An IT company has to cough up an additional $6 million in post-judgment interest after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit determined interest on a $140 punitive damages award started to accrue on the date of the first of two monetary judgments.
On Wednesday, the appellate court reversed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, which ruled that post-judgment interest started accruing against defendants Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. in 2022, when a $280 million punitive damages award from 2017 was reduced by half. The court entered the initial judgment in favor of the healthcare software company, Epic Systems Corp., in 2017 after a jury found Tata Consultancy liable for stealing and using commercially valuable, unauthorized confidential information and intellectual property. Tata Consultancy argued that the date of the 2022 amended judgment was the date when the post-judgment interest clock should start.