analyzed in First Empire and the Commitment Letter in that their contract with Montana Federal also created an absolute obligation upon which payment must be made “upon presentation of the proper documents.” Id. at 1366. However, comparison of this similar characteristic of the two contracts is unavailing because the key to the provability conclusion in First Empire was the certainty in the amount of damages sought. Id. at 1369 (acknowledging the common law rule that claims which are certain or capable of being made certain through recognized methods of computation are provable); accord McMillian, 81 F.3d at 1050 (employee’s claim under severance plan was easily calculable and thus provable although contingent at time of receivership); Monrad v. FDIC, 62 F.3d 1169, 1174 (9th Cir.1995)(<HOLDING>). We further recognized in First Empire that
holding that severance payments are compensable as actual damages and not speculative in nature like damages for lost opportunities and profits holding that no recovery exists for speculative damages holding that damages for loss of favorable interest rate on oneyear certificate of deposit were excluded because they constituted lost profits or opportunities holding that the value of business opportunities lost due to defendants rico violations is compensable holding such damages available where local law silent on issue speculative nature of damages does not preclude recovery