Petition for Writ of Certiorari — Angelo Pesavento, et al., Petitioners v. Eddie L. Bolden
Supreme Court briefMar 30, 2026
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No. 25IN THE
Supreme Court of the United States
__________
DETECTIVE ANGELO PESAVENTO; POLICE OFFICER
JAMES OLIVER; THE ESTATES OF DETECTIVES GEORGE
KARL AND EDWARD SIWEK; AND THE CITY OF CHICAGO,
Petitioners,
v.
EDDIE L. BOLDEN,
__________
Respondent.
On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the
United States Court of Appeals
for the Seventh Circuit
__________
PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI
__________
MARY B. RICHARDSON-LOWRY
Corporation Counsel
of the City of Chicago
MYRIAM ZRECZNY KASPER*
Deputy Corporation Counsel
SUZANNE M. LOOSE
Chief Assistant Corporation Counsel
AYA R. BARNEA
Assistant Corporation Counsel
2 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 580
Chicago, IL 60602
(312) 744-3564
myriam.kasper@cityofchicago.org
*Counsel of Record
QUESTION PRESENTED
Whether prejudgment interest should be
unavailable as a matter of law on awards of
noneconomic damages, such as pain and suffering and
loss of a normal life.
i
ii
PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING
Petitioners are former Detective Angelo
Pesavento, former Police Officer James Oliver, the
Estates of Detectives George Karl and Edward Siwek,
and the City of Chicago. Respondent is Eddie L.
Bolden.
iii
RELATED PROCEEDINGS
United States Court of Appeals (7th Cir.):
Bolden v. Pesavento, et al.,
No. 24-1674 (Nov. 6, 2025)
United States District Court (N.D. Ill.):
Bolden v. Pesavento, et al.,
No. 17-cv-00417 (Apr. 2, 2024)
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
QUESTION PRESENTED ..........................................i
PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING ........................... ii
RELATED PROCEEDINGS ..................................... iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................ iv
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES....................................... vi
PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI ................. 1
INTRODUCTION ........................................................ 1
OPINIONS BELOW .................................................... 4
JURISDICTION .......................................................... 4
STATEMENT .............................................................. 5
REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION ......... 8
I. The Circuits Are Divided on the Question
Presented. .............................................................. 8
II. The Decision Below Is Wrong. ............................ 12
v
III. The Question Presented Is Important and
This Case Is the Appropriate Vehicle for
Resolving It. ....................................................... 18
CONCLUSION .......................................................... 20
APPENDIX A – Seventh Circuit Opinion (Nov. 6,
2025) .......................................................................... 1a
APPENDIX B – Order Denying Petition for
Rehearing (Dec. 30, 2025) ....................................... 19a
APPENDIX C – District Court Order
(Apr. 2, 2024) ........................................................... 21a
vi
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
CASES
Page
Anderson v. Whittaker Corp.,
894 F.2d 804 (6th Cir. 1990) ......................... 11
Barnard v. Theobald,
721 F.3d 1069 (9th Cir. 2013) ....................... 11
Bickel v. Korean Air Lines Co.,
96 F.3d 151 (6th Cir. 1996) ........................... 17
Blackburn v. Snow,
771 F.2d 556 (1st Cir. 1985) ......................... 12
Brown v. City of Chicago,
No. 19-cv-4082,
2025 WL 2785426
(N.D. Ill. Sept. 30, 2025) ............................... 18
City of Milwaukee v. Cement Division, National
Gypsum Co.,
515 U.S. 189 (1995) ................................. 13, 17
Deakle v. John E. Graham & Sons,
756 F.2d 821 (11th Cir. 1985) ................. 11, 16
vii
Dennis v. City of Philadelphia,
No. 18-2689,
2024 WL 4008747
(E.D. Pa. Aug. 30, 2024) .................................. 9
Drachenberg v. Canal Barge Co.,
621 F.2d 760 (5th Cir. 1980) ......................... 12
Forman v. Korean Air Lines Co.,
84 F.3d 446 (D.C. Cir. 1996) ......................... 11
Furtado v. Bishop,
604 F.2d 80 (1st Cir. 1979) ........................... 11
Garcia v. Burlington Northern Railroad Co.,
818 F.2d 713 (10th Cir. 1987) ....................... 14
Gillispie v. City of Miami Township,
No. 3:13-cv-416,
2023 WL 4868486
(S.D. Ohio July 31, 2023) .............................. 18
Gilliam v. Allen,
62 F.4th 829 (4th Cir. 2023) ......... 9, 14, 15, 17
Greater Westchester Homeowners Association v.
City of Los Angeles,
603 P.2d 1329 (Cal. 1979) ............................. 17
Hendrickson v. Cooper,
589 F.3d 887 (7th Cir. 2009) ......................... 17
viii
Hillier v. Southern Towing Co.,
740 F.2d 583 (7th Cir. 1984) ........................... 7
Hunter v. Allis-Chalmers Corp.,
797 F.2d 1417 (7th Cir. 1986) ....................... 13
Limone v. United States,
579 F.3d 79 (1st Cir. 2009) ........................... 14
Monessen Southwestern Railway v. Morgan,
486 U.S. 330 (1988) ................................. 12, 14
Moore-McCormack Lines, Inc. v. Richardson,
295 F.2d 583 (2d Cir. 1961) .......................... 15
Moorer v. Baptist Memorial Health Care System,
398 F.3d 469 (6th Cir. 2005) ......................... 11
Mutual Service Casualty Insurance Co. v.
Elizabeth State Bank,
265 F.3d 601 (7th Cir. 2001) ......................... 13
Nance v. City of Newark,
501 F. Appx. 123 (3d Cir. 2012) ...................... 8
Nevor v. Moneypenny Holdings, LLC,
842 F.3d 113 (1st Cir. 2016) ......................... 11
People v. Bolden,
746 N.E.2d 335 (Ill. App. Ct. 1999) ................ 5
ix
People v. Bolden,
756 N.E.2d 812 (Ill. 2001) ............................... 5
Petition of City of New York,
332 F.2d 1006 (2d Cir. 1964) ............ 11, 12, 13
Petition of Marina Mercante Nicaraguense, S.A.,
248 F. Supp. 15 (S.D.N.Y. 1965) ................... 12
Poleto v. Consolidated Rail Corp.,
826 F.2d 1270 (3d Cir. 1987) ...................... 8, 9
Richards v. County of San Bernardino,
No. 5:17-cv-00497-HDV-SP,
2025 WL 3254074
(C.D. Cal. Nov. 7, 2025) ................................ 18
Robinson v. Fetterman,
387 F. Supp. 2d 483 (E.D. Pa. 2005)............... 9
Stroh Container Co. v. Delphi Industries, Inc.,
783 F.2d 743 (8th Cir. 1986) ......................... 14
Thomas v. Texas Department of Criminal Justice,
297 F.3d 361 (5th Cir. 2002) ......................... 10
Valley Line Co. v. Ryan,
771 F.2d 366 (8th Cir. 1985) ................... 11, 13
West Virginia v. United States,
479 U.S. 305 (1987) ....................................... 13
x
White v. Chafin,
862 F.3d 1065 (10th Cir. 2017) ..................... 10
White v. McKinley,
No. 05-203,
2009 WL 813001
(W.D. Mo. Mar. 26, 2009) .............................. 19
Wickham Contracting Co. v. Local Union No. 3,
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,
955 F.2d 831 (2d Cir. 1992) .......................... 16
Wilson v. Burlington Northern Railroad Co.,
803 F.2d 563 (10th Cir. 1986) ....................... 15
STATUTES AND RULES
28 U.S.C. § 1254(1) ................................................... 4
28 U.S.C. § 1331 ....................................................... 4
28 U.S.C. § 1343 ....................................................... 4
28 U.S.C. § 1367 ....................................................... 4
42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e – 2000e-17 ............................... 10
45 U.S.C. § 51 et seq. ................................................ 8
xi
OTHER AUTHORITIES
Betty Campbell, Prejudgment Interest in Tennessee:
It’s a Fine Mess We’re In! Proposed Statutory
Solutions to the Inequitable Application of an
Equitable Remedy,
34 U. Mem. L. Rev. 789 (2004) ..................... 15
Stephen J. Carroll, Rand Corporation, Jury Awards
& Prejudgment Interest in Tort Cases (1983) ........ 15
Joseph H. King, Jr., Pain & Suffering,
Noneconomic Damages & The Goals of Tort Law,
57 SMU L. Rev. 163 (2004) ........................... 14
Michael F. Sturley & David C. Frederick,
Prejudgment Interest in Seamen’s
Personal Injury Cases: Supreme Court
Precedent Lost in a Sea of Procedural
Confusion,
33 J. Mar. L. & Com. 423 (2002) ............ 12, 13
IN THE
Supreme Court of the United States
__________
DETECTIVE ANGELO PESAVENTO; POLICE OFFICER
JAMES OLIVER; THE ESTATES OF DETECTIVES GEORGE
KARL AND EDWARD SIWEK; AND THE CITY OF CHICAGO,
Petitioners,
v.
EDDIE L. BOLDEN,
__________
Respondent.
On Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the
United States Court of Appeals
for the Seventh Circuit
__________
PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI
__________
Detective Angelo Pesavento, Police Officer James
Oliver, the Estates of Detectives George Karl and
Edward Siwek, and the City of Chicago respectfully
petition for a writ of certiorari to review the judgment
of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh
Circuit.
INTRODUCTION
This case presents an important question of
federal law on which the courts of appeals are divided
and this Court’s guidance is needed: whether
prejudgment interest should be unavailable when a
damages award is based on purely noneconomic loss.
2
The purpose of prejudgment interest is to fully
compensate the plaintiff for a loss of money caused by
the defendant’s actions. For example, a plaintiff may
be owed money under a contract, have lost pay from
his job, or have incurred out-of-pocket expenses.
Between the time of that economic injury and the final
judgment, the plaintiff’s money, had he invested it,
would have earned interest. On the theory that a
plaintiff could have done so, and to adjust for the timevalue of money, prejudgment interest is needed to
provide complete compensation.
The rationale for prejudgment interest, however,
falls apart when a plaintiff has experienced intangible
harms, such as pain and suffering or loss of a normal
life. There is widespread agreement that intangible
harms are impossible to quantify and that, as applied
to intangible loss, money is a mere proxy for the harm
suffered. In other words, intangible harms are not
reversible by money. These qualities make
noneconomic loss incompatible with prejudgment
interest. A plaintiff with only noneconomic loss did not
lose the use of his money, which is the only loss that
prejudgment interest was designed to compensate.
Further, juries are typically instructed to award full
compensation for noneconomic damages, so a jury’s
damages award (which is awarded in current dollars
as of the time of the verdict) should already include
compensation for the time a plaintiff waited for the
award. Indeed, it is a mathematical fiction to subject
intangible harms to a rate of return. Rather than
furthering the goal of full compensation, prejudgment
interest for noneconomic damages provides a windfall
to a plaintiff and penalizes a defendant who chooses
3
to defend against claims at trial rather than settle a
case at its earliest stages.
Three circuits – the Third, Fourth, and Tenth –
recognize the incompatibility of prejudgment interest
and noneconomic loss and endorse the view that
prejudgment interest should not be available for
noneconomic loss. The Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth
Circuits have gone the other way, allowing
prejudgment interest even on noneconomic loss, as
have the Second, Sixth, and Eighth Circuit, at least in
admiralty cases. And while the First Circuit has
allowed prejudgment interest awards to stand, it has
expressed doubt about this position. The law on this
issue, therefore, is in disarray. Depending on the
locale, some defendants are subject to prejudgment
interest for noneconomic damages and others are not.
The inequity is untenable. Indeed, no court or
defendant in any circuit should be required to expend
resources litigating prejudgment interest on
noneconomic damages, because such interest does not
advance the intended purpose of prejudgment
interest.
The question presented has particularly severe
consequences for local governmental entities. While
awarding prejudgment interest for noneconomic loss
makes no sense in any context, the stakes are
especially high in litigation under section 1983, like
the present case, which can give rise to massive
verdicts that are almost exclusively comprised of
noneconomic damages. Verdicts in section 1983 cases
often reach into the tens of millions of dollars. Indeed,
in this case, the verdict was $25 million. The risk of
4
adding millions more in prejudgment interest when it
serves no compensatory purpose injects financial
uncertainty into government operations and diverts
taxpayer dollars from other important government
services and programs.
This case presents an excellent vehicle to resolve
the different approaches of the courts of appeals. It
presents the issue as a pure question of law that does
not depend on any factual inquiries. The petition
should be granted.
OPINIONS BELOW
The Seventh Circuit’s opinion (App. 1a – 18a) is
reported at 158 F.4th 879. The order denying
rehearing and rehearing en banc, App. 19a – 20a, is
not reported. The district court’s decision that
awarded prejudgment interest, App. 21a – 28a, is
unreported, and is available at 2024 WL 1496199
(N.D. Ill. Apr. 2, 2024).
JURISDICTION
The United States District Court for the Northern
District of Illinois, which had jurisdiction pursuant to
28 U.S.C. §§ 1331, 1343, and 1367, entered a final
judgment on April 12, 2024. Petitioners filed a timely
notice of appeal on April 22, 2024.
The Seventh Circuit entered judgment on
November 6, 2025. Petitioners filed a timely petition
for rehearing and rehearing en banc on December 11,
2025, which was denied on December 30, 2025.
App. 19a – 20a. The jurisdiction of this Court is
invoked under 28 U.S.C. § 1254(1).
5
STATEMENT
Eddie Bolden was arrested on February 26, 1994,
for the murders of two men and the attempted murder
of a third man. R. 391 at 1, 16.1 After a jury convicted
Bolden in October 1996, Bolden was sentenced to
natural life in prison for the murders, with the
sentence to run consecutively with a 30-year sentence
for the attempted murder. R. 391 at 21. The Illinois
Appellate Court and Illinois Supreme Court affirmed
Bolden’s convictions and sentences. People v. Bolden,
746 N.E.2d 335 (Ill. App. Ct. 1999); People v. Bolden,
756 N.E.2d 812 (Ill. 2001).
After postconviction proceedings, the Circuit
Court of Cook County reversed Bolden’s convictions
and ordered a new trial on the ground of ineffective
assistance of counsel. R. 655 at 49, 54-55. The State
entered a nolle prosequi on April 16, 2016, R. 536-5,
and Bolden was released from custody that same day,
R. 646 at 39.
On January 19, 2017, Bolden filed this lawsuit
against petitioners, alleging constitutional violations
under section 1983 and state-law claims. R. 1; R. 391
at 24-33. The trial took place in October 2021. R. 730
at 3.
At trial, the jury was instructed that, if it found
petitioners liable, it was to determine the amount of
money “that will fairly compensate [Bolden] for any
injury that you find he sustained and is reasonably
We cite the district court record as “R. __,” and the Seventh
Circuit record as “7th Cir. Dkt. __.”
1
6
certain to sustain in the future as a direct result of the
actions of [petitioners].” R. 599 at 43. The jury was
further instructed to consider damages only for “[t]he
physical and mental and emotional pain and
suffering” and “[t]he loss of normal life that [Bolden]
has experienced and is reasonably certain to
experience in the future.” R. 599 at 43. The verdict
form included one line for compensatory damages, and
did not delineate between past and future injuries.
R. 566 at 4.
The jury returned a verdict in favor of Bolden and
against all petitioners on all counts. R. 615. The jury
awarded Bolden $25 million in compensatory
damages and $100,000 in punitive damages against
each of the officers. R. 615.
Bolden moved to amend the judgment to add
prejudgment interest in the amount of $7,629,466.51.
R. 680.2 Bolden argued that prejudgment interest was
warranted based on substantial delays outside of his
control and “the nature of [petitioners’] violations of
the law.” R. 680 at 3. Petitioners asserted, in response,
that prejudgment interest should be denied because
Bolden’s losses were entirely noneconomic. R. 694 at
3-5. The district court granted Bolden’s motion and
awarded the full amount of prejudgment interest
Bolden had requested. R. 730 at 4; App. 28a. The court
saw no reason to treat noneconomic loss differently
The parties executed an agreement in April 2024, R. 769, that
resolved all aspects of the case except for the prejudgment
interest award. As part of that agreement, Bolden agreed to
accept a reduced amount of prejudgment interest, should
petitioners ultimately be liable for paying such interest.
2
7
from economic loss. R. 730 at 2; App. 24a. The court
found that the jury awarded Bolden damages for the
22 years he spent in prison but did not compensate
him for the time value of money after his release.
R. 730 at 3; App. 26a.
Petitioners appealed to the Seventh Circuit,
arguing, among other things, that the district court’s
award of prejudgment interest for noneconomic loss
was erroneous as a matter of law. 7th Cir. Dkt. 29 at
12-20. Petitioners explained that noneconomic
injuries are incompatible with prejudgment interest
and that awarding prejudgment interest for
noneconomic damages is not necessary to provide full
compensation. 7th Cir. Dkt. 29 at 13-14. Petitioners
also asserted that Hillier v. Southern Towing Co., 740
F.2d 583 (7th Cir. 1984), an admiralty decision
holding that prejudgment interest may be awarded for
noneconomic loss, was wrongly decided and should be
overruled, 7th Cir. Dkt. 29 at 15-17. Petitioners
explained that the courts of appeals were divided on
the question of whether prejudgment interest should
be available for noneconomic damages and urged the
court to join the circuits that do not award
prejudgment interest for noneconomic loss. 7th Cir.
Dkt. 29 at 17-20.
The Seventh Circuit rejected petitioners’
argument and adhered to Hillier, 740 F.2d 583,
holding that prejudgment interest may be awarded for
noneconomic loss. App. 6a – 8a. The court stated that
there “is nothing special” about noneconomic damages
that justified a denial of prejudgment interest.
App. 7a. The court noted that it had consistently
8
affirmed awards of prejudgment interest for economic
loss due to violations of federal law. App. 8a. The court
also stated that if there were a circuit split on this
issue, it is “‘rarely prudent to move from one side of a
conflict to the other.’” App. 10a (citation omitted). The
court held that prejudgment interest is not allowed for
future damages, however, and remanded to the
district court to determine what portion of the award
compensated for past damages and to calculate
prejudgment interest on that portion. App. 12a – 16a.
REASONS FOR GRANTING THE PETITION
I.
The Circuits Are Divided
Question Presented.
on
the
The courts of appeals are divided on whether
prejudgment interest is available on noneconomic
damages awards.
Three circuits – the Third, Fourth, and Tenth –
recognize the incompatibility between prejudgment
interest and noneconomic loss.
The Third Circuit, in a decision addressing
whether the Federal Employers’ Liability Act, 45
U.S.C. § 51 et seq. permits prejudgment interest,
stated that because noneconomic damages “do not
compensate for market-induced harms,” they “do not
require the adjustment for the time the successful
plaintiff’s money was out of the market which
prejudgment
interest
provides.”
Poleto
v.
Consolidated Rail Corp., 826 F.2d 1270, 1278 n.14 (3d
Cir. 1987); see Nance v. City of Newark, 501 F. Appx.
123, 131 (3d Cir. 2012) (remanding for determination
9
of whether “award includes some identifiable
component of past economic damages on which
prejudgment interest should be awarded”) (emphasis
added).3
The Fourth Circuit, in a section 1983 case, held
that adding prejudgment interest to noneconomic
damages was an abuse of discretion. Gilliam v. Allen,
62 F.4th 829 (4th Cir. 2023). There, the plaintiffs
alleged that law enforcement officers fabricated their
confessions, causing them to be incarcerated for 31
years. Id. at 834. The compensatory damages verdict
was for noneconomic losses only. Id. at 845. In
reversing the prejudgment interest award, the court
focused on the noneconomic nature of the plaintiffs’
injuries. Id. at 849. The court noted that the plaintiffs
had claimed “the deprivation of constitutional rights,
not the loss of use of money where prejudgment
interest would most naturally be appropriate as an
element of compensation.” Id. at 848. Because the
The Seventh Circuit stated that Poleto reached this conclusion
only in dicta. App. 9a. However, district courts in the Third
Circuit understand Poleto to be the law of the Third Circuit on
this issue. Dennis v. City of Philadelphia, No. 18-2689, 2024 WL
4008747, at *1-2 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 30, 2024) (stating in section 1983
case that “the Third Circuit has emphasized prejudgment
interest cannot be awarded for noneconomic harm”); Robinson v.
Fetterman, 387 F. Supp. 2d 483, 485 (E.D. Pa. 2005) (“[W]e read
the precedents in this circuit to give a district court discretion to
add prejudgment interest in a [section] 1983 action on the
economic portion of any verdict or finding but to prohibit it from
doing so with respect to that portion of the verdict or finding
which compensates for pain and suffering or other non-economic
loss.”).
3
10
plaintiffs’ damages “amorphously aggregated” over
time and there was no claim for the loss of use of
money, prejudgment interest was a “product of
speculation” and “functionally a double recovery or
punitive or both.” Id. at 849-50.
Similarly, the Tenth Circuit held that it was not
an abuse of discretion for the district court to deny
prejudgment interest on noneconomic damages. In
White v. Chafin, 862 F.3d 1065 (10th Cir. 2017), a
section 1983 case, the court affirmed the district
court’s conclusion that prejudgment interest was
“unnecessary to compensate” the plaintiff. Id. at 1068.
There, the court of appeals explained that although
the plaintiff assumed “that noneconomic damages are
incurred instantly at a discrete point in time and that
any delay in payment is compensable,” the district
court could reasonably view noneconomic damages as
continuing over an undefined period. Id. at 1069.
Seven circuits, in addition to the Seventh Circuit
in the present case, go the other way. To start, the
Fifth Circuit held, in a case under Title VII of the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e – 2000e-17, that
prejudgment interest “should apply to all past
injuries, including past emotional injuries.” Thomas v.
Texas Department of Criminal Justice, 297 F.3d 361,
372 (5th Cir. 2002). The court stated that
prejudgment interest is warranted “whenever a
certain sum is involved,” and that “[r]efusing to award
prejudgment interest ignores the time value of money
and fails to make the plaintiff whole.” Id.
Similarly, the Ninth Circuit, in a section 1983
case, held that prejudgment interest may be awarded
11
for noneconomic damages on the ground that
noneconomic damages are “just as much an ‘actual
loss’ . . . as purely economic damages.” Barnard v.
Theobald, 721 F.3d 1069, 1078 (9th Cir. 2013).
The Second, Sixth, Eighth, and Eleventh Circuits
have likewise allowed prejudgment interest to be
awarded for noneconomic loss; all are admiralty cases.
See Petition of City of New York, 332 F.2d 1006, 1008
(2d Cir. 1964); Anderson v. Whittaker Corp., 894 F.2d
804, 807-10 (6th Cir. 1990); Valley Line Co. v. Ryan,
771 F.2d 366, 377 (8th Cir. 1985); Deakle v. John E.
Graham & Sons, 756 F.2d 821, 833-34 (11th Cir.
1985).4
And while the First Circuit has also allowed
prejudgment interest to be added to noneconomic
damages, see, e.g., Nevor v. Moneypenny Holdings,
LLC, 842 F.3d 113, 125 (1st Cir. 2016) (admiralty), it
has, at the same time, expressed doubt about that
view. In Furtado v. Bishop, 604 F.2d 80 (1st Cir.
1979), a section 1983 case, the court debated whether
prejudgment interest for noneconomic loss should be
discretionary or “barr[ed] . . . altogether.” Id. at 98.
The court stated that prejudgment interest “will not
always be necessary to compensate” plaintiffs with
The Sixth Circuit and the District of Columbia Circuit have
affirmed awards of prejudgment interest for noneconomic
damages outside of admiralty, but the propriety of doing so was
not at issue on appeal. See Moorer v. Baptist Memorial Health
Care System, 398 F.3d 469, 478 (6th Cir. 2005) (claim under
Americans with Disabilities Act); Forman v. Korean Air Lines
Co., 84 F.3d 446, 450-51 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (claims related to
airplane crash).
4
12
intangible injuries. Id. at 97; see Blackburn v. Snow,
771 F.2d 556, 573 (1st Cir. 1985) (remanding
prejudgment interest award for further findings
because, among other things, the award of
compensatory damages “was based upon an
intangible loss – the type of loss more usually reflected
in the (pre-interest) lump sum”).
In short, the circuits are divided on the answer to
the question presented, warranting certiorari.
II.
The Decision Below Is Wrong.
In the early twentieth century, the prevailing
view was that prejudgment interest was allowed in
tort actions “where the loss is pecuniary.” Monessen
Southwestern Railway v. Morgan, 486 U.S. 330, 347
(1988) (Blackmun, J., concurring in part and
dissenting in part) (emphasis added). “That limitation
stemmed from the notion that, for nonpecuniary
losses, such as pain and suffering, ‘juries and courts
will make the sum given in gross a fair and just
compensation.’” Michael F. Sturley & David C.
Frederick, Prejudgment Interest in Seamen’s Personal
Injury Cases: Supreme Court Precedent Lost in a Sea
of Procedural Confusion, 33 J. Mar. L. & Com. 423,
428 (2002).
In the second half of the twentieth century, courts
in admiralty cases began to award prejudgment
interest for maritime personal injuries, including for
noneconomic loss. See, e.g., Petition of City of New
York, 332 F.2d at 1007-08 (collecting cases);
Drachenberg v. Canal Barge Co., 621 F.2d 760, 762-63
(5th Cir. 1980); Petition of Marina Mercante
13
Nicaraguense, S.A., 248 F. Supp. 15, 36 (S.D.N.Y.
1965). One justification was that “a wage-earner
needed to be restored to his prior financial status just
as much as a vessel owner.” Sturley & Frederick,
Prejudgment Interest in Seamen’s Personal Injury
Cases, 33 J. Mar. L. & Com. at 429. In addition, courts
suggested that “admiralty stands on a different
footing than the common law in this respect, on the
theory that the loss occurs all at once and that the
claimant is entitled to recovery as of the moment of
loss.” Valley Line Co., 771 F.2d at 377; see also Petition
of City of New York, 332 F.2d at 1008 (prejudgment
interest warranted based on immediate loss to the
plaintiff and delay in payment of compensation). And
as noted, many circuits have now expanded the
application of prejudgment interest to noneconomic
damages outside the context of admiralty.
This reflects a flawed understanding of the
intangible harms upon which noneconomic damages
are based. “The essential rationale for awarding
prejudgment interest is to ensure that an injured
party is fully compensated for its loss.” City of
Milwaukee v. Cement Division, National Gypsum Co.,
515 U.S. 189, 195 (1995). In particular, prejudgment
interest compensates “for the loss of use of money due
as damages from the time the claim accrues until
judgment is entered.” West Virginia v. United States,
479 U.S. 305, 310 n.2 (1987); accord Mutual Service
Casualty Insurance Co. v. Elizabeth State Bank, 265
F.3d 601, 630 (7th Cir. 2001) (prejudgment interest
compensates party for money of which he was
wrongfully deprived); Hunter v. Allis-Chalmers Corp.,
797 F.2d 1417, 1426 (7th Cir. 1986) (prejudgment
14
interest aims to place a plaintiff “in the monetary
position he would have occupied” if the defendant had
not violated his rights). Prejudgment interest makes
perfect sense when applied to economic losses, which
is why it “classically applies when there is a delayed
payment of a contractual obligation.” Gilliam, 62
F.4th at 848. Other concrete economic damages may
include pay from a job or out-of-pocket expenses.
Whatever the context, that lost money could have
earned interest, had the breach or injury not occurred.
See Garcia v. Burlington Northern Railroad Co., 818
F.2d 713, 721 (10th Cir. 1987) (award of interest
plaintiff could not earn on lost income or on money
spent for out-of-pocket expenses makes injured party
whole). Prejudgment interest fills that gap and thus
compensates a party “for the true costs of money
damages incurred.” Stroh Container Co. v. Delphi
Industries, Inc., 783 F.2d 743, 752 (8th Cir. 1986).
When applied to noneconomic losses, however,
prejudgment interest does not advance its goal of full
compensation at all. Noneconomic losses, such as pain
and suffering, “are not reversible by money.” Joseph
H. King, Jr., Pain & Suffering, Noneconomic Damages
& The Goals of Tort Law, 57 SMU L. Rev. 163, 179
(2004). In other words, a plaintiff who experienced
intangible loss cannot be returned to his pre-injury
status with money. Id. And because a monetary award
cannot reverse intangible harm, noneconomic
damages are “not truly compensatory.” Monessen
Southwestern Railway, 486 U.S. at 348 n.5
(Blackmun, J., concurring in part and dissenting in
part). At best, noneconomic damages are a “rough and
awkward proxy” for the harm suffered. Limone v.
15
United States, 579 F.3d 79, 105 (1st Cir. 2009). And
while a plaintiff who suffered noneconomic loss, such
as pain and suffering, is awarded money for lost wellbeing, an award for noneconomic loss “is merely the
reduction of . . . sentimental value to dollars at the
time of judgment and does not in any real or analytical
sense represent the return of the loss of the use of
money.” Wilson v. Burlington Northern Railroad Co.,
803 F.2d 563, 567 (10th Cir. 1986) (McKay, J.,
concurring). Because emotional injuries cannot be
reversed with money and noneconomic damages do
not return lost money to the plaintiff, adding
prejudgment interest to an award of noneconomic
damages does not compensate for any financial loss.
A further reason that prejudgment interest does
not further the goal of full compensation is that an
award of noneconomic damages already includes
compensation for time the plaintiff had to wait for the
award. Juries are not, of course, asked to compensate
for intangible harms based on the value of money at
the time of the injury; rather, they make awards based
on current values. And, in fact, juries already account
for the passage of time when fashioning awards,
increasing awards “at a rate of 3.7 percent per year for
the time between injury and trial.” Gilliam, 62 F.4th
at 848-49 (citing Stephen J. Carroll, Rand
Corporation, Jury Awards & Prejudgment Interest in
Tort Cases, at v (1983)); see also Moore-McCormack
Lines, Inc. v. Richardson, 295 F.2d 583, 594 (2d Cir.
1961) (“no one would be so naïve as to suppose that
juries do not throw into the scales the years that a
plaintiff may have had to wait before his case can be
heard by a jury”); Betty Campbell, Prejudgment
16
Interest in Tennessee: It’s a Fine Mess We’re In!
Proposed Statutory Solutions to the Inequitable
Application of an Equitable Remedy, 34 U. Mem. L.
Rev. 789, 840 (2004) (juries “arguably [take] into
account the time delay in determining the award”).
In this case, in October 2021, the jury awarded
Bolden damages, in October 2021 dollars, for “any
injury . . . he sustained and is reasonably certain to
sustain in the future.” R. 599 at 43. Thus, the award
here, like other awards of its kind, already took into
account the time Bolden waited for judgment. Adding
prejudgment interest merely results in a windfall,
which is improper. See Wickham Contracting Co. v.
Local Union No. 3, International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers, 955 F.2d 831, 834 (2d Cir. 1992)
(prejudgment interest must not overcompensate the
plaintiff).
Calculating prejudgment interest on noneconomic
loss, moreover, is a mathematical fiction. When
economic losses are at issue, prejudgment interest can
be accurately calculated. Losses or expenses are
incurred on certain dates and for specific durations.
See, e.g., Wickham Contracting Co., 955 F.2d at 837
(prejudgment interest on economic damages awarded
to cover time between when plaintiff was to receive
payment per contract schedule and judgment);
Deakle, 756 F.2d at 834 (prejudgment interest on lost
wages calculated by adjusting separately each year’s
installment).
But noneconomic loss does not lend itself to these
kinds of calculations. Intangible harm does not accrue
evenly. Mental and emotional injuries are “of a
17
continuing nature,” Greater Westchester Homeowners
Association v. City of Los Angeles, 603 P.2d 1329, 1338
(Cal. 1979), and “amorphously aggregate[] over the
course of time,” Gilliam, 62 F.4th at 849. This makes
it “particularly difficult to determine when any
particular increment of intangible loss arose.” Greater
Westchester Homeowners Association, 603 P.2d at
1338. Noneconomic loss is “very difficult to quantify,”
Hendrickson v. Cooper, 589 F.3d 887, 892 (7th Cir.
2009), and “[i]t is impossible to determine the exact
value” of intangible harms, Bickel v. Korean Air Lines
Co., 96 F.3d 151, 156 (6th Cir. 1996). Pretending that
a noneconomic damages award can be neatly divided
into regularly-accruing segments – as the
prejudgment interest formula demands – is an
exercise in futility, and “adds uncertain conjecture to
speculation.” Greater Westchester Homeowners
Association, 603 P.2d at 1338.
Because prejudgment interest on noneconomic
loss does not serve its intended purposes, it becomes
nothing more than an extra payment for defendants –
a penalty for declining to settle a case and taking it to
trial, and even for delays in litigation that may not be
the defendants’ fault, such as when the plaintiff
refuses a reasonable settlement offer early in the case,
or delays due the COVID-19 pandemic (as happened
here). Moreover, in section 1983 cases, there is
already an incentive for defendants to litigate
efficiently: the plaintiff will be entitled to attorney’s
fees if he prevails. Adding prejudgment interest to a
noneconomic damages award is purely punitive, yet,
this Court has very clearly held that prejudgment
interest is not supposed to be a penalty. City of
18
Milwaukee, 515 U.S. at 197.
This discussion demonstrates the Seventh
Circuit’s error here. The court failed to address the
tension
between
prejudgment
interest
and
noneconomic damages. Relying on a prior decision in
an admiralty case, the court incorrectly treated
economic and noneconomic damages as identical,
finding that “[t]here is nothing special about
noneconomic damages” that would exempt them from
prejudgment interest. App. 7a. The court also
concluded that the underlying reason for prejudgment
interest – “to make the injured party whole – applies
with equal force” to intangible harm. App. 8a. The
court ignored that plaintiffs who experience
noneconomic loss do not lose the use of their money,
and that adding prejudgment interest to noneconomic
damages does not serve a compensatory purpose. That
decision was wrong.
III.
The Question Presented Is Important
and This Case Is the Appropriate
Vehicle for Resolving It.
The stakes are rising for plaintiffs and
defendants. With respect to section 1983 in particular,
verdicts nationwide are routinely in the multimillions of dollars. See, e.g., Richards v. County of San
Bernardino, No. 5:17-cv-00497-HDV-SP, 2025 WL
3254074, at *1 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 7, 2025) (verdict of
more than $25 million); Brown v. City of Chicago, No.
19-cv-4082, 2025 WL 2785426, at *3 (N.D. Ill. Sept.
30, 2025 (verdict of $50 million); Gillispie v. City of
Miami Township, No. 3:13-cv-416, 2023 WL 4868486,
19
at *42 (S.D. Ohio July 31, 2023) (verdict of $45
million); White v. McKinley, No. 05-203, 2009 WL
813001, at *4 (W.D. Mo. Mar. 26, 2009) (verdict of $14
million). The prospect of adding prejudgment interest
for millions of dollars more has devastating financial
implications for local governments, which operate
within planned, tight budgets. The unprincipled
addition of prejudgment interest is an unjustified
burden on taxpayers. In addition, it is a waste of
resources for the courts and the parties in any circuit
to litigate the issue of prejudgment interest, when the
only logical answer, in every case where only
noneconomic damages are awarded, is that it is
unwarranted.
This case cleanly presents the issue of whether
prejudgment interest may be added to awards of
noneconomic damages. No questions of fact are
presented; the issue is purely a question of law. This
case therefore presents an excellent vehicle for
deciding this pressing question.
20
CONCLUSION
The petition for a writ of certiorari should be
granted.
Respectfully submitted,
MARY B. RICHARDSON-LOWRY
Corporation Counsel
of the City of Chicago
MYRIAM ZRECZNY KASPER*
Deputy Corporation Counsel
SUZANNE M. LOOSE
Chief Assistant Corporation Counsel
AYA R. BARNEA
Assistant Corporation Counsel
2 N. LaSalle Street, Suite 580
Chicago, IL 60602
(312) 744-3564
myriam.kasper@cityofchicago.org
Attorneys for Petitioners
*Counsel of Record
March 30, 2026
APPENDIX
TABLE OF CONTENTS TO THE APPENDIX
APPENDIX A – Seventh Circuit Opinion (Nov. 6,
2025) .......................................................................... 1a
APPENDIX B – Order Denying Petition for
Rehearing (Dec. 30, 2025) ....................................... 19a
APPENDIX C – District Court Order
(Apr. 2, 2024) ........................................................... 21a
1a
APPENDIX A
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
__________
No. 24-1674
__________
EDDIE L. BOLDEN,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
ANGELO PESAVENTO, et al.,
Defendants-Appellants.
__________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 1:17-cv-00417, Steven C. Seeger, Judge.
__________
Argued: September 4, 2025
Decided: November 6, 2025
__________
Before BRENNAN, Chief Judge, and KOLAR and
MALDONADO, Circuit Judges.
KOLAR, Circuit Judge. Eddie Bolden brought a
wrongful conviction lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
2a
against the City of Chicago after his sentence for
murder was vacated in April 2016. He prevailed at
trial, and the jury awarded him $25 million in
damages for pain, suffering, and the loss of a normal
life. Then the district court awarded him another $7.6
million in prejudgment interest for the six years and
five months it took him to obtain a judgment against
the City.
Defendants now appeal the award of prejudgment
interest. They contend that prejudgment interest is
unavailable as a matter of law for noneconomic
damages like Bolden’s, and in the alternative that the
district court abused its discretion in awarding
interest. We affirm in almost all respects, but remand
for the district court to recalculate the interest award
after apportioning the jury’s verdict between past
(interest-eligible) and future (interest-ineligible)
damages.
I. Background
Bolden was arrested in February 1994 for the
murders of Irving Clayton and Derrick Frazier and
the attempted murder of Clifford Frazier. A jury found
him guilty in October 1996, and he was sentenced to
life in prison. After Bolden filed a petition for
postconviction relief, the Illinois courts vacated his
conviction based on ineffective assistance of counsel
and ordered a new trial. The State voluntarily
dismissed the charges against him on April 19, 2016;
Bolden was released the same day. In total, Bolden
spent over 22 years in prison.
Bolden sued the City and several police officers in
January 2017, alleging that his arrest and wrongful
3a
conviction violated the Constitution and state law. His
trial was originally slated for November 2019 but ran
into several delays. First, his case was reassigned to
Judge Seeger in September 2019, who rescheduled the
trial date for July 2020. Then this date fell through
when the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shutdown of
all civil trials in 2020. Bolden’s trial ultimately took
place in October 2021.
At trial, Bolden testified about the harms he had
suffered while incarcerated and his difficulties in
readjusting to life outside prison. He stated that he
had been robbed of experiences with family members,
had trouble sleeping, and continued to suffer from
depression and suicidal thoughts. Bolden offered
corroborating testimony from his sister and aunt, who
recounted their experiences meeting with Bolden in
prison and helping him readjust to the outside world.
In his closing argument, Bolden’s counsel urged
the jury to award $44 million in compensatory
damages—quantified as “a million dollars for what
they took and a million dollars for what they made
him endure,” adding up to “$2 million for each of those
22 years” Bolden had spent incarcerated. He stressed
that this amount was only a starting point that
“doesn’t even count how his life going forward has
been forever changed” by the Defendants’ conduct.
The court instructed the jury that, upon a finding of
liability, it should assess compensatory damages as
“the physical and mental and emotional pain and
suffering” and “loss of normal life” that Bolden “has
experienced and is reasonably certain to experience in
the future.”
4a
The jury found in Bolden’s favor on all claims and
awarded him $25 million in compensatory damages
plus $100,000 in punitive damages against each of the
two living individual Defendants. After resolving the
parties’ post-trial motions, the district court entered a
final judgment on September 30, 2022.
Bolden moved to amend the judgment and add
$7,629,466.51 in prejudgment interest. He calculated
this amount as the total interest incurred from the
date his sentence was vacated (April 19, 2016)
through the entry of final judgment, compounded
monthly at the average prime rate over this period of
4.13%. The district court granted his motion,
awarding Bolden the full amount requested.
Defendants now appeal.
II. Discussion
We pause at the outset to recount a few basic
principles relevant to this appeal. Prejudgment
interest “serves dual purposes: to fully compensate
the plaintiff and to minimize a defendant’s incentive
to delay.” Thorncreek Apartments III, LLC v. Mick,
886 F.3d 626, 637 (7th Cir. 2018). It is grounded in the
recognition that “[c]ompensation deferred is
compensation reduced by the time value of money.”
Matter of Milwaukee Cheese Wis., Inc., 112 F.3d 845,
849 (7th Cir. 1997). By accounting for this lost value,
“[p]rejudgment interest restores a plaintiff to the
position she would have been in but for the violation.”
Frey v. Coleman, 903 F.3d 671, 682 (7th Cir. 2018).
And by eliminating what would be, in effect, an
interest-free loan to the defendant, prejudgment
interest avoids unjust enrichment and disincentivizes
5a
foot-dragging in litigation. Milwaukee Cheese, 112
F.3d at 849. Otherwise, “the longer the case lasts, the
more of the stakes the defendant keeps even if it loses
(and the less the victorious plaintiff receives)[.]” Id.
We have long held that prejudgment interest is
“presumptively available to victims of federal law
violations.” Thorncreek Apartments, 886 F.3d at 637
(quoting Gorenstein Enters. v. Quality Care-USA, Inc.,
874 F.2d 431, 436 (7th Cir. 1989)). But it is
compensatory, not punitive: “prejudgment interest is
not meant to penalize the party who caused the
injury.” Id.
Finally, prejudgment interest is measured “from
the time the claim accrues until judgment is entered,”
using the plaintiff’s damages at the time of accrual as
the principal. City of Milwaukee v. Cement Div., Nat.
Gypsum Co., 515 U.S. 189, 196 (1995) (citing West
Virginia v. United States, 479 U.S. 305, 310 n.2
(1987)). Prejudgment interest is not assessed on
future damages arising after the claim has already
accrued. Williamson v. Handy Button Mach. Co., 817
F.2d 1290, 1298 (7th Cir. 1987).
We generally review a district court’s decision of
whether to award prejudgment interest for abuse of
discretion. Frey, 903 F.3d at 675. But Defendants’ first
issue presented on appeal—whether prejudgment
interest is available as a matter of law for
noneconomic damages—presents a purely legal
question that we review de novo. FDIC v. Chi. Tit.
Ins., 12 F.4th 676, 682 (7th Cir. 2021). We turn to this
question first.
6a
A. Availability of Prejudgment Interest on
Noneconomic Damages
Defendants argue that the district court’s award of
prejudgment interest must be reversed because
Bolden’s damages for pain, suffering, and the loss of a
normal life are noneconomic. They contend that in
calculating Bolden’s damages, the jury made a rough
approximation of the intangible harms Bolden
suffered, unlike cases involving contractual or wagerelated disputes over specific and ascertainable sums.
And since this intangible and undefined emotional
harm could not have been “invested,” it makes no
sense to compensate him for its lost time value.
We held otherwise four decades ago. In Hillier v.
Southern Towing Co., an admiralty case, the plaintiff
sued a towing company for the accidental death of her
husband. 740 F.2d 583, 584 (7th Cir. 1984). After she
prevailed at trial, the district court awarded her
prejudgment interest only on her damages for past
loss of support and services, but not her damages for
future loss of support and services, or her intangible
damages for pain, suffering, and loss of society. Id. On
appeal, we held that while the decision to exclude
future harm was appropriate, the lower court had
erred in finding noneconomic harms ineligible for
prejudgment interest. Id. at 586.
This makes sense: the mere fact that noneconomic
damages are inherently subjective does not warrant
denying prejudgment interest on them. Defendants
argue that since they could not have known the
precise amount of Bolden’s damages until the moment
the verdict was rendered, they could not have
7a
“invest[ed] the funds while the litigation proceed[ed],
then use[d] the interest they receive[d] to satisfy the
obligation.” Milwaukee Cheese, 112 F.3d at 849. But
this argument would apply with equal force to many
economic damages as well, which may also be
uncertain and subject to dispute until later in the
litigation. And in any event, this only goes to one of
the traditional justifications for prejudgment interest
(avoiding unjust enrichment that might encourage the
defendant to delay) and not the other (fully
compensating the plaintiff’s losses). Id.
There is nothing special about noneconomic
damages exempting them from the principle that
money today is worth more to the plaintiff than money
tomorrow. The law presumes that Defendants’
liability to Bolden under Section 1983 accrued the
moment the State’s charges against him were
dismissed in April 2016. McDonough v. Smith, 588
U.S. 109, 120 (2019); see also Matter of Oil Spill by
Amoco Cadiz, 954 F.2d 1279, 1331 (7th Cir. 1992) (“By
committing a tort, the wrongdoer creates an
involuntary creditor. It may take time for the victim
to obtain an enforceable judgment, but once there is a
judgment the obligation is dated as of the time of the
injury.”). Had Defendants immediately satisfied their
obligation by handing Bolden a check as he stepped
out of prison, he would have benefitted from this
compensation sooner. The opportunity cost of interest
is only one component of the time value of money;
Bolden could have used these funds for “additional
current consumption—perhaps by eating better, or
driving a fancier car”—even if he could not prove he
otherwise would have invested them. Partington v.
8a
Broyhill Furniture Indus., Inc., 999 F.2d 269, 274 (7th
Cir. 1993).
Defendants insist that if Hillier’s holding cannot
be limited to the admiralty context, it must be
reconsidered as inconsistent with the fundamental
principles underlying prejudgment interest. We
disagree. As an initial matter, nothing about Hillier’s
holding as to damages depended on unique principles
of admiralty law. The Hillier court cited the admiralty
doctrine of restitutio in integrum, which “provides that
a plaintiff is to be placed in the position previously
enjoyed prior to the time he or she sustained
damages[.]” 740 F.2d at 585. But this is merely an
expression of the fundamental theory underlying all
compensatory damages.
Since Hillier, we have consistently applied this
remedial principle in awarding prejudgment interest
across the spectrum of federal-law violations. See, e.g.,
Thorncreek Apartments, 886 F.3d at 637–38 (Section
1983 equal-protection claim); Partington, 999 F.2d at
274 (age discrimination claim); Gorenstein Enters.,
874 F.2d at 436 (trademark claim). While these cases
did not involve purely noneconomic damages like
Bolden’s, the underlying principle—to make the
injured party whole—applies with equal force to
damages for pain and suffering.
Other circuits have reached this same conclusion
in awarding prejudgment interest on noneconomic
damages outside admiralty. The Ninth Circuit in
Barnard v. Theobald found a Section 1983 plaintiff’s
damages for “past pain and suffering and medical
expenses” to be “just as much an ‘actual loss’ (for
9a
which prejudgment interest is in order) as purely
economic damages.” 721 F.3d 1069, 1078 (9th Cir.
2013) (citation omitted). And the Fifth Circuit held in
Thomas v. Texas Department of Criminal Justice that
“[p]rejudgment interest should apply to all past
injuries, including past emotional injuries” such as
the plaintiff’s Title VII damages, since “[r]efusing to
[do so] ignores the time value of money and fails to
make the plaintiff whole.” 297 F.3d 361, 372 (5th Cir.
2002). These cases are consistent with Hillier, and we
see no reason to cabin Hillier to the admiralty context.
Perhaps recognizing the same, Defendants ask us
instead to overrule Hillier entirely on the grounds
that its reasoning does not withstand scrutiny. Even
if we agreed—which we do not—we see no “compelling
reasons,” such as a substantial shift in authority or
supervening statutory development, that would
warrant such a departure from our settled precedent.1
While our “outlier” status in a circuit split may sometimes
justify revisiting past decisions, Buchmeier v. United States, 581
F.3d 561, 566 (7th Cir. 2009), we are not convinced that any such
split exists here. Defendants contend that the Third, Fourth, and
Tenth Circuits have found prejudgment interest unavailable as
a matter of law for noneconomic damages. But the Third Circuit
noted this only in dicta, Poleto v. Consol. Rail Corp., 826 F.2d
1270, 1278 n.14 (3d Cir. 1987); the Fourth reached this
conclusion interest only in holding that the plaintiffs’ future
noneconomic damages could not be disaggregated from their past
damages, Gilliam v. Allen, 62 F.4th 829, 848–50 (4th Cir. 2023);
and the Tenth merely held that the district court did not abuse
its discretion in denying prejudgment interest, White v. Chafin,
862 F.3d 1065, 1069 (10th Cir. 2017). Meanwhile, the First,
Second, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits have all held in the
admiralty context that prejudgment interest should be available
1
10a
United States v. Betts, 99 F.4th 1048, 1055 (7th Cir.
2024).
The district court did not err in holding that
Bolden could, as a matter of law, recoup prejudgment
interest on his noneconomic damages. We turn next to
the question of whether choosing to award him this
interest was an abuse of discretion.
B. Award of Prejudgment Interest
Our review of the district court’s prejudgment
interest award for abuse of discretion is deferential,
and we start from the baseline that “there is a
presumption in favor of granting [prejudgment]
interest” in cases alleging violations of federal law.
Frey, 903 F.3d at 682. Nevertheless, we have observed
that awarding prejudgment interest “might be
inappropriate” in some circumstances—for example, if
the plaintiff shifts risk to the defendant by waiting to
file suit, if the jury’s award already accounts for
interest, or if the amount of interest-eligible damages
for noneconomic harms, and (as noted) the Fifth and Ninth have
extended this holding beyond admiralty. See Nevor v.
Moneypenny Holdings, LLC, 842 F.3d 113, 125 (1st Cir. 2016);
Petition of City of New York, 332 F.2d 1006, 1008 (2d Cir. 1964);
Anderson v. Whittaker Corp., 894 F.2d 804, 807–10 (6th Cir.
1990); Deakle v. John E. Graham & Sons, 756 F.2d 821, 834 (11th
Cir. 1985); Thomas, 297 F.3d at 372; Barnard, 721 F.3d at 1078.
Even if there were an “established conflict among the circuits” on
this issue, “it is rarely prudent to move from one side of a conflict
to the other.” SEC v. EquityBuild, Inc., 101 F.4th 526, 535 (7th
Cir. 2024) (Easterbrook, J., concurring). We are in good company
in maintaining Hillier’s rule.
11a
is “not readily determinable.” Williamson, 817 F.2d at
1297–98.
Defendants advance three grounds for why the
district court abused its discretion in granting
prejudgment interest: (1) the jury’s verdict fully
compensated Bolden; (2) the court lacked any basis to
determine the portion of the verdict for which interest
could be awarded; and (3) the interest was an
improper penalty for delays outside their control. We
address each in turn.
1. Full Compensation
Defendants first argue that the jury’s $25 million
award accounted for the lost time value of Bolden’s
compensation—in essence, that prejudgment interest
was already “baked in” to the verdict. In Thorncreek
Apartments, we observed that “[w]hen a plaintiff
provides evidence of damages that includes interest,
the presumption [in favor of awarding interest] flips
and the judge will presume that the jury included the
interest in its award.” 886 F.3d at 637. To hold
otherwise would impermissibly penalize defendants
by allowing plaintiffs to recover twice over. Id.
But “the concept of prejudgment interest was at no
point mentioned to the jury” in this case. See
Gierlinger v. Gleason, 160 F.3d 858, 874 (2d Cir.
1998). Neither side’s counsel raised it, and the court
never instructed the jury on the concept of
prejudgment interest or how it should be calculated.
Lacking such evidence, Defendants point instead to
language in the jury instructions that Bolden should
be compensated for “any injury that you find he
12a
sustained and is reasonably certain to sustain in the
future” (emphasis added), as well as statements by
Bolden’s counsel encouraging the jury to consider
Bolden’s losses “to this day.” While one could infer
from these general instructions and statements that
the jury adjusted for interest in deriving Bolden’s $25
million award, the district court did not abuse its
discretion in concluding otherwise.
Nor is the jury’s verdict so large that “only the
supposition that the jury has compensated plaintiff
for the time value of money can explain the result.”
Williamson, 817 F.2d at 1298. Plaintiff’s counsel
asked the jury to award Bolden $44 million in
compensatory damages; the jury awarded $25 million.
The district court reasonably exercised its discretion
in concluding, based on this outcome and the trial
record, that the jury’s award did not account for
prejudgment interest.
2. Ascertainability of Past and Future Damages
The disaggregation of past from future damages in
the jury’s verdict presents a more challenging issue.
Recall that prejudgment interest cannot be awarded
on damages for future harms—those not yet suffered
at the time the plaintiff’s claim accrues—since “the
time value of money is taken into account when these
[damages] are discounted to present value.” Id.;
Hillier, 740 F.2d at 586. The parties agree that only
Bolden’s past damages (those he suffered while in
prison) and not his future damages (those he suffered
after release) could serve as a basis for an interest
award.
13a
The best practice to avoid issues with post hoc
apportionment of past and future damages entirely, of
course, is to allow the jury itself to separate these
categories on a special verdict form. See, e.g., Poleto v.
Consol. Rail Corp., 826 F.2d 1270, 1277 (3d Cir. 1987).
But neither party raised this for the district court’s
attention in their jointly submitted verdict form at
trial.
Instead, the verdict in this case was a single $25
million lump sum awarded on a general verdict form.
The district court determined that interest on this
entire amount was proper after determining “from the
transcript at closing arguments” that “Bolden’s
counsel asked for compensation from the
incarceration” alone, and not “for the wait after
incarceration ended.” It is not clear whether this
statement is meant to indicate that the jury’s entire
award was for past damages, or simply that the jury
did not account for prejudgment interest in its award
(as already discussed). And based on the damages
testimony at trial, as well as the language of the jury
instructions, it seems possible that the jury intended
at least some portion of its award to compensate
Bolden not only for the 22 years he spent in prison,
but also his ongoing harms after his release in April
2016.
The district judge can hardly be faulted for failing
to address the issue of past versus future damages
more directly where Defendants focused so much of
their efforts post-trial on attempting to distinguish
Hillier and render all of Bolden’s noneconomic
damages categorically ineligible for prejudgment
interest. Still, Defendants also argued below—and
14a
again on appeal—that without any basis to determine
the portion of the award consisting of past damages,
the decision to grant interest on the whole sum was
improper.
We addressed a similar situation in Williamson v.
Handy Button Machine Co., an employment case in
which the plaintiff sought damages for backpay and
future earnings. In that case, too, “the jury returned a
verdict that d[id] not distinguish past and future
sources of loss.” 817 F.2d at 1298. The lower court had
declined to award any prejudgment interest at all on
separate grounds; we reversed, but observed that the
issue of apportionment would arise on remand. Id. at
1299. We rejected the notion that “unless the amount
of [past damages] is exactly determinable no interest
should be awarded.” Id. Indeed, “[n]o purpose would
be served by allowing the wrongdoer to keep the entire
time value of the money, just because the exact
amount is subject to fair dispute.” Id. Rather, we held
that the district court should do its best to ascertain
the portion of the verdict attributable to past damages
unless doing so would be “impossible or hopelessly
speculative.” Id. at 1298. We offered several potential
methods that the district court could use on remand
to apportion the award, based on the plaintiff’s
backpay estimates and other evidence from the trial
record. Id.; see also Hutchison v. Amateur Elec.
Supply, Inc., 42 F.3d 1037, 1047 (7th Cir. 1994)
(holding in another backpay case that district courts
may not deny prejudgment interest solely because of
“calculational ambiguities” as to the precise amount
owed).
The question here is closer than in Williamson and
15a
Hutchison: unlike the backpay damages assessed in
those cases, Bolden’s damages are noneconomic, and
he offered no precise calculations of his past versus
future losses to the jury. In Daniels v. Pipefitters’
Association Local Union No. 597, we held that
prejudgment interest was appropriately denied where
“the district judge ha[d] no means to parse the
elements of the general verdict” whatsoever. 945 F.2d
906, 925 (7th Cir. 1991). Similarly, in Gilliam v. Allen,
another wrongful conviction case brought under
Section 1983, the Fourth Circuit reversed an award of
$36 million in prejudgment interest on multiple
grounds, including that any interest calculation on
the lump-sum jury verdict “could only be the product
of speculation” without any concrete breakdown of
past versus future damages available from the
record.2 62 F.4th 829, 849–50 (4th Cir. 2023).
But we do not think that the record in this case is
so sparse that apportionment is impossible. The
emphasis at trial was clearly on Bolden’s damages
from his imprisonment rather than his post-release
damages. Cf. Daniels, 945 F.2d at 925 (affirming
denial of interest where the jury “may well have
rested the lion’s share of its award on [future
damages]”). And there is at least some evidence that
could support apportionment: at trial, Bolden’s
counsel had asked the jury to use $44 million as a
We note, however, that the Gilliam court reached this
conclusion only after finding that prejudgment interest was
already improper since the jury’s award fully accounted for the
time value of money. 62 F.4th at 848–49. The interest award in
that case—$36 million—also vastly exceeded the one at issue
here.
2
16a
starting point for their damages, calculated as $2
million for each of his years of imprisonment. Defense
counsel similarly commented that Bolden was seeking
“1 to 2 million a year,” and that he had “22 million
reasons to lie to you. He wants $22 million.”
One approach, therefore, could have been to
apportion the $25 million award into $22 million for
past damages and $3 million for future damages.
Bolden concedes on appeal that “[t]his, too, would
have been a reasonable exercise of the court’s
discretion.”
We do not decide this question, however, as it is
the district judge’s prerogative based on his
familiarity with the trial record. Rather, we remand
for the district court to recalculate the prejudgment
interest “on a prorated portion” of the jury’s verdict
after determining the percentage attributable to past
damages. Barnard, 721 F.3d at 1078. In doing so, the
district court may use any “reasonable method” of
calculation based on a review of the record as a whole.
Hutchison, 42 F.3d at 1048.
3. Improper Penalty
Defendants also argue that the district court’s
prejudgment interest award functioned as an
improper penalty. They point out that the nearly twoyear delay in trying the case arose through
circumstances outside their control, namely the case’s
reassignment and the COVID-19 pandemic. But
delays “attributable to the judicial branch … [whose]
effect is neutral between the parties” do not warrant
denying prejudgment interest. Milwaukee Cheese, 112
17a
F.3d at 849. A purposeful delay by the party seeking
the interest, which “injures the other side by forcing it
to act as an uncompensated trustee or investment
manager,” might—but that is not the situation we are
presented with here. Id. Bolden filed his claims well
within the statute of limitations, and the delays
cannot be laid at his feet either.
The district court also noted Defendants’
settlement conduct in explaining its award of
prejudgment interest, observing that they “could have
avoided trial altogether by settling the case” and that
“[b]y the look of things, Defendants did not put serious
money on the table.” It is true that prejudgment
interest is not meant to penalize parties for “bad-faith
conduct,” including refusal to engage in settlement
talks. City of Milwaukee, 515 U.S. at 197. But the
district court expressly recognized this constraint,
stating that Defendants “had no obligation to settle”
and that it “d[id] not fault Defendants for rolling the
dice, and taking their chances.” The district court’s
remark that it would “require Defendants to
internalize the costs of their own decision-making” is
not a statement of blame, but merely a recognition of
reality: any defendant who chooses to litigate out a
case rather than settle runs the risk of paying
additional prejudgment interest down the line if they
ultimately lose. The district court’s acknowledgment
of this fact was not an abuse of discretion.
Finally, Defendants contend that the decision to
award monthly compounding interest was an abuse of
discretion. But the method of calculating interest
rests within the sound discretion of the district court,
Hutchison, 42 F.3d at 1047, and Defendants have
18a
pointed to no authority suggesting this choice was
unreasonable.
III. Conclusion
We REVERSE IN PART the district court’s order
to the extent it did not apportion past and future
damages in calculating prejudgment interest on the
jury’s verdict, and REMAND for further proceedings
on that issue consistent with this opinion. In all other
respects, the judgment of the district court is
AFFIRMED.3
We need not reach the question of whether Bolden was not
entitled to prejudgment interest on his supplemental state-law
claims: the district court held after reviewing the trial record
that it was “awarding prejudgment interest under federal law,”
and we find no abuse of discretion in that result.
3
19a
APPENDIX B
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT
December 30, 2025
Before
MICHAEL B. BRENNAN, Chief Judge
JOSHUA P. KOLAR, Circuit Judge
NANCY L. MALDONADO, Circuit Judge
No. 24-1674
EDDIE L. BOLDEN,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
Appeal from the United
States District Court for
the Northern District of
Illinois, Eastern
Division.
No. 1:17-cv-00417
ANGELO
PESAVENTO, et al.
Defendants-Appellants.
Steven C. Seeger,
Judge.
ORDER
Defendants-appellants filed a petition for
rehearing and for rehearing en banc on December 11,
20a
2025. No judge in regular active service has requested
a vote on the petition for rehearing en banc, and all
members of the original panel have voted to deny
panel rehearing. It is therefore ordered that the
petition for rehearing and for rehearing
en banc is DENIED.
21a
APPENDIX C
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT
OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION
EDDIE L. BOLDEN,
) Case No. 17-cv-417
)
Plaintiff,
)
) Hon. Steven C.
) Seeger
v.
)
)
ANGELO PESAVENTO, et al., )
)
Defendants.
)
______________________________
ORDER
Plaintiff Eddie Bolden’s motion for prejudgment
interest (Dckt. No. 680) is hereby granted.
Bolden was incarcerated from 1994 until 2016 for
double murder, before the convictions were vacated.
He filed suit against four former Chicago Police
Department officers for his decades of incarceration.
The counts included four constitutional claims under
42 U.S.C. § 1983 and three claims under Illinois law.
22a
After a three-week trial, a jury returned a verdict
in favor of Bolden, and against the four officers, on all
seven counts. Trial took place in 2021. Bolden spent a
lot of time in prison, and then waited a long time for
his day in court.
The jury awarded Bolden substantial damages. It
awarded Bolden $25 million in compensatory
damages, and punitive damages of $100,000 (each)
against two of the former officers (Angelo Pesavento
and James Oliver).
After the trial, Bolden filed the motion at hand
under Rule 59(e). See Mtn., at 1 (Dckt. No. 680). He
requests an award of prejudgment interest in the
amount of $7,629,466.51. Id.
A district court enjoys discretion to grant a motion
for prejudgment interest under Rule 59(e). See Miller
v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Am., 683 F.3d 805, 814–15 (7th
Cir. 2012). “[W]hether and how to award prejudgment
interest . . . lies in the discretion of the district court,
although there is a presumption in favor of granting
such interest.” Frey v. Coleman, 903 F.3d 671, 682
(7th Cir. 2018) (citations omitted).
Prejudgment interest “restores a plaintiff to the
position she would have been in but for the violation.”
Id. It “is intended to compensate a plaintiff for delay
in receiving money it should have received much
earlier or should not have been required to spend in
the first place.” BRC Rubber & Plastics, Inc. v. Cont’l
Carbon Co., 981 F.3d 618, 634 (7th Cir. 2020).
23a
In other words, prejudgment interest accounts for
the time-value of money. See Matter of Oil Spill by
Amoco Cadiz Off Coast of France on Mar. 16, 1978,
954 F.2d 1279, 1331 (7th Cir. 1992) (“Money today is
not a full substitute for the same sum that should
have been paid years ago. Prejudgment interest
therefore is an ordinary part of any award under
federal law.”).
Prejudgment interest promotes a number of
important interests. It compensates the prevailing
party for the wait, and the time value of money.
Money tomorrow isn’t worth the same as money today.
Prejudgment interest also incentivizes parties to
settle. And it disincentivizes parties from dragging
their feet and delaying litigation. Otherwise, a
defendant could string things out, kick the can down
the road, and avoid the cost of the delay. It encourages
good behavior if everyone knows that the meter is
running.
“[P]rejudgment interest is presumptively available
to victims of federal law violations.” McRoberts
Software, Inc. v. Media 100, Inc., 329 F.3d 557, 572
(7th Cir. 2003) (quoting Gorenstein Enterprises, Inc. v.
Quality Care-U.S.A., Inc., 874 F.2d 431, 436 (7th Cir.
1989)). Courts have awarded prejudgment interest in
section 1983 cases. See, e.g., Thorncreek Apartments
III, LLC v. Mick, 886 F.3d 626, 637 (7th Cir. 2018)
(concluding that the district court did not err in
awarding prejudgment interest in a section 1983
action); Tate v. Troutman, 683 F. Supp. 2d 897, 913
(E.D. Wis. 2010), aff’d sub nom. Tate v. Riegert, 380 F.
App’x 550 (7th Cir. 2010) (awarding prejudgment
interest on a section 1983 claim); Cavada v. City of
24a
Chicago, 2014 WL 4124273, at *6 (N.D. Ill. 2014)
(same).
The Seventh Circuit has held that a district court,
in its discretion, may award prejudgment interest for
noneconomic harms. See Hillier v. S. Towing Co., 740
F.2d 583, 586 (7th Cir. 1984) (“The district court erred
its determination that ‘the law does not allow for
prejudgment interest for intangible damages (pain
and suffering and loss of society).’”) (cleaned up); see
also White v. Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding Co. Inc.,
2022 WL 294209, at *4 (E.D. Wis. 2022) (recognizing
that “prejudgment interest may as a matter of law be
awarded on all of the past damages the jury awarded,
including pain and suffering . . .”). However, courts are
not required to award prejudgment interest for
noneconomic harms. See Valencia v. City of
Springfield, 2023 WL 8827687, at *17 (C.D. Ill. 2023);
see also DeMauro v. Loren-Maltese, 2007 WL 9821268,
at *3 (N.D. Ill. 2007).
There is no apparent reason why noneconomic
harms should be categorically treated like secondclass injuries when it comes to prejudgment interest.
If anything, noneconomic harms might be worse.
They’re more personal. Waiting for a recovery for
human suffering is a harm unto itself. It is hard to see
why some types of waiting are less worthy of
compensation.
Imagine a car accident on the streets of Chicago,
where a reckless driver smacks into another car, and
then nails a pedestrian. Imagine if the other driver got
their Tesla all smashed up. And imagine if the
pedestrian broke some bones, and needed extensive
25a
physical therapy. And then, imagine if lawsuits
followed, and the reckless driver lost.
Why treat the two plaintiffs differently? If the
other driver receives compensation for the delay, why
shouldn’t the pedestrian, too? Both of them suffered
an injury. Both of them had to wait for what they were
entitled to receive. And both of them deserve
compensation for their wait.
This Court sees no reason to depart from the usual
practice of awarding prejudgment interest. Bolden
regained his freedom in 2016, and promptly filed suit
in 2017. Bolden did not string things out, or sit on his
hands. He pressed forward. Meanwhile, the delay of
litigation imposed a cost.
It took a while for the case to get to trial, but the
fault did not rest on Bolden’s shoulders.
True, Defendants are not entirely to blame for the
delay, either. The case was set for trial in early
November 2019, but the case was reassigned to this
Court upon taking the bench in mid-September 2019.
The case was one of 342 new cases on this Court’s
overflowing plate. Trial in November 2019 was
impracticable, so the Court had little choice but to
move it.
And then, the pandemic struck. The reassignment
of the case, plus the pandemic, meant that the trial
took place in October 2021 instead of November 2019.
Meanwhile, Bolden waited.
26a
Defendants aren’t to blame for that delay. Even so,
they could have avoided trial altogether by settling
the case. By the look of things, Defendants did not put
serious money on the table.
To be clear, Defendants had no obligation to settle.
This Court does not fault Defendants for rolling the
dice, and taking their chances. They had a right to
fight the case. But one of the risks of rolling the dice
is the possibility of losing, and a loss typically comes
with prejudgment interest.
Defendants rolled the dice, and the jury rang them
up with a verdict of $25 million. This Court will
require Defendants to internalize the costs of their
own decision-making. They decided to take their
chances, and things went south. And now the bill has
come due.
Defendants argue that an award of prejudgment
interest would “override the will of the jury,” and that
“the jury’s award fully compensates” Bolden for his
loss. See Defs.’ Resp., at 1 (Dckt. No. 694). Not so. The
jury compensated Bolden for his incarceration. The
jury did not compensate Bolden for the time value of
the money since then.
In effect, the jury awarded damages for the 22
years that Bolden spent in prison, which ended on
April 19, 2016. The jury did not compensate Bolden
for the time value of the money after April 19, 2016.
Defendants point to the jury instructions. Id. at 7.
But this Court did not instruct the jury to award
compensation for the time value of money since his
27a
release from prison. After all, awarding prejudgment
interest (or not) is the Court’s job, not the jury’s job.
This Court took a look at the transcript from
closing arguments. As this Court reads it, Bolden’s
counsel asked for compensation for the incarceration.
Counsel did not request compensation for the wait
after incarceration ended.
The Court also agrees with Bolden’s calculation,
too. The claim accrued when the state dismissed the
charges against him on April 19, 2016. This Court
took a close look at the calculation, and adopts the
proposed number.
The Seventh Circuit “practice has been to use the
prime rate as the benchmark for prejudgment interest
unless either there is a statutorily defined rate or the
district court engages in ‘refined rate-setting’ directed
at determining a more accurate market rate for
interest. . . . [T]o set aside this practice and award
something other than the prime rate is an abuse of
discretion, unless the district court engages in such a
refined calculation.” First Nat. Bank of Chicago v.
Standard Bank & Tr., 172 F.3d 472, 480 (7th Cir.
1999); see also Frey, 903 F.3d at 682.
“As a general rule, the decision whether to award
compound or simple prejudgment interest is left to the
discretion of the trial court.” Am. Nat. Fire Ins. Co. ex
rel. Tabacalera Contreras Cigar Co. v. Yellow Freight
Sys., Inc., 325 F.3d 924, 937 (7th Cir. 2003). However,
“compound prejudgment interest is the norm in
federal litigation.” Id. at 937–38 (citations omitted).
This Court will go with the norm.
28a
As an alternative to prejudgment interest under
federal law, Bolden requests that this Court award
prejudgment interest under Illinois law. There is no
need to get into that issue, because this Court is
awarding prejudgment interest under federal law.
At bottom, the case is largely about time. Bolden
lost time as a free man, in the prime years of his life.
Bolden spent time in prison – decades of time – for
convictions that didn’t hold up. Bolden waited a long
time to get his liberty. And he spent more time waiting
for justice.
At long last, the wait is over. The time has come.
The compensation has arrived.
For these reasons, the Court grants Bolden’s
motion for prejudgment interest. The Court hereby
awards prejudgment interest totaling $7,629,466.51.
That amount reflects prejudgment interest running
through September 30, 2022, when this Court entered
final judgment. See Final Judgment Order (Dckt. No.
675). At that point, the prejudgment interest meter
stopped running.
Date: April 2, 2024
/s/ Steven C. Seeger
Steven C. Seeger
United States District Judge
This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.