Attorney
In 2011, the Florida Legislature passed an amendment that made post judgment interest rates subject to annual change by the State CFO. As a result, post judgment interest rates have been effected as follows.
Judgments entered after 2011
According to Florida Statutes § 55.03 (2011), post judgment interest rates are “established at the time a judgment is obtained and such interest rate shall be adjusted annually on January 1 of each year in accordance with the interest rate in effect on that date as set by the Chief Financial Officer until the judgment is paid . . .”[1] Meaning that the interest must be calculated based the annually changing interest rate from the time the judgment was entered.
Judgments entered prior to 2011 but after 1998
Between 1998 and 2011 Florida Statute § 55.03 read: “The interest rate established at the time a judgment is obtained shall remain the same until the judgment is paid.”[2] Therefore, any judgment entered during this time period has a fixed interest rate not subject to annual change by the CFO.[3]
[1] § 55.03, Fla. Stat. (2011) (emphasis added); Ch.2011–169, §§ 1, 3, Laws of Fla. (passed in 2010 effective 2011).
[2] Ch. 98–410, § 4, Laws of Fla; § 55.03(3), Fla. Stat. (2008).
[3] Townsend v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., SC15-722, 2016 WL 3191105, at *7 (Fla. 2016) (The Court ruled that the 1998 amendment created a vested right in litigants to a fixed interest rate on judgments entered in the period in which it was in effect. Because this right is vested, it is protected from retroactive destruction or curtailing by the legislature by Article I Section 2 of the Florida Constitution)
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