CA1: post-judgment clock begins to run not from time of determination of damages (not liability)

Radford Trust v. First Unum Life Insurance Company of America, No. 06-1992.  This is an ERISA case.  Normally I don’t like reading pure ERISA cases (sorry, Stephan).  But, this one concerns something of more general applicability, “the district court's determination of the date on which postjudgment interest on an award of benefits would begin, and the effect of this determination on the court's discretionary decision to award prejudgment interest.”  While the court acknowledges that setting dates can be a matter of discretion, when the District Court sets them based on a view of the law, the Court of Appeals gets to review that issue de novo.  (Note to all lawyers: remember that.)  The court looks at Kaiser Aluminum & Chem. Corp. v. Bonjorno, 494 U.S. 827, 836 (1990), and finds that “a finding of liability alone without a corresponding determination on damages does not suffice to start the clock on postjudgment interest.”  The court rejects the idea that this matter should be resolved like attorneys fees issues, or like cases where only the calculation of an amount is left to determine.  Therefore, since the court erroneously started the post-judgment clock, it erroneous ended the pre-judgment clock.