Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
post judgment interest
I was awarded a settlement in a small claims case a little over a year ago and never received it, so I went to a service that was supposed to collect it for me for a fee. They said it would be half of what they are able to collect. So far they collected $308.37, but the check was for only $41.21. There were a few fees such as writ of execution, but there was a big portion of the money subtracted was under the heading ''post judgment interest'' ($170.94). Is this a valid procedure and am I to excpect this percentage of the money to be deducted from future checks that are possibly coming to me? If it is not, what can I do to resolve this issue?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: post judgment interest
Postjudgment interest should be treated like the judgment itself -- the service should take its cut and send you the rest after deducting its costs. Unless your contract entitles them to keep all the interest (which it almost surely doesn't), you should have been paid half of the interest.