Background
Cinthya Pedigo sued RK Holdings, LLP, doing business as Rural King, for negligence after improperly stacked feed-bucket lids allegedly fell from a rolling cart in a store and injured her. A Montgomery County jury returned a $35,000 verdict for Pedigo on April 1, 2025, and the circuit court entered judgment on the verdict. Neither party filed a posttrial motion or appealed the verdict.
More than 30 days later, Pedigo initiated citation proceedings to collect the judgment and sought an amount that included $3,064.75 in prejudgment interest. Rural King paid the $35,000 verdict and postjudgment interest before the citation hearing, but argued that the court lacked jurisdiction to add prejudgment interest because Pedigo had not sought it within 30 days of judgment. The circuit court ordered Rural King to pay the accrued statutory prejudgment interest.
The Court’s Holding
The appellate court affirmed. Section 2-1303(c) of the Illinois Code of Civil Procedure makes prejudgment interest in covered personal-injury and wrongful-death actions mandatory and self-executing. The statute directs that plaintiffs “shall recover” the interest and that the court “shall add” it to the judgment at 6% per year, subject to the statute’s exclusions and settlement-offer provisions.
Pedigo’s request was not an untimely posttrial motion seeking to alter the jury’s judgment. Rather, it was a supplementary enforcement request to satisfy the judgment, over which the judgment court retained authority until satisfaction. Because section 2-1303(c) contains no deadline for seeking the statutory additur, the 30-day limit for posttrial motions did not bar the request. The court declined to decide whether postjudgment interest also accrued on the prejudgment-interest amount because that issue was not properly before it.
Key Takeaways
- Illinois prejudgment interest under section 2-1303(c) is mandatory in applicable personal-injury and wrongful-death cases.
- A request to add accrued statutory prejudgment interest may be made in judgment-enforcement proceedings and is not necessarily a posttrial motion.
- The judgment court retains authority to enter orders needed to make its judgment operative until the judgment is satisfied.
Why It Matters
The decision treats statutory prejudgment interest as an enforceable additur, not a discretionary element of the jury’s damages award. Defendants cannot avoid otherwise applicable interest solely because the plaintiff raises it after the ordinary 30-day postjudgment-motion period.