- COURT DENIES INTEREST
Many of you have asked whether you are going to get interest on the amounts now due to you, since you should
have received those years ago. The Oregon Supreme Court had ruled that the State of Oregon was not liable for
pre-judgment interest. The State took the position that that ruling would apply to the new judgments to be
entered in this case. We took the position that since the original judgments that were already entered, and
were entered in the wrong amount, that you should be entitled to what we labeled to be post-judgment interest
from the date of the first judgment until the next judgment. Judge Lipscomb sided with the State and denied
our motion for interest. That issue will be appealed.
What this means is that it may be an additional two to three years before the last issue in this case is resolved.
We again will beg every plaintiff to keep updated with address changes, as we are spending considerable time
tracking down missing plaintiffs.
- PENALTY PAY – It’s income but it’s not wages
For purposes of taxes and PERS, it is not wages.
Attached to this update is a letter from the State to myself spelling out the State’s position as to why penalty
pay only constitutes income that has to be reported, but for purposes of taxes and PERS, does not constitute
wages. I agree with the State’s assessment. When the State gets around to paying the Penalty Pay checks,
the normal wage deductions will not be made, and the amounts paid will not be reported to PERS. You will
still have to declare those as income and pay taxes on them. While you should consult your tax planners on
this matter, or tax preparers, it is my belief that it will be income the year that you actually receive the
payment, which hopefully will be this year.
- THE NEXT STEPS: Reducing accepted claim calculations to judgments and getting paid.
Allegedly the State will send us a proposed Judgment for a batch of accepted claims by the end of this week.
After we double check all of the numbers, it will be signed by the Court and then payments will be sent to us
to send to you. To date we’ve reviewed 599 claim calculations, and have finalized over 280 of them. There are
over 1750 Plaintiffs, so there’s a ways to go.
AG's Letter on Penalty Tax and PERS
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