In re Estate of Adelung , 312 Neb. 647 ( 2022 )


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    www.nebraska.gov/apps-courts-epub/
    11/18/2022 09:05 AM CST
    - 647 -
    Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
    312 Nebraska Reports
    IN RE ESTATE OF ADELUNG
    Cite as 
    312 Neb. 647
    In re Estate of Madeline A.
    Adelung, deceased.
    Lynda Adelung Heiden, Personal Representative
    of the Estate of Madeline A. Adelung,
    deceased, appellant and cross-appellee,
    v. Kent A. Adelung, appellee and
    cross-appellant.
    ___ N.W.2d ___
    Filed October 14, 2022.   No. S-21-838.
    1. Appeal and Error. The construction of a mandate issued by an appel-
    late court presents a question of law.
    2. Judgments: Appeal and Error. On questions of law, an appellate court
    is obligated to reach a conclusion independent of the determination
    reached by the court below.
    3. Actions: Appeal and Error. The law-of-the-case doctrine reflects the
    principle that an issue litigated and decided in one stage of a case should
    not be relitigated at a later stage.
    4. Appeal and Error. Under the law-of-the-case doctrine, an appellate
    court’s holdings on issues presented to it conclusively settle all matters
    ruled upon, either expressly or by necessary implication.
    5. Judgments: Appeal and Error. The law-of-the-case doctrine applies
    with greatest force when an appellate court remands a case to an inferior
    tribunal. Upon remand, a district court may not render a judgment or
    take action apart from that which the appellate court’s mandate directs
    or permits.
    6. Judgments: Waiver: Appeal and Error. Under the mandate branch
    of the law-of-the-case doctrine, a decision made at a previous stage of
    litigation, which could have been challenged in the ensuing appeal but
    was not, becomes the law of the case; the parties are deemed to have
    waived the right to challenge that decision. But an issue is not consid-
    ered waived if a party did not have both an opportunity and an incentive
    to raise it in a previous appeal.
    - 648 -
    Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
    312 Nebraska Reports
    IN RE ESTATE OF ADELUNG
    Cite as 
    312 Neb. 647
    Appeal from the County Court for Buffalo County: Gerald
    R. Jorgensen, Jr., Judge. Affirmed.
    Blake E. Johnson, of Bruning Law Group, for appellant.
    Jared J. Krejci, of Smith, Johnson, Allen, Connick & Hansen,
    for appellee.
    Heavican, C.J., Cassel, Stacy, Papik, and Freudenberg,
    JJ., and Noakes, District Judge.
    Heavican, C.J.
    INTRODUCTION
    This case comes to us following our remand to the county
    court for a redetermination of damages owed by the defendant.
    At issue is whether the county court erred when it declined to
    award prejudgment interest to the estate. The estate appeals.
    We affirm.
    BACKGROUND
    This is the second time this court has been presented with an
    appeal from the estate of Madeline A. Adelung (Estate). 1 In our
    earlier case, Adelung’s son, Kent A. Adelung, appealed from
    the decision of the county court finding him liable following
    an action for an equitable accounting sought by the Estate’s
    personal representative, Lynda Adelung Heinen, Madeline’s
    daughter.
    On appeal, we concluded that the Estate was barred by
    the statute of limitations from recovering a portion of the
    farm income it alleged that Kent had wrongfully collected.
    We affirmed, as modified, the county court’s judgment and
    remanded the cause to the county court with directions for the
    court to calculate the judgment in conformity with our opinion.
    Upon remand, the Estate sought prejudgment interest.
    The county court noted that it had not previously ordered
    1
    See In re Estate of Adelung, 
    306 Neb. 646
    , 
    947 N.W.2d 269
     (2020).
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    Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
    312 Nebraska Reports
    IN RE ESTATE OF ADELUNG
    Cite as 
    312 Neb. 647
    prejudgment interest, that this court’s opinion had made no
    mention of prejudgment interest, and that to award it would
    “not [be] proper.” The Estate appeals, and Kent cross-appeals.
    ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR
    The Estate assigns that the county court erred in not applying
    prejudgment interest under 
    Neb. Rev. Stat. § 45-104
     (Reissue
    2021) to the amount of the modified judgment.
    On cross-appeal, Kent assigns that the county court erred
    in not concluding that the Estate failed to adequately plead or
    otherwise raise the issue of prejudgment interest and, as such,
    did not have a substantive right to recover such interest.
    STANDARD OF REVIEW
    [1,2] The construction of a mandate issued by an appellate
    court presents a question of law. 2 On questions of law, we are
    obligated to reach a conclusion independent of the determina-
    tion reached by the court below. 3
    ANALYSIS
    This case examines the intersection of the awarding of pre-
    judgment interest and the law-of-the-case doctrine. Some back-
    ground on both principles is helpful.
    Statutory authority for the awarding of prejudgment interest
    is separately found in 
    Neb. Rev. Stat. § 45-103.02
     (Reissue
    2021) and § 45-104. We clarified in Weyh v. Gottsch 4 that
    §§ 45-103.02 and 45-104 are
    alternate and independent statutes authorizing the recovery
    of prejudgment interest. In other words, the Legislature
    has created three separate ways to recover prejudgment
    interest, and none is preferred. Section 45-103.02(1)
    authorizes the recovery of prejudgment interest on unliq-
    uidated claims when the statutory preconditions are met,
    2
    County of Sarpy v. City of Gretna, 
    276 Neb. 520
    , 
    755 N.W.2d 376
     (2008).
    3
    
    Id.
    4
    Weyh v. Gottsch, 
    303 Neb. 280
    , 313-14, 
    929 N.W.2d 40
    , 63 (2019).
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    Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
    312 Nebraska Reports
    IN RE ESTATE OF ADELUNG
    Cite as 
    312 Neb. 647
    § 45-103.02(2) authorizes the recovery of prejudgment
    interest on liquidated claims, and § 45-104 authorizes the
    recovery of prejudgment interest on four categories of
    contract-based claims without regard to whether the claim
    is liquidated or unliquidated.
    [3-5] As noted, the law-of-the-case doctrine is also impli-
    cated here. This doctrine reflects the principle that an issue
    litigated and decided in one stage of a case should not be reliti-
    gated at a later stage. 5 Under that doctrine, an appellate court’s
    holdings on issues presented to it conclusively settle all matters
    ruled upon, either expressly or by necessary implication. 6 The
    doctrine applies with greatest force when an appellate court
    remands a case to an inferior tribunal. 7 Upon remand, a district
    court may not render a judgment or take action apart from that
    which the appellate court’s mandate directs or permits. 8
    [6] Under the mandate branch of the law-of-the-case doc-
    trine, a decision made at a previous stage of litigation, which
    could have been challenged in the ensuing appeal but was not,
    becomes the law of the case; the parties are deemed to have
    waived the right to challenge that decision. 9 But an issue is not
    considered waived if a party did not have both an opportunity
    and an incentive to raise it in a previous appeal. 10
    The Nebraska Court of Appeals discussed the intersection
    of prejudgment interest and the mandate branch of the law-of-
    the-case doctrine in Valley Cty. Sch. Dist. 88-0005 v. Ericson
    State Bank. 11 In that case, a bank (found liable below) appealed
    from, among other things, the district court’s award of
    5
    deNourie & Yost Homes v. Frost, 
    295 Neb. 912
    , 
    893 N.W.2d 669
     (2017).
    6
    
    Id.
    7
    
    Id.
    8
    
    Id.
    9
    
    Id.
    10
    
    Id.
    11
    Valley Cty. Sch. Dist. 88-0005 v. Ericson State Bank, 
    18 Neb. App. 624
    ,
    
    790 N.W.2d 462
     (2010).
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    Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
    312 Nebraska Reports
    IN RE ESTATE OF ADELUNG
    Cite as 
    312 Neb. 647
    prejudgment interest at a rate of 12 percent per annum. The
    Court of Appeals affirmed. On remand, the district court
    entered an order in conformity with the Court of Appeals’
    opinion and awarded postjudgment interest at the same rate.
    The bank again appealed. 12
    In defending the district court’s award, the appellee con-
    tended that the law-of-the-case doctrine operated to prevent
    the bank from challenging the 12-percent rate applied to the
    postjudgment amount. The Court of Appeals disagreed:
    In Valley Cty. I . . . , we specifically stated that § 45-104
    applied “[b]ecause there was no ‘otherwise agreed’ upon
    rate for prejudgment interest” and that [the appellee] was
    entitled to the 12–percent prejudgment interest until the
    entry of judgment. Neither the district court’s judgment
    nor our opinion stated that the 12–percent interest rate
    would continue to be applied after entry of judgment;
    thus, the [b]ank did not have a reason to raise the issue
    of the appropriate postjudgment interest rate at that time.
    Had the district court’s initial judgment expressly stated
    a postjudgment interest rate, [the appellee’s] argument
    would have had merit. But because the judgment was
    silent on the matter of postjudgment interest, we reject
    [the appellee’s] argument that the matter should have
    been raised in the prior appeal. 13
    Also relevant to our determination is Neb. Ct. R. Pldg.
    § 6-1108(a), which states:
    A pleading which sets forth a claim for relief, whether an
    original claim, counterclaim, cross-claim, or third-party
    claim, shall contain (1) a caption, (2) a short and plain
    statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled
    to relief, and (3) a demand for judgment for the relief the
    pleader seeks. Relief in the alternative or of several dif-
    ferent types may be demanded. If the recovery of money
    12
    See id.
    13
    Id., 18 Neb. App. at 628-29, 790 N.W.2d at 466.
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    Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
    312 Nebraska Reports
    IN RE ESTATE OF ADELUNG
    Cite as 
    312 Neb. 647
    be demanded, the amount of special damages shall be
    stated but the amount of general damages shall not be
    stated; and if interest thereon be claimed, the time from
    which interest is to be computed shall also be stated.
    (Emphasis supplied.)
    In Albrecht v. Fettig, 14 the Court of Appeals discussed
    whether the failure to request interest in a complaint precluded
    a litigant from recovering interest, 15 noting that the purpose of
    compliance with § 6-1108 was to provide notice of the relief
    that the plaintiff was attempting to obtain. 16 In AVG Partners I,
    this court expanded the Albrecht holding to note that “compli-
    ance with § 6-1108(a) is not determinative where entitlement
    to interest is based on statute and the adverse party had notice
    and an opportunity to be heard prior to judgment.” 17 Based on
    this, we concluded that although prejudgment interest was not
    requested in the complaint, it was “the subject of extensive
    argument prior to judgment” 18 and thus was recoverable.
    The county court and the parties frame the issue presented
    by this appeal primarily as one involving the law-of-the-case
    doctrine. The parties ask us to determine whether the fact that
    this court’s mandate failed to order prejudgment interest means
    that to do so would be outside of that prior mandate.
    Generally speaking, a lower court may do nothing other than
    what a higher court has ordered it to do via the higher court’s
    mandate. And in this case, we ordered the lower court to rede-
    termine the damages award once we concluded that the statute
    of limitations operated to prevent the Estate from recovering
    some of the farm income that had been awarded to it by the
    county court. This did not include interest.
    14
    Albrecht v. Fettig, 
    27 Neb. App. 371
    , 
    932 N.W.2d 331
     (2019).
    15
    See AVG Partners I v. Genesis Health Clubs, 
    307 Neb. 47
    , 
    948 N.W.2d 212
     (2020) (quoting Albrecht, supra note 14).
    16
    Id.
    17
    Id., 
    307 Neb. at 64
    , 948 N.W.2d at 230.
    18
    Id.
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    Nebraska Supreme Court Advance Sheets
    312 Nebraska Reports
    IN RE ESTATE OF ADELUNG
    Cite as 
    312 Neb. 647
    As noted above, there are some instances where issues out-
    side of the mandate may be raised on remand—namely, if there
    was no opportunity or incentive to appeal from the issue now
    raised. But we need not decide here whether the Estate should
    have appealed from the county court’s failure to award interest
    below. Rather, we find dispositive the Estate’s failure to seek
    interest in its pleading or otherwise raise the issue of interest
    prior to judgment.
    The purpose behind compliance with § 6-1108 of the plead-
    ing rules is to provide notice to other litigants that prejudgment
    interest is at issue. If there was notice, the failure to comply
    with § 6-1108 might be excusable. But here, there was no
    compliance with § 6-1108, nor was there notice to Kent on the
    issue of prejudgment interest prior to the entry of judgment
    in the Estate’s favor. On these facts, we find no error in the
    district court’s refusal to award interest on remand. Finding no
    merit to the Estate’s assignment of error, albeit for a different
    reason than that stated by the county court, we affirm. We need
    not reach Kent’s assignment of error on cross-appeal.
    CONCLUSION
    The decision of the county court is affirmed.
    Affirmed.
    Miller-Lerman, J., participating on briefs.
    Funke, J., not participating.