PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 24-1294

NCO FINANCIAL SYSTEMS, INC.,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

MONTGOMERY PARK, LLC,

Defendant - Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore. George L. Russell, III, Chief District Judge. (1:11-cv-01020-GLR)

Argued: January 30, 2025 Decided: April 14, 2025

Before NIEMEYER, GREGORY, and HARRIS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part and remanded with instructions by published opinion. Judge Niemeyer wrote the opinion, in which Judge Gregory and Judge Harris joined.

Stephen W. Nichols, OFFIT KURMAN, PA, Bethesda, Maryland, for Appellant. Howard G. Goldberg, GOLDBERG & BANKS, P.C., Baltimore, Maryland; John Edward McCann, Jr., MILES & STOCKBRIDGE P.C., Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee. USCA4 Appeal: 24-1294 Doc: 35 Filed: 04/14/2025 Pg: 2 of 11

NIEMEYER, Circuit Judge:

This Dickensian litigation, begun in early 2011, prosecuted for over 14 years, and

now presented to us for the fifth time, * may finally be coming to a close — but not on the

will of the attorneys involved. It arose from a dispute over a commercial lease for about

100,000 square feet of office space in Baltimore, Maryland. The issues presented here,

which we trust will be the final ones — so as not to compete with the absurdity of Bleak

House’s “Jarndyce and Jarndyce” — involve the district court’s award of roughly $3.8

million to Montgomery Park, LLC, for the costs, fees, and expenses, including attorneys

fees, that it incurred in pursuing its remedies.

The lessee NCO Financial Systems, Inc., challenges the award, contending (1) that

Montgomery Park never made a demand for the payment of the costs, fees, and expenses,

as the lease required; (2) that fees incurred by Montgomery Park in defending against

NCO’s initial suit should not have been included in the award; and (3) that expert fees

should not have been included in the award.

In connection with the first issue, we conclude that Montgomery Park clearly made

a demand for payment when it filed its motion seeking reimbursement for costs, fees, and

* Initially, we denied Montgomery Park’s request to file an interlocutory appeal, No. 14-274 (4th Cir. July 7, 2014). And thereafter, we issued three opinions in this case: NCO Fin. Sys., Inc. v. Montgomery Park, LLC, 842 F.3d 816 (4th Cir. 2016) (holding that NCO failed to satisfy the conditions necessary for early termination of the lease); NCO Fin. Sys., Inc. v. Montgomery Park, LLC, 918 F.3d 388 (4th Cir. 2019) (holding that Montgomery Park’s obligation to mitigate damages was not a condition precedent to awarding damages); NCO Fin. Sys., Inc. v. Montgomery Park, LLC, 40 F.4th 123 (4th Cir. 2022) (affirming district court’s finding that Montgomery Park’s efforts to mitigate damages were commercially reasonable). 2 USCA4 Appeal: 24-1294 Doc: 35 Filed: 04/14/2025 Pg: 3 of 11

expenses. In so concluding, we clarify that default interest should run only from the date

of demand, not from the dates when the costs, fees, and expenses were incurred. The

default interest therefore must be recalculated. In connection with the other issues, we

affirm. Accordingly, we vacate the interest portion of the judgment and reman