Delaware: Prejudgment Interest Rules

The short answer

Delaware doesn't have one single prejudgment-interest statute the way many states do -- it has a general legal-interest-rate statute that case law has grafted a common-law prejudgment-interest right onto, plus one narrow, purpose-built statutory mechanism just for certain tort claims. In Superior Court or the Court of Common Pleas, a contract claim (or a tort claim for ascertainable property damage) draws interest as a matter of right once the damages are liquidated or easily calculable, at a floating rate under 6 Del. C. § 2301(a) -- 5 percentage points over the Federal Reserve discount rate, fixed as of the date the money became due. A personal-injury or wrongful-death claim is different: the common-law rule generally bars interest on damages that aren't easily calculable, so the only path to prejudgment interest on that kind of claim is a separate statute, § 2301(d), and that path requires the plaintiff to have made a written settlement demand before trial for an amount less than what the judgment eventually awards. In the Court of Chancery, none of this applies automatically -- awarding interest, picking its rate, and deciding whether it compounds are all left to the court's own equitable discretion.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

Delaware splits this across two different kinds of authority rather than one dedicated statute. 6 Del. C. § 2301(a) is a general legal-interest-rate statute -- it exists to cap loan interest and set a default lending rate -- but Delaware courts have long applied its rate to an ordinary prejudgment-interest award once the common-law right to interest attaches on a law claim (a contract claim, or a tort claim for ascertainable damages like property damage). Section 2301(d) is a separate, much narrower provision that creates its own statutory prejudgment-interest right, but only for a tort action seeking compensatory damages for bodily injury, death, or property damage in Superior Court or the Court of Common Pleas, and only if the plaintiff met a specific pretrial settlement-demand condition. The Court of Chancery sits outside both: interest awarded there rests on the court's own inherent equitable authority, not on § 2301 at all.

Interest rate

The statutory rate under § 2301(a) floats: 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 trial or judgment, and not today's discount rate. If the parties have a written contract that states its own interest rate, that rate controls instead. Section 2301(d) tort claims use this same § 2301(a) rate. The Court of Chancery isn't bound by any of this: it has "broad discretion, subject to principles of fairness," in fixing the rate it applies, including the discretion to pick a rate higher than the statutory one.

When interest starts running

For a common-law claim (contract, or ascertainable-damages tort), interest starts on the date payment became due -- typically the date of breach for a contract claim. For a § 2301(d) tort claim that satisfies its settlement-demand condition, the statute itself sets an earlier trigger: the date of injury, not the date of breach, demand, or filing.

Contract vs. tort claims

This is where Delaware's split runs deepest -- it isn't just a different rate or a different start date, it's a genuinely different mechanism. A contract claim (and a tort claim for ascertainable property damage) draws prejudgment interest as a matter of right at common law, with no settlement-demand precondition at all, once the damages are liquidated or easily calculable. A personal-injury or wrongful-death tort claim can draw interest only through § 2301(d)'s narrow statutory path, and that path has a real gate: the plaintiff must have extended the defendant a written settlement demand, valid for at least 30 days, for an amount less than what the judgment eventually awards. Delaware's Supreme Court has held that if the plaintiff's own demand was higher than the eventual verdict, the tort claim draws no prejudgment interest under the statute at all -- there's no fallback to a smaller amount or a shorter period. Where a jury verdict combines tort and contract theories without breaking out which dollars belong to which theory, a plaintiff can still recover interest on the contract-law portion under the common-law right, independent of whether the tort portion is barred under § 2301(d).

Mandatory or discretionary

In Superior Court and the Court of Common Pleas, prejudgment interest on a law claim is squarely mandatory: Delaware's Supreme Court has said it is "awarded ... as a matter of right and not of judicial discretion" once the damages are ascertainable, and § 2301(d) itself uses mandatory language -- interest "shall be added" -- once its settlement-demand condition is met. The Court of Chancery works the opposite way: whether to award interest at all, not just how much, is left to the court's own equitable discretion, and Chancery is generally less likely to award prejudgment interest where the underlying claim is equitable rather than legal in nature.

Simple or compound

Simple interest is the default, and the near-universal practical outcome, for a law claim in Superior Court or the Court of Common Pleas. The Court of Chancery has its own separate and broader discretion -- including, as Delaware's courts have put it, "the lesser authority to award compounding" -- but Chancery has repeatedly said it will typically stick with simple interest, the Superior Court norm, when the underlying claim could have been brought in Superior Court instead of Chancery.

Claims against the government

Delaware's Tort Claims Act gives the State and its officers and employees broad immunity from "any ... judgment, damages, penalties, costs or other money entitlement" for a discretionary official act performed in good faith and without gross or wanton negligence. A parallel act covers counties and municipalities: they're immune from tort claims except for a short, specifically enumerated list (use of motor vehicles, operation of public buildings, and sudden accidental pollution releases), and even where immunity is lifted, recovery against a political subdivision is capped at $300,000 per occurrence absent extra insurance coverage. Separately, the State's sovereign immunity is waived only "as to any risk or loss covered by the state insurance coverage program." None of these statutes, and no case this survey located, specifically addresses whether ordinary § 2301 prejudgment interest -- or § 2301(d)'s settlement-demand mechanism -- applies once a claim against a Delaware governmental entity clears this immunity threshold in the first place.

Other exceptions

The load-bearing limit comes from case law, not the text of § 2301 itself: prejudgment interest at common law is available only where damages are "liquidated or ... easily calculable from the evidence." That's why an ordinary personal-injury, wrongful-death, pain-and-suffering, emotional-distress, or reputational-injury claim draws no common-law prejudgment interest at all -- its only route is § 2301(d)'s narrower statutory mechanism, and that mechanism reaches only bodily-injury, death, and property-damage tort claims, nothing broader. The same ascertainability logic is why prejudgment interest isn't available on an award of punitive damages. One more limit is purely procedural: the right to interest isn't self-executing, so a party must specifically request it in its pleadings or raise it at trial -- though a damages demand large enough to cover the underlying loss plus interest can, in some circumstances, be read as implicitly asking for it.

What trips people up

The biggest trap is assuming a personal-injury claim automatically draws prejudgment interest the way a contract claim does. It doesn't -- the common-law "ascertainable damages" rule that gives contract claims their matter-of-right interest specifically excludes the kind of damages (pain and suffering, emotional distress) that make up most personal-injury verdicts, so a tort plaintiff who never sent a qualifying pretrial settlement demand under § 2301(d) can end up with no prejudgment interest at all, even after winning a large verdict.

The second trap cuts the other way: a plaintiff who sends a settlement demand that turns out to be higher than the eventual jury award loses the § 2301(d) tort interest entirely -- there's no partial credit for having tried to settle. Getting the demand amount right, relative to what a case is actually likely to be worth at trial, matters as much as making the demand at all.

Common questions

What's Delaware's prejudgment interest rate?
A floating rate: 5 percentage points over the Federal Reserve discount rate (including any surcharge), locked in as of the date interest became due -- not the date of judgment.

Do I get prejudgment interest automatically if I win a personal injury case in Delaware?
Not automatically. You need to have extended the defendant a written settlement demand before trial, valid for at least 30 days, for an amount less than what the judgment eventually awards you.

Does Delaware prejudgment interest compound?
In Superior Court and the Court of Common Pleas, no -- simple interest is the norm. The Court of Chancery has its own discretion to award compound interest but usually doesn't when the claim could have been brought in Superior Court instead.

Can I get prejudgment interest if I sue the State of Delaware?
It depends first on whether your claim survives Delaware's broad Tort Claims Act immunity at all -- that's a merits question the immunity statutes answer before interest ever comes up, and this survey found no case specifically addressing how § 2301's interest rules apply once a claim against the government clears that threshold.

Statutes and sources

• 6 Del. C. § 2301(a) -- "Where there is no expressed contract rate, the legal rate of interest shall be 5% over the Federal Reserve discount rate including any surcharge as of the time from which interest is due..." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c023/index.html
• 6 Del. C. § 2301(d) -- "In any tort action for compensatory damages in the Superior Court or the Court of Common Pleas seeking monetary relief for bodily injuries, death or property damage, interest shall be added to any final judgment entered for damages awarded, calculated at the rate established in subsection (a) of this section, commencing from the date of injury, provided that prior to trial the plaintiff had extended to defendant a written settlement demand valid for a minimum of 30 days in an amount less than the amount of damages upon which the judgment was entered." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title6/c023/index.html
• 10 Del. C. § 4001 -- "no claim or cause of action shall arise, and no judgment, damages, penalties, costs or other money entitlement shall be awarded or assessed against the State or any public officer or employee ... where [the act] arose out of ... an official duty ... involving the exercise of discretion ...; was done in good faith ...; and was done without gross or wanton negligence." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title10/c040/sc01/index.html
• 10 Del. C. § 4011(a) -- "Except as otherwise expressly provided by statute, all governmental entities and their employees shall be immune from suit on any and all tort claims seeking recovery of damages." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://delcode.delaware.gov/title10/c040/sc02/index.html
• 18 Del. C. § 6511 -- "The defense of sovereignty is waived and cannot and will not be asserted as to any risk or loss covered by the state insurance coverage program..." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://law.justia.com/codes/delaware/title-18/chapter-65/subchapter-i/section-6511/