SNAP! MOBILE, INC., a Delaware Corporation v. VERTICAL RAISE, LLC, an Idaho Limited Liability Company; And PAUL LANDERS, Individually

Idaho Supreme Court·Decided September 11, 2026·No. 52114·Published

Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF IDAHO Docket No. 52114

SNAP! MOBILE, INC., a Delaware ) corporation, )

)

Plaintiff-Respondent, )

Boise, May 2026 Term

)

v. )

Opinion Filed: September 11, 2026 )

VERTICAL RAISE, LLC, an Idaho limited )

Melanie Gagnepain, Clerk

liability company; and PAUL LANDERS, ) individually, )

)

Defendants-Appellants. )

Appeal from the District Court of the First Judicial District, State of Idaho, Kootenai County. John T. Mitchell, District Judge.

The district court’s Third Amended Judgment is affirmed.

Ohler Bean, PLLC, Coeur d’Alene, for Appellants, Vertical Raise, LLC and Paul Landers. Nathan S. Ohler argued.

Duke Evett, PLLC, Boise, and T. Jeff Bone, Pro Hac Vice, Corr Cronin, LLP, Seattle, Washington for Respondent, Snap! Mobile, Inc. Emma C. Nowacki argued.

MEYER, Justice.

This case concerns post-judgment interest and whether the entry of an amended judgment affects the date interest begins to accrue. Vertical Raise, LLC, and Paul Landers (collectively “Vertical Raise”) appeal the district court’s decision granting the motion of Snap! Mobile, Inc. (“Snap”) for post-judgment interest on a verdict and costs that were incurred following the first appeal of this case. In Snap! Mobile, Inc. v. Vertical Raise, LLC (Snap I), 173 Idaho 499, 544 P.3d 714 (2024), the district court entered judgment on a jury’s verdict in favor of Snap and subsequently entered an amended judgment with an additur and an award of discretionary costs. On appeal, we affirmed district court’s award of discretionary costs and reversed its order granting an additur or new trial and remanded with instructions to enter judgment on the jury’s original verdict. See id. at 529, 544 P.3d at 744. After the remittitur, Vertical Raise’s surety bond tendered payment to Snap to satisfy the judgment and costs, but it did not cover any outstanding post-

judgment interest. Thereafter, the district court determined that the judgments accrued interest from the entry dates of the original judgment and amended judgment, respectively, and entered a new amended judgment consistent with its decision.

In this appeal, Vertical Raise contends that post-judgment interest should only start running from the date of entry of the judgment entered after remand because the original judgment and amended judgment were superseded and no longer enforceable; therefore, Snap is not entitled to post-judgment interest because Snap received payment before the district court entered a new judgment on remand. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.

I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND Our opinion in Snap I detailed the course of the litigation in the trial court proceedings, 173 Idaho at 508–13, 544 P.3d at 723–28, which is summarized below only to the extent that such proceedings are needed to provide context.

In 2019, Snap filed suit against Vertical Raise, alleging tortious interference with contract, misappropriation of trade secrets, and common law unfair competition. Id. at 509, 544 P.3d at 724. Following an eight-day jury trial to determine damages (liability having been determined in Snap’s favor on summary judgment), “[t]he jury returned verdicts awarding Snap $750,000 in unjust enrichment damages and $250,000 in punitive damages for a total award of $1,000,000[.]” Id. at 511, 544 P.3d at 726. However, the district court inaccurately assessed the jury’s award for unjust enrichment damages as $550,000 and entered a judgment (the “Original Judgment”) awarding Snap a total of $800,000 on October 15, 2021. See id. at 512, 516–17, 544 P.3d at 726, 731–32.

Dissatisfied with the jury’s verdict, Snap filed a motion for an additur or new trial. 1 Id. at 512, 544 P.3d at 727. Snap also filed a motion for an award of discretionary costs for its expert witness fees. See id. at 518–19, 544 P.3d at 733–34. During the hearing on these motions, the district court granted Snap’s motion for discretionary costs from the bench. The district court also granted Snap’s request for a new trial or additur, increasing the total award to $2,310,021 if accepted by Vertical Raise. Id. The district court directed Snap’s counsel to “prepare an order to that effect.” Id. at 513, 544 P.3d at 728. “However, instead of submitting a proposed order conditionally granting a new trial subject to an additur, Snap submitted an ‘Amended Judgment,’

1 “An additur is a trial court’s order, issued . . . with the defendant’s consent, that increases the jury’s award of damages to avoid a new trial on grounds of inadequate damages.” McCandless v. Pease, 166 Idaho 865, 879, 465 P.3d 1104, 1118 (2020) (citation modified).

which awarded Snap the additur without [Vertical Raise] being consulted or being given the option of accepting the additur in lieu of a new trial.” Id. The district court signed and entered the Amended Judgment, which included the terms of the Original Judgment and awarded Snap the additur and costs, on December 14, 2021. See id.

Vertical Raise appealed, and in Snap I, we affirmed the district court’s award of discretionary costs but reversed the trial court’s order granting an additur or new trial. Id. at 514– 19, 544 P.3d at 729–34. We further determined that the district court inaccurately assessed the jury’s award for unjust enrichment damages as $550,000 rather than $750,000. See id. at 511, 516– 17, 544 P.3d at 726, 731–32. We remanded “with instructions to reinstate the jury’s verdict of $1,000,000” and to “enter an amended judgment consistent with [our] opinion.” Id. at 514, 529, 544 P.3d at 729, 744.

Following remittitur, Vertical Raise’s bond surety released $1,239,525.85 to Snap to satisfy the judgment of $1,000,000 and costs. Thereafter, Snap and Vertical Raise disputed whether any post-judgment interest was due and filed competing motions for entry of judgment. Snap argued that interest started running on the judgment for damages from the entry date of the Original Judgment (October 15, 2021), and on the judgment for costs from the entry date of the Amended Judgment (December 14, 2021), because the damages and discretionary costs were liquidated at those points in the litigation.

Vertical Raise disagreed, arguing that the Amended Judgment “superseded” the Original Judgment, and that this Court “reversed the Amended Judgment” in Snap I. Therefore, Vertical Raise contended, there was no “judgment” on which interest accrued under Idaho Code section 28-22-104(2), which provides that “[t]he legal rate of interest on money due on the judgment of any competent court or tribunal shall be the rate of five percent (5%) plus the base rate in effect at the time of entry of the judgment.” Vertical Raise further argued that “[t]his procedural posture was self-inflicted by Snap” because Snap erroneously submitted the Amended Judgment (rather than a proposed order conditionally granting an additur) in contravention of the district court’s directive. In response, Snap argued that it had merely “mislabeled its post-trial filing as a Proposed ‘Amended Judgment’ instead of an Order Granting an Additur or New Trail,” and that this order did not supersede or nullify the Original Judgment.

The district court denied Vertical Raise’s motion for entry of judgment. The district court agreed with Snap that (1) the unmodified award in the Original Judgment ($800,000) began

accruing interest when the Original Judgment was entered, and (2) the award of costs began accruing interest when the Amended Judgment was entered. The district court further noted that while Snap erred by submitting the Amended Judgment rather than a proposed order conditionally granting the new trial or additur (and that the court had erred by signing it), Snap’s error was not “nefarious” but was merely a “mistake.”

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SNAP! MOBILE, INC., a Delaware Corporation v. VERTICAL RAISE, LLC, an Idaho Limited Liability Company; And PAUL LANDERS, Individually, (Idaho 2026).

SNAP! MOBILE, INC., a Delaware Corporation v. VERTICAL RAISE, LLC, an Idaho Limited Liability Company; And PAUL LANDERS, Individually (SNAP! MOBILE, INC., a Delaware Corporation v. VERTICAL RAISE, LLC, an Idaho Limited Liability Company; And PAUL LANDERS, Individually) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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