United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Perkins v. Fourniquet, 55 U.S. 14 How. 328 328 (1852)

Perkins v. Fourniquet

55 U.S. (14 How.) 328

Syllabus

The sixty-second rule of this Court (13 How.) is as follows:

"In cases where a writ of error is prosecuted to the Supreme Court and the judgment of the inferior court is affirmed, the interest shall be calculated and levied from the date of the judgment below until the same is paid at the same rate that similar judgments bear interest in the courts of the state where such judgment is rendered. The same rule shall be applied to decrees for the payment of money in cases in chancery unless otherwise ordered by this Court. This rule to take effect on the first day of December term, 1852."

Before this rule, interest was to be calculated at six percent from the date of the judgment in the circuit court to the day of affirmance here and the confirmation of the report of the clerk in the case of Mitchell v. Harmony, 13 How. 149, was under the rules then existing.

So also, where a case from Mississippi was affirmed at December term, 1851, the mandate from this Court should have been construed to allow interest at six percent from the date of the decree in the court below to the date of the affirmance in this Court. Therefore it was erroneous either to allow six percent until paid or to allow the current rate of interest in Mississippi in addition to the six percent allowed by this Court.

The several rules upon this subject examined and explained.

It is stated in the report of the preceding case that, at December term, 1851, a case of Fourniquet v. Perkins came up from Mississippi, and the decree of the Circuit Court was here affirmed by a divided Court. It was therefore not reported.

The proceedings under the mandate, and the questions which arose thereon, are set forth in the following opinion of the Court: