Nebraska: Prejudgment Interest Rules

The short answer

Nebraska doesn't sort prejudgment interest into a contract track and a tort track. Instead, everything turns on whether a claim is "liquidated" — meaning there's no real dispute about the right to recover or the amount owed. A liquidated claim draws interest at 12% a year from the date it arose, as a matter of right. An unliquidated claim, which is what most personal-injury and other tort claims are, can only draw interest if the plaintiff makes a specific kind of formal settlement offer the defendant doesn't accept and the eventual judgment beats — and if it works, the rate is different (a floating rate tied to the judgment rate) and the clock starts from the offer, not the injury. On top of both of these, four specific types of contract-based claims always draw 12% interest independent of the liquidated/unliquidated question. The state and local governments are shielded from all of this when the claim is for negligence or a wrongful act.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

Two statutes work together, and the Nebraska Supreme Court had to sort out how for decades. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 45-103.02 is the general prejudgment-interest statute: it sets separate rules for liquidated claims (subsection (2)) and unliquidated claims (subsection (1)). Neb. Rev. Stat. § 45-104 is much older — over a century old — and lists four specific categories of contract-type claims that draw 12% interest. For 25 years, Nebraska courts disagreed about how these two statutes fit together. Weyh v. Gottsch, 303 Neb. 280 (2019), resolved it: § 45-104 is an independent, standalone basis for prejudgment interest, available for its four listed categories regardless of whether the claim would also qualify as "liquidated" under § 45-103.02, and without having to satisfy § 45-103.02's procedural conditions.

Interest rate

There are two different rates depending on the path. If a claim is liquidated, or if it falls into one of § 45-104's four categories (a claim on a written instrument, a settled account, money received for another's use and withheld without consent, or money loaned or due and unreasonably withheld), interest is 12% per year — a flat statutory rate, not tied to any market benchmark. If a claim is unliquidated and only qualifies through the settlement-offer mechanism in § 45-103.02(1), the rate instead is the one set by § 45-103: two percentage points above the yield on 26-week U.S. Treasury bills, reset at each quarterly auction. The Nebraska judicial branch publishes the resulting number; the rate in effect as of the July 2026 auction was 5.970%. Either rate can be displaced if the parties' own contract sets a different one.

When interest starts running

For a liquidated claim, interest starts on "the date the cause of action arose" — courts are required to identify that specific date. For an unliquidated claim using the settlement-offer route, interest instead starts on the date of the plaintiff's first offer that meets all of § 45-103.02(1)'s conditions and is later exceeded by the judgment — not the date of injury, and not the date the lawsuit was filed.

Contract vs. tort claims

Nebraska doesn't write a separate tort prejudgment-interest statute. What decides a claim's path is whether it's liquidated, not what kind of claim it is. A contract claim for a fixed, undisputed sum is liquidated and gets 12% automatically. A personal-injury or other tort claim is almost always unliquidated — a jury has to decide the amount — so it can reach prejudgment interest only by satisfying the strict settlement-offer procedure in § 45-103.02(1). Wortman v. Unger, 254 Neb. 544 (1998), is exactly this pattern: a quadriplegia personal-injury claim that recovered prejudgment interest only because the plaintiff's attorney sent a settlement offer that tracked § 45-103.02's requirements. A liquidated tort claim — for example, an undisputed property-damage repair bill — would instead qualify the same way a liquidated contract claim does.

Mandatory or discretionary

Once the applicable conditions are satisfied, prejudgment interest is a matter of right, not something a court weighs discretion over. Nebraska case law draws the line at the type of relief sought: for a legal claim seeking money damages, interest is mandatory once the claim is liquidated or the settlement-offer conditions are met. Discretion enters only for equitable claims — those seeking something other than money damages — where a court "may award or withhold interest as the court deems reasonable and just," a different category from the ordinary contract and personal-injury claims this survey covers.

Simple or compound

Simple interest only. No Nebraska statute in this chapter authorizes compounding. In Abbott v. Abbott, 188 Neb. 61 (1972), the Nebraska Supreme Court rejected a plaintiff's request for prejudgment interest compounded annually, holding: "The general rule is that in the absence of contract or statute, compensation in the form of compound interest is not allowed to be computed upon a debt."

Claims against the government

This is an absolute bar, not a lower rate. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 45-103.04(2) blocks any prejudgment interest under § 45-103.02 "involving the state, a political subdivision of the state, or any employee of the state or any of its political subdivisions for any negligent or wrongful act or omission accruing within the scope of such employee's office or employment." A plaintiff who wins a negligence judgment against a Nebraska city, county, or state agency gets no interest at all for the time the case was pending — only postjudgment interest going forward.

Other exceptions

Section 45-103.04(1) also excludes Chapter 42 domestic-relations actions from § 45-103.02's prejudgment-interest scheme entirely — that's a family-law carve-out, not a commercial or tort one. Both §§ 45-103 and 45-104 let the parties' own contract set a different interest rate, which then controls instead of either statutory rate. And the unliquidated-claim route is all-or-nothing: missing any one of § 45-103.02(1)'s four procedural conditions (written offer, certified mail, filed at least 10 days before trial, proof of delivery filed with the court) means no prejudgment interest accrues on an unliquidated claim at all, no matter how reasonable the offer was.

What trips people up

The biggest trap is assuming Nebraska splits interest by contract-versus-tort the way many states do. It doesn't — the real dividing line is liquidated-versus-unliquidated, and that line cuts across claim types. A tort plaintiff with a liquidated claim (an exact repair bill, for instance) is in the same 12%-from-accrual position as a contract plaintiff. Meanwhile, a contract plaintiff whose damages are genuinely disputed is stuck in the same unliquidated settlement-offer procedure as a personal-injury plaintiff.

The settlement-offer mechanism is unforgiving. It has to be sent by certified mail with a return receipt, at least ten days before trial, expressly offering to allow judgment on stated terms, with proof of delivery filed with the court clerk — and the offer has to be rejected or ignored, then beaten by the eventual judgment. A defense lawyer's letter that merely floats settlement numbers informally, or an offer sent by regular mail or too close to trial, won't satisfy the statute, and there's no partial credit: the claim gets no prejudgment interest at all if any condition is missed.

Common questions

Does Nebraska treat a car-accident injury claim differently from a breach-of-contract claim?
Not by label. Both fall under the same statute. What matters is whether the claim is liquidated (rare for a personal-injury claim, since a jury sets the amount) or whether the plaintiff used the settlement-offer procedure to unlock interest on an unliquidated claim.

Can I get prejudgment interest on a claim against a Nebraska city or county for negligence?
No. Section 45-103.04(2) bars prejudgment interest entirely against the state, its political subdivisions, and their employees acting within the scope of employment for a negligent or wrongful act.

Does Nebraska's prejudgment interest compound?
No. It's simple interest. The Nebraska Supreme Court has held that compound interest isn't allowed absent a contract or statute saying otherwise, and none of Nebraska's prejudgment-interest statutes provide for compounding.

What if my contract already has an interest-rate clause?
That clause controls instead of the statutory 12% or floating rate — both §§ 45-103 and 45-104 apply "unless otherwise agreed."

Statutes and sources

• Neb. Rev. Stat. § 45-103.02 — "(1) Except as provided in section 45-103.04, interest as provided in section 45-103 shall accrue on the unpaid balance of unliquidated claims from the date of the plaintiff's first offer of settlement which is exceeded by the judgment until the entry of judgment if all of the following conditions are met: (a) The offer is made in writing upon the defendant by certified mail, return receipt requested, to allow judgment to be taken in accordance with the terms and conditions stated in the offer; (b) The offer is made not less than ten days prior to the commencement of the trial; (c) A copy of the offer and proof of delivery to the defendant in the form of a receipt signed by the party or his or her attorney is filed with the clerk of the court in which the action is pending; and (d) The offer is not accepted prior to trial or within thirty days of the date of the offer, whichever occurs first. (2) Except as provided in section 45-103.04, interest as provided in section 45-104 shall accrue on the unpaid balance of liquidated claims from the date the cause of action arose until the entry of judgment." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=45-103.02
• Neb. Rev. Stat. § 45-104 — "Unless otherwise agreed, interest shall be allowed at the rate of twelve percent per annum on money due on any instrument in writing, or on settlement of the account from the day the balance shall be agreed upon, on money received to the use of another and retained without the owner's consent, express or implied, from the receipt thereof, and on money loaned or due and withheld by unreasonable delay of payment." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=45-104
• Neb. Rev. Stat. § 45-103 — "For decrees and judgments rendered on and after July 20, 2002, interest on decrees and judgments for the payment of money shall be fixed at a rate equal to two percentage points above the bond investment yield, as published by the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, of the average accepted auction price for the first auction of each annual quarter of the twenty-six-week United States Treasury bills in effect on the date of entry of the judgment." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=45-103
• Neb. Rev. Stat. § 45-103.04 — "Interest as provided in section 45-103.02 shall not accrue prior to the date of entry of judgment for: (1) Any action arising under Chapter 42; or (2) Any action involving the state, a political subdivision of the state, or any employee of the state or any of its political subdivisions for any negligent or wrongful act or omission accruing within the scope of such employee's office or employment." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://nebraskalegislature.gov/laws/statutes.php?statute=45-103.04
• Abbott v. Abbott, 188 Neb. 61, 195 N.W.2d 204 (1972) — "The general rule is that in the absence of contract or statute, compensation in the form of compound interest is not allowed to be computed upon a debt." Accessed 2026-07-05: https://law.justia.com/cases/nebraska/supreme-court/1972/38010-1.html
• Wortman v. Unger, 254 Neb. 544, 578 N.W.2d 413 (1998) — a personal-injury tort claim recovering prejudgment interest under § 45-103.02(1)'s settlement-offer procedure, illustrating how a tort claim reaches interest without a dedicated tort statute. Accessed 2026-07-05: https://law.justia.com/cases/nebraska/supreme-court/1998/1225-1.html
• Nebraska Judicial Branch, Judgment Interest Rate table — publishes the current § 45-103 floating rate (5.970% effective the auction closest to July 16, 2026). Accessed 2026-07-05: https://nebraskajudicial.gov/rules/administrative-policies-schedules/judgment-interest-rate