Plaintiffs are not entitled to recover the entire $5,830,000 underlying judgment in this bad faith action. Plaintiffs here are only entitled to $5,730,000—the principal amount of the judgment that exceeds the $100,000 policy limits subsequently paid by Nationwide. The parties disagreed over whether, under Georgia law (as opposed to Nationwide’s policy language discussed above at page 41-45), Nationwide’s partial payment of its $100,000 policy limits should be credited to the principal amount of the underlying judgment for purposes of calculating post-judgment interest. Under O.C.G.A. § 7-4-17, “[w]hen a payment is made upon any debt, it shall be applied first to the discharge of any interest due at the time.” Threatt v. Forsyth County, 262 Ga.App. 186, 585 S.E.2d 159, 163 (2003) (<HOLDING>). On February 23, 2011, the date Nationwide
holding that we will not review the pretrial denial of a motion for summary judgment after a full trial and judgment on the merits holding that for the purpose of applying ocga  7417 judgments are debts and parties to litigation can be judgment debtors or creditors and that ocga  7417 controls how payments for less than the full amount of a judgment should be allocated between principal and interest recognizing that a final judgment may exist even where no judgment has been entered in accordance with ocga  91158 b holding that where payment toward judgment was for less than the total amount of principal and interest  owed that payment then did not terminate the accrual of interest on the remaining principal holding that a second judgment controls over an earlier judgment entered in the same case