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St. Paul Reinsurance Co.9/28/2005
d to uphold the trial court's conclusion that the assault and battery exclusion did not bar coverage of the shooting under the facts of this case. Sherard v. Aldridge, 251 Ga. App. 445, 447 (1) (554 SE2d 590) (2001).
2. Both parties also contend that the trial court erred in its award of post-judgment interest. As previously noted, the trial court awarded the Rosses post-judgment interest on the $300,000 subject to garnishment starting on June 13, 2000. St. Paul argues that the trial court's award of post-judgment interest should have started to run from April 18, 2003, not June 13, 2000, because no final judgment was entered in the garnishment action until April 18, 2003. We agree.
OCGA § 7-4-12 (a) states that " ll judgments in this state shall bear annual interest upon the principal amount recovered." "This post- judgment interest is due from the date the judgment is entered until the date the judgment is paid." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Great Southern Midway, Inc. v. Hughes, 223 Ga. App. 643 (478 SE2d 400) (1996). Accordingly, post-judgment interest should have begun to accrue on the date that final judgment was entered in the garnishment action. The Rosses contend that final judgment was entered on June 13, 2000, while St. Paul argues that final judgment was entered on April 18, 2003.
As the procedural history set forth above makes clear, in denying the Rosses' motion to dismiss, we rejected the Rosses' argument that the trial court's June 13, 2000 Order (rather than the April 18, 2003 Order) should be treated as the entry of final judgment in this case. We reiterated our conclusion in a footnote of our prior opinion. See St. Paul Reinsurance Co., 266 Ga. App. at 77, n.1. On writ of certiorari, the Georgia Supreme Court did not reverse this Court's conclusions on the final judgment issue, and so we conclude that our prior determination remains binding. See Shadix, 274 Ga. at 563 (1), n.13. "Although the law of the case rule has been statutorily abolished, any ruling by the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals in a case shall be binding in all subsequent proceedings in that case in the lower court and in the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeals as the case may be." (Citation and punctuation omitted.) Hardwick v. Williams, 272 Ga. App. 680, 217 (2) (a) (613 SE2d 215) (2005). Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court erred by treating June 13, 2000 as the date of final judgment upon which post-judgment interest would begin to accrue. Instead, the trial court should have granted post-judgment interest starting on April 18, 2003, the day that the true final judgment was entered in the garnishment action.
The Rosses argue that, irrespective of when final judgment was entered in the garnishment action, the trial court's award of post- judgment interest was improper. They contend that under OCGA § 7-4-12, the award of post-judgment interest should have started to run from the consent judgment entered on June 29, 1999 in the underlying personal injury action brought against Akhtar, and that interest should have been calculated on the amount of that consent judgment ($500,000).
In making their argument, the Rosses have conflated two separate potential awards of interest. First, there is the post-judgment interest that automatically accrues on the final judgment entered in the garnishment action up to the point of actual disbursement of the garnished funds. We already have discussed this type of interest in the preceding paragraphs of this Division.
Second, there is the entirely separate award of post-judgment interest that automatically began accruing on the underlying tort judgment on the date final judgment was entered in that ca
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