settlement-offer exchange can shorten the period: if the losing party's written offer was closer to the eventual verdict/award than the prevailing party's, the prevailing party's interest is capped at the settlement-offer amount and stops accruing as of the time that offer was made | Minnesota does not split by claim type -- the same statute, same rate tiers, and same accrual rule apply to "pecuniary damages" whether the claim sounds in contract or tort. The variable that matters here is judgment size ($50,000) and whether the defendant is the state or a political subdivision, not contract vs. tort | Mandatory once damages are fixed by verdict, award, or report -- the statute says interest "shall be computed," subject only to a contrary contract provision or, in a family-court action, the judge's discretion to order a lower rate or none at all on equitable grounds | Simple interest -- the statute says so expressly for the $50,000-or-less/government/family-court tier ("computed as simple interest per annum"); the over-$50,000 tier isn't separately labeled, but it uses the same annual-accrual-on-the-unpaid-balance mechanism, with no compounding language anywhere in the section | A judgment for or against the state or a political subdivision draws the LOWER, Treasury-yield-based simple-interest rate regardless of the judgment's size -- the flat 10% tier never applies to a government party | No prejudgment interest on: workers' compensation judgments or awards (except third-party actions), future (not-yet-incurred) damages, punitive or other noncompensatory damages, a judgment or award that doesn't exceed the conciliation (small-claims) court's jurisdictional limit ($20,000 generally, $4,000 for a consumer-credit claim, under § 491A.01), or the portion of any award already made up of interest, costs, disbursements, or attorney fees. Child support judgments have drawn no interest at all since August 1, 2022 |
| Mississippi verified 2026-07-05 | Miss. Code Ann. § 75-17-7 (interest on judgments and decrees, covering both pre- and post-judgment interest); § 75-17-1(1) (8% default legal rate) | Contract-founded judgment: the contract's own rate, or 8%/yr if the contract states none; any other judgment: a per-annum rate the judge picks, with no statutory number or ceiling stated | Contract claims: from the date of breach, which can be before the complaint was filed; other claims: a date the judge picks, never earlier than the date the complaint was filed | Two different tracks under one statute — a contract-rate/breach-date rule for contract judgments, a judge's-choice rate/no-earlier-than-filing rule for everything else — with a liquidated-damages-or-bad-faith gate layered onto the discretionary branch by case law | Discretionary; reviewed only for abuse of discretion. Requires damages that were liquidated when the claim was made, or a showing the denial of the claim was frivolous or in bad faith; a bona fide dispute over the amount owed defeats an award even on an otherwise liquidated claim | No statute or case located that authorizes compounding; every award reviewed applies a flat per-annum rate, so simple interest is the working assumption | Barred entirely before judgment: no award against a governmental entity or its employee may include interest prior to judgment, exemplary damages, or (absent specific authorization) attorney's fees; the bar does not extend to post-judgment interest, and total liability is separately capped at $500,000 per occurrence | A claim sounding in quantum meruit (rather than an actual contract) cannot draw prejudgment interest at all; a bona fide dispute over the amount owed defeats an award even on a liquidated claim |
| Missouri verified 2026-07-05 | RSMo § 408.020 (the general contract/debt interest statute) for nontort claims; RSMo § 408.040 (interest on judgments) for both the general postjudgment rule and a distinct, demand-triggered prejudgment mechanism for tort claims specifically | Contract/debt: 9%/yr, or the contract's own rate if it exceeds 9%. Tort (only if the demand mechanism is triggered): the intended Federal Funds Rate plus 3%/yr, a lower rate than the 5%-over-Fed-Funds rate that applies once judgment is entered | Contract/debt: from the date money became due on a written contract, or from the date of demand on an account. Tort: only if triggered by a qualifying written demand -- interest then runs from 90 days after the demand was received (or from an earlier outright rejection), never from the date of injury itself | Fundamentally different mechanisms, not just different rates: a contract/debt claim earns interest automatically once the amount is liquidated or ascertainable; a tort claim earns NO prejudgment interest unless the claimant follows a specific formal pre-suit demand procedure and the judgment ends up exceeding that demand | Contract/debt: effectively automatic once the amount is liquidated or readily ascertainable by a recognized standard -- courts have denied it only where the amount genuinely required judgment to fix (e.g., lost-profits damages). Tort: mandatory, not discretionary, once the demand requirements and the judgment-exceeds-demand condition are both met — the statute says interest 'shall be awarded' | Simple interest on both tracks, per case law (Wallemann v. Wallemann); a court sitting in equity may allow compounding to serve justice, and the parties' own contract can call for compounding | Missouri retains sovereign immunity for most tort claims against the state and political subdivisions (waived mainly for motor-vehicle negligence and dangerous-property conditions, or where liability insurance is purchased); damages against a public entity are capped at a periodically inflation-adjusted amount, exclude punitive damages entirely, and case law holds the cap does not limit at least postjudgment interest -- no case located addresses prejudgment interest against the state specifically | Missouri lets prejudgment interest reach the ENTIRE judgment, including any punitive-damages award, unlike most states (Werremeyer v. K.C. Auto Salvage); a tort claimant who doesn't sue within 120 days of sending the demand loses prejudgment-interest eligibility; medical malpractice claims are carved out of § 408.040's general tort mechanism entirely and governed by a separate chapter |
| Montana verified 2026-07-05 | Three statutes split the field. § 27-1-211, 'Right to interest,' is the general provision: a mandatory right to interest on any claim for damages certain or capable of being made certain by calculation, once the right to recover vests. § 27-1-210, 'Interest on torts,' is a more specific, later-enacted statute for any claim on an 'injury' (person or property) under § 27-1-106, with its own floating rate and its own accrual trigger. § 27-1-212, 'When award of interest discretionary,' adds a narrower, jury-discretionary layer for a non-contractual obligation or any case of oppression, fraud, or malice | For a § 27-1-211 claim: the general legal rate under § 31-1-106 -- 10% a year, described by Montana courts as a '10% simple interest rate' -- unless the parties' own written contract fixes a different rate. For a § 27-1-210 tort claim: a floating rate equal to the prime rate published in the Federal Reserve's H.15 statistical release plus 3 percentage points, set as of January 1 and holding through December 31 each year. For a § 27-1-212 discretionary award: no rate is fixed by statute at all -- the jury sets whatever amount it finds appropriate | Differs by section. Under § 27-1-211: from the particular day the right to recover a certain or calculable sum vested, except for any period the debtor was prevented by law or by the creditor's own act from paying. Under § 27-1-210: from 30 days after the claimant presented the opposing party a written statement of the claim and how the specific sum was calculated -- not from the date of injury or the date suit was filed | A genuine claim-type split, with a third layer on top. § 27-1-211 (a vested, calculable-damages right, typically a contract or debt claim) is the general/default provision; § 27-1-210 displaces it for any 'injury' claim (personal injury or property-damage tort), imposing its own rate and a formal presentment-notice trigger, while excluding several damage categories entirely because they can't be calculated (pain and suffering, mental anguish, injury to credit/reputation, punitive damages, loss of consortium/established way of life, attorney fees). § 27-1-212 then adds a further, jury-discretionary layer available for a non-contractual obligation or any case of oppression, fraud, or malice | Both § 27-1-211 and § 27-1-210 are entitlements ('is entitled to interest'), not something a court can decline once the statutory conditions are met -- though § 27-1-210(3) has the court, not the jury, actually calculate the amount due. § 27-1-212, by contrast, is squarely discretionary: interest 'may be given, in the discretion of the jury,' for a non-contract obligation or a case of oppression, fraud, or malice | Simple interest. Montana courts describe § 31-1-106's 10% rate -- the rate that grounds a § 27-1-211 award -- as a '10% simple interest rate.' A companion judgment-interest statute, § 25-9-205(1), states directly for judgments generally that 'the interest may not be compounded' | No statute bars prejudgment interest against the State or a political subdivision outright, and the general tort damages cap ($750,000 per claim/$1.5 million per occurrence under § 2-9-108) doesn't say whether interest counts inside or outside that limit -- this survey found no case resolving it either way. Two real limits do apply: § 27-1-212's discretionary jury-awarded interest (for a non-contract obligation or a case of oppression, fraud, or malice) expressly 'does not apply' to a claim against a governmental entity brought under the Montana Tort Claims Act; and § 2-9-317 gives a governmental entity a 2-year grace period after judgment is entered to pay without owing 'any penalty or interest' -- a postjudgment-focused rule, not a bar on the prejudgment interest already reflected in the judgment itself | § 27-1-210(2) excludes an entire list of damages from its tort-interest mechanism because they aren't 'capable of being made certain by calculation': pain and suffering, injury to credit/reputation/financial standing, mental anguish or suffering, exemplary or punitive damages, loss of established way of life, loss of consortium, and attorney fees -- plus future damages until they're actually incurred. § 27-1-211 has its own built-in pause: no interest accrues for any period the debtor was prevented by law or by the creditor's own act from paying the debt |
| Nebraska verified 2026-07-05 | Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 45-103.02 (the general prejudgment-interest statute) and 45-104 (a separate, independent 12% basis for four contract-type claims), per Weyh v. Gottsch, 303 Neb. 280 (2019) | 12% per year (§ 45-104) for liquidated claims and for the four § 45-104 contract categories; the floating post-judgment rate under § 45-103 (2 points above the 26-week Treasury bill yield, reset quarterly — 5.970% as of the July 2026 auction) for an unliquidated claim that qualifies via the settlement-offer route | Liquidated claims: the date the cause of action arose. Unliquidated claims: the date of the plaintiff's first qualifying written settlement offer that the eventual judgment exceeds — not the date of injury or filing | Not split by label. The same statute (§ 45-103.02) covers both; what matters is whether the claim is liquidated. Most tort/personal-injury claims are unliquidated, so they can reach interest only through the settlement-offer mechanism; a liquidated claim of either type draws 12% from the date it arose. Four specific contract-type claims get 12% under § 45-104 independent of liquidated status | Mandatory (a matter of right) once the statutory conditions are met, for a legal (money-damages) claim; a court has discretion to award or deny interest only on an equitable claim seeking something other than money damages | Simple interest. No Nebraska statute authorizes compounding, and the Nebraska Supreme Court has held that absent a contract or statute providing otherwise, compound interest is not allowed on a debt | Complete bar: no prejudgment interest accrues against the state, a political subdivision, or an employee of either for a negligent or wrongful act within the scope of employment | Chapter 42 domestic-relations actions are excluded from § 45-103.02 entirely; a contract's own agreed interest rate displaces the statutory rate; the unliquidated-claim route requires strict compliance with all four of § 45-103.02(1)'s procedural conditions or no interest accrues at all |
| Nevada verified 2026-07-05 | NRS 17.130(2) for tort/noncontract judgments; NRS 99.040(1) for contract judgments; both point to the same rate formula | Prime rate at the largest bank in Nevada (set by the Commissioner of Financial Institutions each Jan. 1/Jul. 1) plus 2%; currently 8.75% (6.75% prime + 2%) for Jul. 1-Dec. 31, 2026 | Tort: from service of the summons and complaint (future damages only from judgment); Contract: from the date the debt became due | Two separate statutes (NRS 99.040 contract, NRS 17.130 tort) with the same rate formula but different accrual triggers and different dates used to lock in the rate | Mandatory as a matter of right once the amount and accrual date are established; not left to court or jury discretion | Simple interest unless the parties' written contract expressly agrees to compounding (NRS 99.050(1)) | Tort judgments against the State, a political subdivision, or a covered employee are capped at $200,000, exclusive only of interest computed from the date of judgment, and punitive damages are barred entirely (NRS 41.035(1)) | Punitive damages draw no prejudgment interest; rejecting a formal offer of judgment and losing cuts off the rejecting party's own interest recovery after the offer date (NRS 17.117(10)(a)) |
| New Hampshire verified 2026-07-05 | Two companion statutes govern when interest starts: RSA 524:1-a covers a debt, account stated, or liquidated-damages claim; RSA 524:1-b covers every other kind of civil damages claim (personal injury, wrongful death, consequential damages, property/business/reputation damage). The rate for both comes from a separate chapter, RSA 336:1, II, New Hampshire's general interest-and-usury statute | A single floating rate applies to every prejudgment award: the 26-week U.S. Treasury bill discount rate as of the last auction before September 30 each year, plus 2 percentage points, rounded to the nearest tenth, reset annually by the state treasurer and published by the courts (5.7% for judgments in 2026). When the rate changes partway through a case, the New Hampshire Supreme Court has held that each year's own then-current rate applies to its portion of the prejudgment period, rather than locking in a single rate for the whole span (Linteau v. Gauthier, 142 N.H. 460 (1997)) | Differs by which statute applies. Under RSA 524:1-a (debt, account stated, liquidated damages): from the date of any demand made before suit was filed, or from the date suit was filed if there was no earlier demand. Under RSA 524:1-b (personal injury, wrongful death, consequential damages, and other loss types): from the date of the writ or the filing of the petition, with no earlier-demand option | Not split by contract-vs-tort labels at all. The real dividing line is whether the claim is a debt, account stated, or liquidated sum (RSA 524:1-a) versus everything else (RSA 524:1-b) — a category that sweeps in most personal-injury and wrongful-death claims, but also any contract claim seeking unliquidated consequential damages rather than a fixed debt | Mandatory, and unusually mechanical: RSA 524:1-b says interest 'shall be added forthwith by the clerk of court' to the damages — a ministerial calculation, not a judge's decision. RSA 524:1-a is equally mandatory ('interest shall commence to run'). Neither statute gives a court discretion to deny prejudgment interest once a qualifying verdict or finding is entered | Simple interest only, by the rate statute's own express text: RSA 336:1, II sets 'the annual simple rate of interest on judgments, including prejudgment interest' | Unlike most states in this survey, New Hampshire does not cut off or discount prejudgment interest against the government — it expressly extends ordinary interest rules to both levels of government. For a local governmental unit (a county, city, town, school district, and the like) sued under the bodily-injury liability chapter, RSA 507-B:4, III says 'interest and costs may be recovered as in any civil action, in addition to the limits prescribed in this section' — prejudgment interest doesn't even count against that chapter's $325,000-per-person/$1,000,000-per-incident damage caps. For a claim against the State itself under the Board of Claims chapter, RSA 541-B:14, III says interest 'shall be granted... at the rate provided in RSA 336:1 in the same manner as is provided for in civil actions generally.' Whether that state-claim interest sits inside or outside chapter 541-B's own damages cap isn't spelled out as explicitly as it is for local governmental units | RSA 524:1-b interest keeps accruing 'even though such interest brings the amount of the judgment beyond the maximum liability imposed by law' — a statutory damages cap doesn't stop interest from pushing the final judgment above that cap. A pre-suit demand can move up the accrual date only on the debt/liquidated-damages track (RSA 524:1-a); the personal-injury/consequential-damages track (RSA 524:1-b) always starts from the writ or petition date regardless of any earlier demand |
| New Jersey verified 2026-07-05 | New Jersey is one of the few states that sets prejudgment interest by COURT RULE rather than legislative statute: N.J. Ct. R. 4:42-11(b) mandates it in tort actions. There is no equivalent rule or statute for contract claims -- interest there rests on judge-made equitable doctrine (Bak-A-Lum Corp. of America v. Alcoa Building Products, Inc., 69 N.J. 123 (1976)). Two separate Title 59 provisions set harsher rules against the government: N.J.S.A. 59:9-2(a) (tort claims) and N.J.S.A. 59:13-8 (contract claims) | Tort prejudgment interest uses the same formula as ordinary post-judgment interest under Rule 4:42-11(a): for a judgment at or under the Special Civil Part's monetary limit ($20,000), the annual rate resets every January 1 to the prior fiscal year's average return on New Jersey's Cash Management Fund, rounded to the nearest half-percent (4.5% for 2026); a judgment above that limit adds 2 points (6.5% for 2026). Contract prejudgment interest has no fixed rate at all -- a court exercising its equitable discretion often borrows the Rule 4:42-11(a) rate as a benchmark but isn't bound to it | Tort: from the date the lawsuit was instituted, or from a date 6 months after the cause of action arose, whichever is LATER -- not from the date of injury itself. Contract: no fixed statutory start date; a court sets the accrual date (often the date of breach or demand) as part of its equitable analysis | The line is sharper here than in most states: prejudgment interest is a mandatory entitlement in a tort action under Rule 4:42-11(b), but purely a matter of judicial discretion in a contract action, with no rule or statute requiring it at all. A court can decline interest on an otherwise-liquidated contract debt if the equities cut against it -- in Bak-A-Lum, the state's highest court denied a defendant prejudgment interest on its own counterclaim because of its inequitable conduct in the underlying dispute | Tort: mandatory. Rule 4:42-11(b) says the court "shall" include prejudgment interest in the judgment, subject only to a narrow power to suspend it "in exceptional cases." Contract: fully discretionary -- awarded, if at all, "in accordance with principles of equity" rather than as a matter of course | Simple interest only. Rule 4:42-11(a) states that judgments (and, by cross-reference, tort prejudgment interest calculated under the same rate formula) "shall bear simple interest" | New Jersey bars prejudgment interest against a public entity or employee more broadly than most states, and does it twice -- once per claim type. N.J.S.A. 59:9-2(a) (the Tort Claims Act) bars ANY interest before judgment on a tort claim against a public entity or public employee. N.J.S.A. 59:13-8 (the Contractual Liability Act) separately bars it for a contract claim against the State, with one narrow exception: a court may, in its discretion and "in accordance with principles of equity," award prejudgment interest on a claim for the construction or installation of improvements to real property | Tort prejudgment interest never applies to future economic losses (Rule 4:42-11(b)); a court may suspend the running of tort prejudgment interest altogether "in exceptional cases"; the tort/post-judgment rate steps up by 2 points once a judgment exceeds the Special Civil Part's $20,000 monetary limit; and the New Jersey Prompt Payment Act, N.J.S.A. 52:32-39, separately confirms that no prejudgment interest accrues on a disputed public-contract claim proceeding under its notice-of-claim process, cross-referencing § 59:13-8's bar |
| New Mexico verified 2026-07-05 | NMSA 1978 § 56-8-3 (as-of-right contract/liquidated interest); § 56-8-4(B) (discretionary prejudgment interest, general civil); § 41-4-19(C)-(D) (Tort Claims Act interest rules for government defendants) | Contract/liquidated (§ 56-8-3): up to 15%/yr, or the contract's own rate; General discretionary prejudgment (§ 56-8-4(B)): up to 10%/yr, court's choice | Contract/liquidated: from when the amount became due or ascertainable; General discretionary: from the date the complaint was served on the defendant | A contract-type debt that's ascertainable by a fixed standard draws interest as of right under § 56-8-3; every other civil claim, tort included, instead goes through § 56-8-4(B)'s discretionary, factor-based mechanism, which is not limited to torts but is the only real option for them | § 56-8-3: as of right once the amount is ascertainable; § 56-8-4(B): fully discretionary, reviewed only for abuse of discretion, and a court need not make specific findings to deny it | Simple interest under both statutes; no New Mexico authority located that provides for compounding of ordinary civil prejudgment interest | Prejudgment interest is barred outright against a governmental entity or public employee on a Tort Claims Act claim; post-judgment interest instead runs at 2 points above the prime rate, computed daily from entry of judgment | Child-support judgments are excluded from § 56-8-4(B)'s discretionary mechanism; punitive/exemplary damages and prejudgment interest are both barred against government tort defendants; a state-created compensation fund (e.g., the medical-malpractice Patient's Compensation Fund) is not automatically 'the state' for this exemption and can still owe interest |
| New York verified 2026-07-05 | CPLR 5001 (contract & property-interference claims); EPTL § 5-4.3 is a separate wrongful-death carve-in; ordinary personal-injury tort falls outside both | 9%/yr (CPLR § 5004(a)), or 2%/yr for a judgment on a consumer debt against a natural person; a contract's own stated rate controls instead | Contract/property: the earliest ascertainable date the cause of action existed (§ 5001(b)); wrongful death: the date of the decedent's death (EPTL § 5-4.3(a)) | Ordinary personal-injury and other general tort claims get NO prejudgment interest at all before a verdict; wrongful death is an express, separate statutory exception that does get it | Mandatory ("interest shall be recovered") for a claim within § 5001(a)'s scope; left to the court's discretion only in an "equitable" action; unavailable before verdict outside that scope entirely | Simple interest; § 5001(c) directs a single clerk-computed calculation to the verdict date, not a compounding one | No distinct rate or rule found; a claim against the State goes through the Court of Claims but uses the same CPLR interest framework | Punitive damages don't earn prejudgment interest; a pending 2025-2026 bill would add bodily injury to § 5001(a)'s covered categories for the first time |
| North Carolina verified 2026-07-05 | One statute covers both: G.S. 24-5. Subsection (a) governs contract actions (interest from the date of breach); subsection (b) governs 'other actions' (tort and everything else), splitting compensatory damages (interest from the filing date) from any other portion of the award (interest only from judgment) | The G.S. 24-1 legal rate, 8%/yr, applies to both tracks unless the parties' own written contract sets a different rate for a contract action -- that contract rate then also controls after judgment; a narrower cap applies to certain consumer-credit contracts, discussed below | Contract: from the date of breach. Tort/other actions: the compensatory-damages portion of the award runs from the date the lawsuit was commenced (not the date of injury); any other portion of the award (e.g., punitive damages) runs only from the date judgment is entered | A single statute handles both, but starts the clock at a different point: contract interest runs from the breach itself, a potentially much earlier date; tort (and other non-contract) compensatory damages instead run from the filing of the lawsuit, and any non-compensatory portion of a tort award, like punitive damages, gets no prejudgment interest at all | Mandatory on both tracks: North Carolina's courts have held that where contract damages are ascertainable from the contract itself, the prevailing party 'is entitled as a matter of law to interest from the date of the breach' (Thomas M. McInnis & Assocs., Inc. v. Hall); G.S. 24-5(b) uses the same mandatory 'bears interest' language for the compensatory-damages portion of a tort award | Simple interest: G.S. 24-5 contains no compounding language, and North Carolina courts compute it with a straightforward principal-times-rate-times-time calculation applied to the judgment amount | A tort claim against the State of North Carolina goes through the Industrial Commission under the State Tort Claims Act (G.S. 143-291 et seq.), not the regular courts, and by the Attorney General's own account the Commission does not award pre- or post-judgment interest at all under that Act -- a categorical exclusion, distinct from G.S. 24-5's ordinary court-judgment framework | Only the compensatory-damages portion of a non-contract award draws prejudgment interest; punitive damages and any other non-compensatory portion earn interest only from the date of judgment; a penal-bond judgment runs interest only from judgment entry, not breach; a consumer-credit contract (extended for personal, family, household, or agricultural purposes) is capped at the LOWER of the legal rate or the contract rate, protecting the borrower from an above-market contract rate |
| North Dakota verified 2026-07-05 | Two separate statutes divide the field. N.D.C.C. § 32-03-04, 'Interest on damages,' is the general, mandatory provision for damages 'certain or capable of being made certain by calculation' -- typically a contract or debt claim, reinforced by § 32-03-09's separate rule that contract damages aren't recoverable at all unless 'clearly ascertainable in both their nature and origin.' § 32-03-05, 'When interest [is] in discretion of court or jury,' is a narrower, later-listed provision covering a claim for breach of an obligation not arising from contract, or any case of oppression, fraud, or malice. Neither section states its own numeric rate; North Dakota's Supreme Court has repeatedly held that a § 32-03-04 award draws its rate from the state's general legal-interest statute, § 47-14-05 | For a § 32-03-04 mandatory award: 6% a year, the general 'legal rate of interest' under § 47-14-05 -- unless the parties' own written contract sets a different rate (up to the usury ceiling in § 47-14-09). For a § 32-03-05 discretionary award: no rate is fixed by statute at all; the court or jury simply decides what amount of interest, if any, to add | For § 32-03-04: from the particular day the right to recover the certain or calculable damages vested -- typically the date of breach or the date a debt became due -- except for any period the debtor was prevented by law or by the creditor's own act from paying. For § 32-03-05: no fixed accrual date is specified; the court or jury exercising its discretion sets both whether interest runs and, implicitly, from when | A genuine split by claim type. § 32-03-04's mandatory track covers damages that are certain or calculable -- ordinarily a contract or debt claim, and gated further by § 32-03-09's requirement that contract damages be 'clearly ascertainable in both their nature and origin' before they're recoverable at all. § 32-03-05 takes over for 'the breach of an obligation not arising from contract' -- an ordinary tort claim -- and for any case of oppression, fraud, or malice, but hands the whole question of whether and how much interest to add over to the court's or jury's discretion, with no rate fixed by statute. North Dakota's Supreme Court has recognized that both tracks can apply in the same lawsuit when it mixes contract and tort or fraud theories | Split exactly along the same line as the contract/tort axis. § 32-03-04 is mandatory once its conditions are met -- 'is entitled to recover interest thereon.' § 32-03-05 is genuinely discretionary -- interest 'may be given, in the discretion of the court or jury' -- with no entitlement at all until that discretion is exercised in the claimant's favor | Neither § 32-03-04 nor § 32-03-05 addresses compounding, and this survey did not locate a North Dakota case resolving simple-vs-compound interest for a prejudgment award under either section specifically. North Dakota's separate postjudgment-interest statute, § 28-20-34, expressly states its own rate 'may not be compounded in any manner or form' -- suggestive of the state's general practice, but not a direct answer for the prejudgment period | Two parallel chapters, not one. Claims against the State itself are governed by N.D.C.C. ch. 32-12.2, which caps total liability at $500,000 per person and $2,000,000 for any number of claims from a single occurrence (a figure that stepped up in stages through 2026 under a 2021 act) and bars the State from paying punitive or exemplary damages at all; state employees acting within the scope of their employment are immunized, with claims redirected to the State instead. A separate chapter, ch. 32-12.1, extends the identical $500,000/$2,000,000 cap and the identical bar on punitive damages to counties, cities, school districts, and other political subdivisions. Neither chapter's text says whether prejudgment interest counts inside or outside its damages cap, and this survey located no case resolving the question | § 32-03-06 creates a real trap: 'Accepting payment of the whole principal as such waives all claim to interest, unless interest is provided for expressly in the contract' -- a creditor who accepts full principal without reserving accrued interest can lose the interest claim entirely, contract or no contract, unless the contract itself expressly provides for it. § 32-03-09 works as a gate in front of § 32-03-04 for contract claims specifically: no contract damages -- and by extension no § 32-03-04 interest on them -- can be recovered at all unless they are 'clearly ascertainable in both their nature and origin' |
| Ohio verified 2026-07-05 | Both contract and tort run through ONE statute, R.C. 1343.03, unlike most states in this survey -- but its subsections split sharply: (A) covers contract and other written-instrument debts, (C) covers tort judgments; claims against the state instead use the Court of Claims Act, R.C. 2743.18 | One floating rate applies to both tracks: the July federal short-term rate (rounded to the nearest whole percent) plus 3%, recertified annually by the Tax Commissioner under R.C. 5703.47 -- 7%/yr for calendar year 2026; a written contract can set a different rate instead | Contract: from the date the money became due and payable, at whichever rate was in effect during each calendar year until judgment. Tort: only accrues at all if a court holds a post-verdict good-faith hearing and rules for the plaintiff -- then from the date the claim accrued (if liability was admitted or the harm was intentional) or from the later of first insurer notice or the complaint's filing date in other cases | Same statute, opposite mechanics: a contract creditor gets interest automatically once money is due; a tort plaintiff gets nothing unless the court holds a separate post-verdict hearing and finds the defendant failed to negotiate in good faith while the plaintiff did not (R.C. 1343.03(C), applying the four-factor test from Kalain v. Smith) | Contract: mandatory once money becomes due under a qualifying instrument or transaction. Tort: entirely conditioned on the court's discretionary post-verdict finding on the good-faith-to-settle question, reviewed only for abuse of discretion | No compounding language in the statute; interest is a simple annual rate, and a multi-year contract claim can accrue at a DIFFERENT rate for each calendar year since R.C. 5703.47 resets the rate annually rather than fixing one rate for the whole case | Claims against the state use a separate statute, R.C. 2743.18, not § 1343.03 directly: prejudgment interest is mandatory ('shall be allowed') for the same period and rate as a private-party suit, and the Ohio Supreme Court has held this reaches even a contract sum 'not capable of ascertainment until determined by the court' -- a more forgiving standard than an ordinary private-party contract claim faces; the court's only discretion is to deny interest for delay the claimant itself caused | R.C. 1343.03(C)'s tort-interest mechanism excludes future damages from the interest base entirely; § 1343.03(D) exempts claims under Ohio's workers' compensation chapter and any judgment where a different interest period is specified by other law |
| Oklahoma verified 2026-07-05 | 23 O.S. §§ 6-8 (general interest-on-damages statute, covering both contract and non-personal-injury tort claims) and, separately, 12 O.S. § 727.1(E)-(I) (a dedicated, later-enacted mechanism just for personal-injury/personal-rights tort verdicts, combined with the postjudgment-interest statute) | 6% (Oklahoma's general 'legal rate' under 15 O.S. § 266) or the contract's own rate for claims under 23 O.S. §§ 6-7; for personal-injury/personal-rights verdicts under 12 O.S. § 727.1(E), the average U.S. Treasury Bill rate of the preceding calendar year, reset annually | For an ascertainable-damages claim (23 O.S. § 6), from the day the right to recover vested. For a personal-injury/personal-rights verdict (12 O.S. § 727.1(E)), only starting 24 months AFTER the lawsuit was filed -- a mandatory blackout period before interest begins | A three-way split: (1) contract debts and any claim with ascertainable damages draw interest automatically under 23 O.S. § 6; (2) other torts and cases of fraud, oppression, or malice draw interest only if the JURY chooses to award it, 23 O.S. § 7; (3) personal-injury/personal-rights tort verdicts run on a wholly separate, mandatory, court-administered statute, 12 O.S. § 727.1(E), with its own rate and a unique 24-month accrual delay | Mandatory for ascertainable damages (23 O.S. § 6: a qualifying claimant 'is ... entitled also to recover interest'). Discretionary, and left to the JURY rather than the judge, for other non-contract claims and fraud/oppression/malice cases (23 O.S. § 7: interest 'may be given in the discretion of the jury'). Mandatory again, but decided by the court rather than a jury, for personal-injury/personal-rights verdicts under 12 O.S. § 727.1(E) ('the court ... shall add interest') | Not addressed by any of the governing statutes for the prejudgment period -- no compounding language appears in 23 O.S. §§ 6-8 or 12 O.S. § 727.1(E)-(I) | Personal-injury/personal-rights verdicts against the state or a political subdivision run under a separate subsection, 12 O.S. § 727.1(F): interest runs from the date suit was filed (no 24-month delay, unlike the private-party rule), but the judgment -- including any prejudgment interest -- cannot exceed the liability caps set by the Governmental Tort Claims Act | Exemplary/punitive damages draw NO prejudgment interest at all -- interest on a punitive award starts only from the date of judgment (12 O.S. § 727.1(G)). A lien-establishing judgment with no other applicable rate draws interest from the date the lien was filed to the date of the verdict (12 O.S. § 727.1(H)). Accepting payment of the full principal waives any claim to interest on it (23 O.S. § 8) |
| Oregon verified 2026-07-05 | ORS 82.010(1)(a) (9%/yr on 'all moneys after they become due') -- one statute for both contract and tort claims, gated by a judge-made 'ascertainability' test rather than a contract/tort split | 9% a year by default under ORS 82.010(1); a written contract's own agreed rate controls instead if the parties set one | The date the money became due (a contract debt), or the date damages became a sum certain or readily ascertainable (a tort or unliquidated contract claim) -- can be an earlier date even if a jury later had to resolve disputed facts to reach that figure | No formal split -- one statute and the same ascertainability test applies to both; in practice most fixed contract debts qualify and most pain-and-suffering tort damages don't, but a property-damage or business-tort claim with a fixed formula qualifies exactly like a contract claim | Mandatory as a matter of law once ascertainability is shown -- not an equitable discretion call for the court; but if the facts needed to fix the date or amount are genuinely disputed, that threshold question goes to the jury first | Simple interest for the default 9% statutory rate; a written contract's own rate can itself provide for compounding and will control instead | The state (and counties, as state instrumentalities) are immune from prejudgment interest absent express legislative authorization -- cities are not immune. ORS 82.010(1)(a) itself does not count as that authorization | A written contract's own interest rate and compounding term displace the statutory default entirely. The lower rate in ORS 82.010(2)(f) for medical-malpractice judgments is a POSTjudgment-only rate -- it doesn't apply to prejudgment interest and is easy to confuse with the general rate |
| Pennsylvania verified 2026-07-05 | Contract: common-law right (Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 354, adopted in Fernandez v. Levin) using the 41 P.S. § 202 rate; bodily injury/death/property damage: Pa.R.Civ.P. 238 delay damages, a court rule, not a statute | Contract: the contract's own rate, or 6%/yr under 41 P.S. § 202 if silent; bodily injury/death/property damage: Wall Street Journal prime rate (first January edition) plus 1%, reset every year (6.75% for 2026) | Contract: the date performance was due or the breach occurred; bodily injury/death/property damage: one year after original process was served on the defendant (not the date of injury), running to the date of the verdict | Two unrelated regimes: contract interest is a common-law right that borrows a statutory rate; bodily injury, death, and property-damage claims instead get Rule 238 'delay damages,' a distinct procedural mechanism with its own rate and clock | Contract: interest is due as a matter of right if the sum is liquidated or ascertainable from the contract; otherwise discretionary. Rule 238 delay damages: added whenever the plaintiff requests them, regardless of who caused the delay, subject to two exclusions | Simple interest under both systems: the contract rate is 'simple interest at the statutory legal rate' (Restatement of Contracts § 337(a)); Rule 238 delay damages are calculated 'not compounded' by the rule's own text | Commonwealth parties: Rule 238 delay damages apply and are computed on the full jury verdict, even though the underlying sovereign-immunity damages cap is $250,000 per plaintiff/$1,000,000 aggregate (Woods v. Commonwealth Dep't of Transp.); local political subdivisions have their own separate $500,000 aggregate cap | Rule 238 doesn't apply to eminent domain proceedings or to cases where delay damages are already allowed without the rule; a defendant's qualifying written settlement offer, or delay the plaintiff caused, stops the delay-damages clock; claims outside bodily injury/death/property damage (e.g., most other torts) fall outside Rule 238 entirely |
| Rhode Island verified 2026-07-05 | One statute covers both contract and tort claims: R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-21-10, "Interest in civil actions." Subsection (a) is the general rule for any civil action for pecuniary damages; subsection (b) sets a different accrual rule only for a medical malpractice action filed on or after January 1, 1987. A separate, postjudgment-only statute, § 9-21-8, sets the same 12% rate for the period after judgment | One flat rate for everything: 12% per year, for any civil action for pecuniary damages, contract or tort alike -- no separate contract-vs-tort rate, and no floating or benchmark-tied mechanism. The same 12% applies postjudgment under § 9-21-8. Interest is simple, not compound. Section 9-21-10(a) also doesn't apply at all to "any contractual obligation where interest is already provided" -- if the parties' own contract already fixes an interest rate, that rate controls instead of the statutory 12% | Under § 9-21-10(a), interest runs "from the date the cause of action accrued" -- the date of injury for a tort claim, generally the date of breach for a contract claim. A medical malpractice claim filed on or after January 1, 1987 gets a different, later trigger under § 9-21-10(b): interest runs from the date written notice of the claim was given to the malpractice liability insurer or the health care provider, or the date the lawsuit was filed, whichever happens first -- not the date of the alleged malpractice itself | No split at all. Section 9-21-10(a) applies the identical 12% rate and the identical non-discretionary, clerk-added mechanism to a contract claim and to a personal-injury or other tort claim alike. The only claim-type carve-out anywhere in the statute is for medical malpractice (a subset of tort), and even that only changes the accrual date, not the rate or the mandatory nature of the award | Mandatory, and more than a mere entitlement -- Rhode Island courts describe it as a purely ministerial act. Adding interest under § 9-21-10 "is a ministerial act for the clerk of the court, not an issue to be decided by the court," and once a claim for damages is "duly reduced to judgment the addition of interest is peremptory." A plaintiff doesn't even need to request it by motion for the award to be proper | Simple interest only. A federal court applying Rhode Island law has held directly that "R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-21-10 permits only simple interest," and the Rhode Island Supreme Court has separately confirmed, for the parallel postjudgment-interest statute, that interest is calculated "as simple interest, not compound" | Turns on the same public-function line that gates the $100,000 tort damages cap in R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-31-2: when the government conduct behind the claim was a governmental function, prejudgment interest is barred entirely, because Rhode Island courts treat "interest" as legally separate from "damages" and read the state's waiver of sovereign immunity as not reaching it. But when the government was instead acting in a proprietary (business-like) function -- and the § 9-31-2 damages cap doesn't apply either -- ordinary § 9-21-10 prejudgment interest attaches to the judgment exactly as it would against a private defendant, uncapped, on top of the full damages award | Section 9-21-10(a) reaches only "pecuniary damages," which the Rhode Island Supreme Court has read as synonymous with compensatory damages -- so it doesn't attach to punitive damages, and a federal court applying it has held it doesn't reach the fees and costs of the lawsuit itself either. The statute also excludes "any contractual obligation where interest is already provided" (the parties' own contract rate controls instead) and states it "shall not apply until entry of judgment" -- confirming it's a prejudgment-only mechanism, with § 9-21-8 taking over for the postjudgment period at the same 12% rate |
| South Carolina verified 2026-07-05 | S.C. Code § 34-31-20(A) sets the general prejudgment ("legal interest") rate for any ascertained sum of money that is due; § 34-31-20(B), in the same section, sets a separate, higher, annually-compounding POSTjudgment rate. § 15-78-120(b) of the South Carolina Tort Claims Act separately bars prejudgment interest entirely on a claim against the state or a political subdivision | A flat 8.75% a year for a private-party claim, set directly by the statute's own text (it doesn't float or get republished annually the way the postjudgment rate under subsection (B) does), unless the parties' own contract sets a different rate, in which case the contract rate controls instead | From the date the obligation became demandable -- either by the parties' own agreement or by operation of law -- provided the sum was already certain or capable of being reduced to certainty at that time (Babb v. Rothrock). If the underlying claim wasn't demandable until later (for example, a contribution claim that only ripens once one party has paid and then demanded reimbursement), interest instead runs from the date suit was filed | The statute doesn't mention contract or tort by name at all -- the real dividing line is whether the DAMAGES are an ascertained sum certain, or capable of being reduced to certainty by a fixed method, not what legal theory produced them. A contract debt or a stated account is almost always ascertained. A tort claim can qualify too if the damages are a fixed, calculable amount (a specific repair bill, a stipulated loss), but ordinary personal-injury damages like pain and suffering are not "ascertained" until a jury fixes the number, so they typically draw no prejudgment interest under this statute at all | Once a claim clears the ascertained-sum threshold, interest is a matter of right, not something a court can grant or withhold as a matter of discretion -- the real gatekeeping happens earlier, in deciding whether the claim actually qualifies as ascertained in the first place | Simple interest only. A federal appeals court applying South Carolina law held directly that no South Carolina statute allows compounding prejudgment interest under § 34-31-20(A), reversing a trial court that had compounded it monthly (Liberty Mutual Ins. Co. v. Year Round Pool, Inc., 4th Cir. 1996) -- a sharp contrast with subsection (B)'s postjudgment rate, which the statute's own text says compounds annually | South Carolina bars prejudgment interest outright against the state or a political subdivision: § 15-78-120(b) of the Tort Claims Act states that no award for damages under that chapter may include interest prior to judgment, on top of separate per-person and per-occurrence damages caps that apply to the same claims | Parties are always free to contract for a different (including higher) interest rate, which then displaces the 8.75% statutory rate entirely (Turner Coleman, Inc. v. Ohio Constr. & Eng'g, Inc., 251 S.E.2d 738 (S.C. 1979)). Because the right depends on the sum being ascertained, a claim whose amount is genuinely left to a fact-finder's judgment -- not merely disputed as to liability -- draws no prejudgment interest, whatever the claim type |
| South Dakota verified 2026-07-05 | One statute covers both contract and tort claims: SDCL § 21-1-13.1, 'Interest on damages -- Prejudgment interest.' It replaced an older, narrower statute, former § 21-1-13 (repealed 2014), which still controls any suit commenced before July 1, 1990 -- effectively obsolete now, since no current suit could have been filed that long ago. The statutory rate itself comes from a separate general-purpose statute, § 54-3-16, which sets the numeric 'Category' interest rates used throughout the SD code | One rate for every claim type: the parties' own contract rate if the contract specifies one; otherwise the 'Category B' rate under § 54-3-16(2), currently a flat 10% a year (not a floating, benchmark-tied rate). A separate, lower 'Category A' rate (4.5%) applies only to inverse condemnation actions, which this survey excludes as a specialized proceeding rather than ordinary civil damages | From the day the loss or damage occurred -- not the date of filing, demand, or judgment. If the exact date the loss occurred is a disputed question of fact, the statute itself supplies a fallback: interest instead commences on whatever date the jury specifies in its verdict (via a special interrogatory, if necessary), running through the verdict date, or the date judgment is entered if there's no verdict | No split at all -- § 21-1-13.1 applies identically to 'any person who is entitled to recover damages,' whether the claim sounds in contract, tort, or otherwise (counterclaim, cross claim, third-party claim). Unlike the older, repealed statute it replaced, the current law doesn't require damages to be 'liquidated' or 'ascertainable' by any special test; the only thing that varies is which date interest starts from, and that turns on whether the date of loss is disputed, not on the type of claim | Mandatory 'when applicable,' confirmed by South Dakota's Supreme Court -- once the statutory conditions are met, awarding interest isn't a matter of judicial discretion. But mandatory-in-principle doesn't mean automatic: because the statute requires the date of loss to be established (through a jury verdict or a special interrogatory if that date is disputed), a party who fails to request the necessary jury instruction or interrogatory -- and fails to object when the verdict form omits it -- can forfeit the claim to prejudgment interest entirely, even though the underlying entitlement was never disputed | The statute and its companion rate provision speak only in terms of an annual ('per year') rate, consistent with simple interest, but this survey did not locate a South Dakota case squarely confirming simple interest (as opposed to compounding) for a § 21-1-13.1 prejudgment award specifically | South Dakota's sovereign immunity is waived only to the extent of insurance or risk-pool coverage, not as a general matter. For the State itself, § 21-32-16 says the State 'shall be deemed to have waived' immunity and consented to suit only 'to the extent' it has purchased liability insurance under § 21-32-15 and coverage applies; state employees acting within the scope of employment are separately immune except to that same extent (§ 21-32-17). For every other public entity (cities, counties, school districts, and the like), § 21-32A-1 waives immunity in the same way -- only 'to the extent' the entity participates in a risk-sharing pool or carries liability insurance. Neither statute, nor any case this survey located, creates a distinct prejudgment-interest rule for a government defendant once a claim clears this insurance-based immunity threshold | The statute's own text carves out three categories entirely: 'Prejudgment interest is not recoverable on future damages, punitive damages, or intangible damages such as pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of consortium, injury to credit, reputation or financial standing, loss of enjoyment of life, or loss of society and companionship.' The other major exception is procedural rather than substantive: because entitlement depends on fixing the date of loss, a party's failure to secure a jury finding on a disputed date of loss operates as a waiver of the interest claim, regardless of how strong the underlying case for interest otherwise was |
| Tennessee verified 2026-07-05 | Tenn. Code Ann. § 47-14-123 (discretionary prejudgment interest generally, cross-referencing § 47-14-103's rate ceilings); the personal-injury/wrongful-death bar comes from case law, not a separate statute; claims against the state run through the Claims Commission Act, § 9-8-307(d) | Any rate up to a maximum effective 10%/yr for most claims, or the rate fixed by the parties' own note/contract/writing up to § 47-14-103's ceiling for that category of transaction; a claim against the state is instead capped at § 47-14-121's floating post-judgment rate (8.75%/yr as of mid-2026) | No fixed statutory start date -- § 47-14-123 leaves the date to the court's or jury's equitable discretion, guided by case-law factors like when the debt became definite and whether either side caused delay | Sharply different, and not just a matter of degree: a contract (or other non-personal-injury) claim can get discretionary prejudgment interest under § 47-14-123, while a personal-injury or wrongful-death tort claim gets NONE at all -- a firm, long-standing common-law bar, not mere reluctance to award it | Discretionary for an eligible claim -- courts and juries award it 'in accordance with the principles of equity,' weighing whether the debt was definite, whether the defendant had reasonable grounds to dispute it, and whether either side delayed; personal-injury and wrongful-death claims are not merely low-discretion, they are categorically ineligible | Simple interest -- § 47-14-123 contains no compounding language, describing only a maximum annual rate applied to the damages | A claim against the State of Tennessee goes through the Claims Commission, which may award discretionary interest -- including on injury-based tort claims within its narrow jurisdiction, unlike the flat personal-injury bar for private parties -- but capped at the postjudgment rate under § 47-14-121, not the ordinary 10% ceiling, and never punitive damages | Personal-injury and wrongful-death tort claims get no prejudgment interest at all under case law; claims against the state are capped at $300,000 per claimant/$1,000,000 per occurrence and exclude punitive damages entirely, on top of the different interest-rate mechanism |
| Texas verified 2026-07-05 | Tex. Fin. Code ch. 304, Subch. B (§§ 304.101-.107, wrongful death/personal injury/property damage only); a contract claim instead gets common-law interest (Johnson & Higgins v. Kenneco Energy) | Same as the postjudgment rate: the contract's own rate (capped at 18%/yr) or a floating prime-rate-linked rate, floor 5%/cap 15% (§§ 304.002-.003) | Wrongful death/PI/property damage: earlier of 180 days after written notice of the claim or the date suit is filed (§ 304.104); contract: 6 months after the date of breach (Johnson & Higgins) | Same rate mechanism and a similar ~180-day deferred start for both, but tort runs on an actual statute (Subch. B) while contract runs on judge-made common law borrowing it by analogy | Mandatory/as of right for both tracks; not left to a court's or jury's discretion | Simple interest only; never compounds (§ 304.104; Johnson & Higgins expressly rejected daily compounding) | A state contract claim resolved under Gov't Code ch. 2260's dispute process gets the same ch. 304 rate, but capped at 6%/yr (§ 2260.106) | No interest on an award of future damages (§ 304.1045); a rejected written settlement offer can stop interest from accruing on the judgment or the offer amount (§§ 304.105-.107) |
| Utah verified 2026-07-05 | Three separate mechanisms: Utah Code § 15-1-1 (the contract-interest statute, broadened by a 2019 amendment to expressly cover 'a claim for breach of contract,' not just loans), Utah Code § 78B-5-824 (a dedicated statute for personal-injury/wrongful-death tort verdicts), and the common-law 'ascertainability' rule from Bjork v. April Industries (1977), which borrows § 15-1-4's rate for other claims where damages are fixed and calculable | 10% a year by default for a contract claim under § 15-1-1 (or the contract's own agreed rate); a floating rate for a personal-injury/wrongful-death claim under § 78B-5-824 (2 points above the January prime rate, floored at 5% and capped at 10%); the federal postjudgment rate plus 2% under § 15-1-4 for other ascertainable-damage claims (including non-personal-injury torts) | For a contract claim, from the date the loss became fixed and ascertainable. For personal-injury/wrongful-death special damages, from the date each item of special damages was actually incurred, recalculated each January 1 for later years. Under the general common-law rule, if damages can't be calculated with mathematical accuracy as of a fixed date -- which Utah's own case law lists personal injury, wrongful death, defamation, and false imprisonment as classic examples of -- no prejudgment interest runs at all, which is exactly the gap section 78B-5-824 was written to partly fill | A three-way split, not a clean binary. Contract claims (now including any 'claim for breach of contract,' not just a loan) get § 15-1-1's 10% rate. Personal-injury and wrongful-death tort claims get their own dedicated statute, § 78B-5-824, with a different floating rate, but ONLY on already-incurred economic damages, and a smaller-value case needs a qualifying settlement demand first. Every other tort or claim type falls back to the common-law ascertainability rule, borrowing § 15-1-4's postjudgment rate as the prejudgment rate when damages are fixed and calculable, and getting nothing at all when they aren't | A trial court's decision to award or deny prejudgment interest is reviewed as a QUESTION OF LAW, not an exercise of discretion, once the ascertainability facts are established (Kraatz v. Heritage Imports, quoting Lyon v. Burton). For personal-injury/wrongful-death claims, § 78B-5-824 makes the award mandatory ('the court ... shall add interest') once its own conditions -- special damages actually incurred, and for smaller (tier 1) cases, a qualifying settlement demand -- are satisfied | § 78B-5-824 expressly requires SIMPLE interest for personal-injury/wrongful-death damages. Neither § 15-1-1 nor § 15-1-4 addresses compounding for the contract/other-claim tracks, and Utah courts computing interest under the common-law ascertainability rule likewise apply simple interest | The Governmental Immunity Act of Utah caps the total judgment against a governmental entity or an indemnified employee (currently $583,900 per person for personal injury, $233,600 for property damage, $3,000,000 aggregate per occurrence, adjusted for inflation every even year) -- and because § 78B-5-824(2) requires prejudgment interest to be added into and included in 'that judgment,' the interest is squeezed inside this cap rather than added on top of it | § 78B-5-824 excludes future medical expenses, future lost wages, and future lost earning capacity from the 'special damages' prejudgment interest can reach -- only damages already incurred as of judgment qualify. A tier-1 personal-injury/wrongful-death plaintiff can only claim this interest at all after tendering a written settlement demand at least 60 days before trial that turns out to be within 133% of the eventual judgment; tier-2 and tier-3 cases are exempt from that precondition entirely |
| Vermont verified 2026-07-05 | Vermont has no dedicated prejudgment-interest statute. Instead, Vermont Rule of Civil Procedure 54(a) states that the amount of a judgment includes prejudgment interest and costs, and the Vermont Supreme Court has built a body of case law defining when that interest is available and how much. The actual rate comes from a separate, general-purpose statute, 9 V.S.A. § 41a(a) -- the state's general 'legal rate of interest' -- which courts (including a federal court applying Vermont law) have confirmed supplies both the pre- and postjudgment rate; 12 V.S.A. § 2903(c) cross-references the same rate for a judgment lien | A single flat rate for everything: 12% a year, computed by the actuarial method, under 9 V.S.A. § 41a(a) -- 'the rate of interest ... shall be 12 percent per annum.' Vermont courts apply this same 12% figure to a prejudgment interest award whether the underlying claim is contract or tort, with no separate rate track for either | Runs from the date each element of loss was actually incurred, not necessarily from a single fixed injury or breach date. For special damages made up of several distinct items (medical bills, for example), interest on each item runs from the date that particular expense was incurred -- because 'its cost and date was known precisely' at that point -- not from an earlier date like the date of the underlying accident; a federal court applying Vermont law rejected a request to run interest on all medical bills from the date of injury instead of each bill's own date. For damages a court chooses to award interest on in its discretion, the trigger is whatever date the court finds necessary to make the plaintiff whole | Vermont doesn't split this by claim type into separate statutes or rates -- one case-law framework covers both. Interest is available as of right (mandatory) whenever damages are 'liquidated or readily ascertainable at the time of the tort,' squarely covering an easily-quantified item of tort damages (a medical bill) exactly the same way it covers a liquidated contract debt. Damages that aren't liquidated or readily ascertainable -- typically non-economic tort damages like pain and suffering, but potentially some contract damages too -- fall to the same discretionary standard instead: the trial court may still add interest if doing so is 'required to make the plaintiff whole.' The Vermont Supreme Court has also held that the presence of an unliquidated counterclaim doesn't defeat an otherwise-available prejudgment interest award | A genuine two-track system that turns on whether the damages are liquidated or ascertainable, not on claim type. Liquidated or readily ascertainable damages draw interest as of right -- the rationale being that a defendant could always have avoided the interest simply by tendering the known, calculable amount. Everything else is discretionary, left to the trial court's judgment about what's needed to fully compensate the plaintiff; a court can and does decline discretionary interest on an uncertain damages category (like pain and suffering) even while awarding interest as of right on the same plaintiff's liquidated medical-expense damages in the same case | No Vermont statute or case located by this survey specifically addresses whether the 12% figure compounds for the prejudgment period. 9 V.S.A. § 41a(a) specifies the rate is 'computed by the actuarial method,' a calculation method the same statute defines in more technical detail, but this survey did not confirm whether that method compounds interest over the prejudgment period itself -- noted as an open question rather than assumed | Vermont's Tort Claims Act, 12 V.S.A. § 5601, waives the State's sovereign immunity for an employee's negligent or wrongful act within the scope of employment, treating the State 'under the same circumstances, in the same manner, and to the same extent as a private person would be liable' -- but caps total State liability at $500,000 to any one person and $2,000,000 in the aggregate per occurrence, and carves out several categories entirely (a discretionary-function act, tax assessment or collection, quarantine, National Guard activities, and intentional torts like assault, battery, or fraud, among others). This survey found no case or statute addressing whether prejudgment interest counts inside or outside the $500,000/$2,000,000 cap, or any interest rule distinct from the ordinary private-party rules described above | Vermont's own case-law framework is itself the main limit: damages that are neither liquidated nor readily ascertainable draw no prejudgment interest at all unless the trial court affirmatively exercises its discretion to add it, meaning the default for a genuinely uncertain damages category (pain and suffering, for instance) is no interest, not automatic interest. Separately, Vermont has a narrower, distinct statute for one specific contract context -- the Prompt Payment Act, 9 V.S.A. § 4007(b), covering construction-contract payment disputes -- which the Vermont Supreme Court has held is a legally distinct remedy from ordinary prejudgment interest, even though both currently accrue at the same 1%-per-month rate; that narrower statute is outside the general prejudgment interest rule covered here |
| Virginia verified 2026-07-05 | One general statute covers both contract and tort claims: Va. Code § 8.01-382, which lets the court or jury decide whether to award interest and fix its start date in any action at law, suit in equity, or Administrative Process Act proceeding. The rate itself comes from a separate statute, § 6.2-302. Case law (Advanced Marine Enters., Inc. v. PRC Inc.; Skretvedt v. Kouri; Marks v. Sanzo) explains how that discretion works in practice. A negotiable instrument is carved out and uses its own specified rate under § 8.3A-112. Claims against the Commonwealth face additional limits: the Virginia Tort Claims Act (§ 8.01-195.3) for tort claims, and a common-law sovereign-immunity rule for contract claims (Commonwealth v. AMEC Civil, LLC) | Default: 6% per year. Exception: a money judgment entered in an action arising from a contract carries interest at whichever is HIGHER -- the rate lawfully charged under the contract itself, or 6%. A judgment on a negotiable instrument instead uses the rate stated in the instrument, or 6% if none is stated | The court or jury MAY fix any start date it chooses for interest, and may decline to award any interest before judgment at all. If the final order or verdict says nothing about interest, the default is that interest runs only from the date judgment is entered (or the date of the jury verdict), forward -- silence produces no retroactive prejudgment interest, just ordinary interest running from that point | Virginia doesn't split contract and tort into separate statutes -- both run through the same § 8.01-382 discretionary framework, unlike states with dedicated tort or contract interest provisions. The practical difference is evidentiary rather than statutory: courts generally won't award prejudgment interest on unliquidated damages still in dispute (common in tort cases with contested damages), but readily allow it on a liquidated, fixed-amount contract debt running from the date it became due. A contract's own interest-rate clause also controls the rate, which has no tort-side equivalent | Discretionary, both on whether to award interest at all and on what date it starts. Virginia's courts describe this repeatedly as 'a matter submitted to the sound discretion of the trial court.' That discretion isn't unlimited: an appellate court reversed an award of interest that ran during a delay the trial judge himself had caused, and a jury's chosen start date is upheld unless the record shows a punitive rather than compensatory motive | Neither § 8.01-382 nor § 6.2-302 mentions compounding -- both describe a single continuing annual rate applied to the principal sum. Unlike states whose statutes expressly specify 'simple' or 'compounded annually' interest, Virginia's statutes are silent on the point, and the prevailing calculation practice applies the rate as simple annual interest | The Commonwealth (and any transportation district) is excluded from prejudgment interest twice over, once per claim type. For a TORT claim, the Virginia Tort Claims Act states outright that 'neither the Commonwealth nor any transportation district shall be liable for interest prior to judgment' (§ 8.01-195.3). For a CONTRACT claim, there's no comparable statute, but the Virginia Supreme Court held that the Commonwealth's general rule of being 'as liable for its contractual debts as any citizen' does NOT extend to prejudgment interest absent an explicit statutory or contractual waiver -- reaffirming a rule over a century old and applying it to deny a contractor prejudgment interest on a $21 million VDOT construction judgment (Commonwealth v. AMEC Civil, LLC) | Interest doesn't attach to punitive or treble damages -- only to the 'principal sum awarded,' meaning the portion of a judgment that compensates for actual harm sustained, not damages meant to punish (Sidya v. World Telecom Exchange Communications, LLC). Because prejudgment interest, unlike post-judgment interest, is legally treated as part of the plaintiff's compensatory damages rather than a separate statutory award, it falls WITHIN any applicable statutory damages cap -- a medical malpractice cap absorbs any prejudgment interest awarded, while post-judgment interest is added on top of the cap (Pulliam v. Coastal Emergency Services of Richmond, Inc.). A judgment on a negotiable instrument follows its own rate rule under § 8.3A-112 rather than the general contract/6% default |
| Washington verified 2026-07-05 | Washington splits this across two different bodies of law. RCW 4.56.110 governs interest on the JUDGMENT itself, running from the date of entry (or verdict), and sets different rates for written-contract judgments, tort judgments against public agencies, tort judgments generally, and a residual catch-all tied to the usury statute, RCW 19.52.020. Separately, a judge-made common-law doctrine (Mall Tool Co. v. Far West Equipment Co.; Prier v. Refrigeration Engineering Co.) creates the actual right to TRUE prejudgment interest -- running before suit is even filed -- on a claim, of any type, that is 'liquidated.' That doctrine borrows its default rate from the general legal-rate-of-interest statute, RCW 19.52.010 (12%) | For a true prejudgment award on a liquidated claim: the rate the parties agreed to in writing, or 12% per year under RCW 19.52.010 if there's no agreed rate. For a written-contract judgment generally: the contract's own specified rate (RCW 4.56.110(1)). For an ordinary tort judgment (which draws interest only from the date of entry, not before, under RCW 4.56.110(3)): 2 percentage points above the prime rate for a private defendant, or 2 points above the 26-week Treasury bill yield for a 'public agency' defendant -- a separate, typically lower rate reserved for government tort defendants. Everything else defaults to the maximum rate permitted under the general usury statute, RCW 19.52.020 | For a liquidated claim, interest runs from the date the debt became due -- the date payment should have been made -- not from the date suit was filed or judgment entered; this is Washington's true prejudgment period. For an ordinary tort judgment under RCW 4.56.110's general rules, by contrast, interest runs only from the date judgment is entered (or from the date of a jury verdict, if a judgment on that verdict is later affirmed on review) -- there's no earlier accrual for that claim type under the statute | Washington's operative distinction is liquidated versus unliquidated damages, not contract versus tort. A claim of either type earns true prejudgment interest if its amount can be computed with exactness from the evidence, without resort to a judge's or jury's opinion or discretion -- this doctrine has been applied to a tort claim (the cost of repairing a negligently designed ice rink, held liquidated once the repair contracts were let) just as readily as to a contract debt. An unliquidated claim -- most personal injury verdicts, and any contract claim whose damages require expert testimony or discretion to fix -- gets no true prejudgment interest; the judgment only starts drawing interest from the date of entry under RCW 4.56.110's general rules | For a liquidated claim, prejudgment interest is essentially automatic once the claim qualifies -- courts don't have discretion over WHETHER to award it, only over the antecedent question of whether the claim actually IS liquidated. For an unliquidated claim, there's no discretionary judicial power to award true prejudgment interest at all under Washington's doctrine; the claim simply doesn't qualify, and interest instead starts from the date judgment is entered under the general statute | Neither RCW 4.56.110 nor RCW 19.52.010 mentions compounding; both describe a straight annual rate applied to a principal sum, and Washington courts and practitioners apply it as simple interest | Washington doesn't bar prejudgment or post-entry interest against the government, but it does set a different, generally lower RATE for a tort judgment against a 'public agency' (state agencies, counties, cities, school districts, and similar political subdivisions defined in RCW 42.30.020): 2 points above the 26-week Treasury bill yield, instead of the 2-points-above-prime rate that applies to a private tort defendant. This is a rate difference, not a bar -- a liquidated claim against a public agency can still draw true prejudgment interest under the same common-law doctrine that applies to a private defendant | The tort and residual-catch-all rates are pegged to published financial benchmarks (the prime rate or a Treasury bill yield) reset monthly, so the specific rate depends on which calendar month the judgment is entered. When a party with a liquidated claim faces an opposing unliquidated counterclaim used to offset the award, Washington follows an 'interest on the whole' rule: the liquidated claim's prejudgment interest is calculated on the full amount BEFORE the offsetting deduction, not on the net amount left afterward. A 2021-2022 bill (SB 5155 / E2SSB 5155) that would have moved general tort-claim interest accrual back to the date of injury passed the Senate but died in the House Rules Committee without a floor vote, so it never became law |
| West Virginia verified 2026-07-05 | W. Va. Code § 56-6-27 — the exclusive mechanism for prejudgment interest in a contract action, decided by the jury (Miller v. WesBanco Bank, Inc., 859 S.E.2d 306 (W. Va. 2021)); W. Va. Code § 56-6-31(b) — covers prejudgment interest on special or liquidated damages in any other action, decided by the court | For § 56-6-31(b) claims: two percentage points above the Fifth Federal Reserve District secondary discount rate in effect January 2 of the year the claim accrued, floor 4%/cap 9% (6.25% for judgments entered in 2026); a written agreement's own rate controls instead until judgment. For § 56-6-27 contract-jury-verdict claims: no rate is fixed by the statute at all — the jury simply decides how much interest, if any, to add to the principal | Under § 56-6-31(b): from the date the cause of action accrued, or from the date each item of special damage was incurred, as the court determines, running only through the date of judgment (never on future damages). Under § 56-6-27: the jury computes "the aggregate of principal and interest due at the time of the trial"; the statute does not specify a separate start date | Split by MECHANISM, not rate: a contract claim's prejudgment interest is decided exclusively by the jury under § 56-6-27, with no statutory rate; every other claim type (tort special damages, liquidated damages) is decided by the court under § 56-6-31(b), with an actual statutory rate formula | Discretionary either way, but with different decision-makers: the jury "may allow" interest on a contract claim (Thompson v. Stuckey, 171 W. Va. 483 (1983), holding it is not a mandatory award), and the court "may award" prejudgment interest on special or liquidated damages under § 56-6-31(b) | Simple interest only; § 56-6-31(a) states directly that every money judgment or decree "shall bear simple, not compounding, interest" | No express prejudgment-interest carve-out was located in the West Virginia Governmental Tort Claims and Insurance Reform Act (W. Va. Code §§ 29-12A-1 to -18), which governs claims against political subdivisions; that Act bars punitive damages and caps noneconomic loss but is silent on interest, so the general §§ 56-6-27/56-6-31 rules presumptively apply the same way against a political subdivision as against a private party. Claims against the State of West Virginia itself are a separate matter routed largely through the state Claims Commission, outside this survey's scope | A contract-claim plaintiff who fails to submit the question of prejudgment interest to the jury under § 56-6-27 waives it entirely, with no fallback to § 56-6-31; a written agreement's own interest rate and terms control instead of the § 56-6-31(b) statutory rate, until judgment is entered; prejudgment interest under § 56-6-31(b) never applies to future (not-yet-incurred) damages |
| Wisconsin verified 2026-07-05 | No comprehensive statute exists. The right to what Wisconsin calls "preverdict interest" is common law, dating to Laycock v. Parker, 103 Wis. 161 (1899), and reaffirmed in Beacon Bowl, Inc. v. Wisconsin Electric Power Co., 176 Wis. 2d 740 (1993); the RATE for that common-law right defaults to Wis. Stat. § 138.04's 5% "legal rate." A separate, independent statutory route, § 807.01(3)-(4) (the settlement-offer statute), lets a party who made a formal written settlement offer collect interest at a different, floating rate if the eventual judgment matches or beats the offer -- available for BOTH liquidated and unliquidated damages | 5% a year (the § 138.04 "legal rate") for common-law preverdict interest on a liquidated or determinable claim -- confirmed by case law (Estreen v. Bluhm) applying § 138.04 to this exact purpose. The independent § 807.01(4) settlement-offer route instead uses 1% plus the prime rate, reset every January 1 and July 1 based on the Federal Reserve's H.15 release, and expressly displaces Wisconsin's general post-judgment rate statutes (§§ 814.04(4), 815.05(8)) when it applies -- the two rates are never combined | For common-law preverdict interest: from the date payment was due under the contract, or, if no date was specified, from the date of demand or the date suit was filed (Estreen v. Bluhm). For the independent § 807.01(4) settlement-offer route: from the date of the rejected settlement offer itself, regardless of when the underlying claim arose | Wisconsin's common-law axis is liquidated-or-determinable versus not, cutting across contract and tort exactly like Arizona's and Washington's: a debt due on a specific date and a tort claim like conversion with a readily ascertainable value both qualify; ordinary personal-injury damages (pain and suffering) almost never do, because a jury has to value them. But Wisconsin adds a further limitation none of those other states have: even a liquidated claim draws NO common-law preverdict interest if there are multiple defendants, because no single defendant can know, before the verdict apportions fault, the exact amount it alone would need to tender to stop interest from accruing (Beacon Bowl, citing Wyandotte Chemicals and City of Franklin). Separately, the § 807.01(4) settlement-offer statute is available for unliquidated tort damages too, confirmed by Graves v. Travelers Insurance Co. -- giving a personal-injury plaintiff who serves a formal offer a real path to preverdict interest the common law alone would deny | Mandatory ("as a matter of right," not equitable discretion) once damages are shown liquidated or determinable AND there's no multiple-defendant apportionment problem. Wisconsin has no discretionary middle ground the way some states do for unliquidated contract claims -- if damages aren't liquidated or determinable, the common law simply denies preverdict interest outright, an on/off switch rather than a judgment call. The independent § 807.01(4) settlement-offer interest is likewise automatic (not discretionary) once its own three conditions are met: an unaccepted offer, a judgment, and a judgment at or above the offer | Simple interest only. Section 807.01(4)'s settlement-offer interest is confirmed simple, not compound, by case law (Morrison v. Rankin), calculated on a single amount over one continuous period; neither § 138.04 nor the common-law cases mention compounding at all | A debt or contract claim against the STATE itself must first be presented to, and rejected by, the state legislature as a claims bill before a court action can even be filed (§ 775.01) -- a procedural gate, not an interest-specific carve-out; no separate reduced rate or interest exclusion applies once that gate is cleared. A tort claim against a LOCAL government (a county, city, town, or their employees) can be barred entirely, before any interest question is reached, by governmental immunity for "acts done in the exercise of legislative, quasi-legislative, judicial or quasi-judicial functions" under § 893.80(4) -- Wisconsin courts read that to cover any genuinely discretionary act; once liability does attach (a purely ministerial-duty failure, for instance), no separate interest discount or exclusion applies -- ordinary preverdict-interest rules run the same as against a private defendant | The multiple-defendants bar on common-law preverdict interest (see above) is Wisconsin's sharpest, least-obvious exception. Section 807.01(4)'s interest is also exclusive of the general post-judgment rate statutes when it applies -- "interest under this section is in lieu of interest computed under ss. 814.04 (4) and 815.05 (8)," so a plaintiff collects one or the other, never both stacked together. Wisconsin's own courts and statutes use the term "preverdict interest," not "prejudgment interest" -- worth knowing if researching Wisconsin case law directly, since the two terms mean the same thing here |
| Wyoming verified 2026-07-05 | Wyoming has no dedicated prejudgment-interest statute. The right comes from a long line of Wyoming Supreme Court cases -- most recently and comprehensively restated in Ropken v. YJ Construction, Inc., 2025 WY 131 (Dec. 2025) -- built on top of two general-purpose statutes: Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 40-14-106(e), part of the Wyoming Uniform Consumer Credit Code, which Wyoming courts have borrowed as the default prejudgment-interest rate; and W.S. § 1-16-102(a), a separate statute governing interest on judgments after they're entered (a different, higher rate, addressed below) | 7% a year, drawn from Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 40-14-106(e) -- 'If there is no agreement or provision of law for a different rate, the interest of money shall be at the rate of seven percent (7%) per annum' -- which the Wyoming Supreme Court has confirmed is the default prejudgment-interest rate absent a contractual rate. This is a genuinely different figure from the postjudgment rate: W.S. § 1-16-102(a) sets interest on the judgment itself, once entered, at 10% a year. A written contract's own agreed rate controls over either default if the parties specified one | From the date the debtor received notice of the amount due -- typically a formal demand or demand letter specifying a sum certain -- not from the date of breach, injury, or the eventual court judgment. Calculating interest only from the date of a jury's damages finding, rather than from the earlier notice date, would improperly convert prejudgment interest into something closer to postjudgment interest, defeating its purpose of compensating for the whole period the money was wrongfully withheld | Wyoming's test doesn't split by claim type -- it turns entirely on whether the specific damages claimed are liquidated (readily computable by simple math) versus unliquidated. This has most often been applied to breach-of-contract claims with invoices or a sum-certain demand, but the underlying case law traces back to a broader liquidated-versus-unliquidated distinction that in principle reaches any claim type, including a tort claim, wherever the damages are similarly sum-certain and preceded by adequate notice. A claim doesn't become unliquidated merely because the defendant disputes liability or the exact amount owed, or because the defendant asserts an unliquidated counterclaim or set-off against it | Once the two-part test (liquidated claim, notice given) is satisfied, Wyoming's courts have described the right to interest as following 'as a matter of law,' not as a jury question or a matter of grace -- older cases put it as directly as saying a prevailing party 'should not be mulcted of a part of his rightful judgment' by being denied interest. Procedurally, though, appellate review has two layers: whether a district court is legally entitled to consider awarding prejudgment interest is reviewed de novo, while whether prejudgment interest should actually be awarded on the facts of a given case is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Wyoming's courts have also confirmed a district court may decide the prejudgment-interest question after a jury has already decided liability and damages -- it isn't a question reserved for the jury | This survey did not locate a Wyoming statute or case squarely addressing whether prejudgment interest compounds; the cases reviewed describe the calculation only in terms of 'simple mathematic calculations' applied to a stated rate over a stated number of days, consistent with simple interest, but none states this as an express holding on compounding one way or the other | Prejudgment interest against a Wyoming governmental entity is barred outright, not merely capped. The Wyoming Governmental Claims Act states plainly: 'No judgment against a governmental entity shall include an award for exemplary or punitive damages, for interest prior to judgments or for attorney's fees.' Separately, total liability under the Act -- for the state, a county, city, or other local government, and any public employee acting within the scope of duty -- is capped at $250,000 to any one claimant and $500,000 for all claims arising from a single occurrence, regardless of the prejudgment-interest bar | A claim that starts out unliquidated can still become liquidated -- and therefore eligible for prejudgment interest -- if the amount can eventually be determined without reliance on opinion or discretion, for instance once it's fixed by a formula or a specific, itemized demand. Conversely, Wyoming's courts have declined prejudgment interest where the verdict doesn't allow the reviewing court to separate out which portion of a jury's award corresponded to a liquidated component (like specific medical bills) versus an unliquidated one, since interest can't be calculated on an amount that can't be isolated. A claim for attorney's fees has also been held not to qualify as a liquidated claim for these purposes |
All 51 jurisdictions verified. Each state page shows the statute text and verification date behind its row.