A judge is forcing a North Carolina nursing home to pay interest on $2 million in damages awarded last year, even though the original award had been temporarily vacated.

The case relates to the Blue Ridge Health Care Center in Raleigh, NC, where three nursing home residents died, allegedly because of inadequate staffing. Their families subsequently sued and won $4.5 million early last year, Bloomberg Law reported Wednesday.

A trial judge later vacated those punitive damages, but the Fourth Circuit court reinstated them in August, chopping the award down to $2 million. Now, at the plaintiffs’ request, the court has granted post-judgment interest, tallied from the date of the original judgment.

That interest will be calculated at the federal rate, equal to the weekly average one-year constant maturity Treasury yield, Bloomberg reported. A call seeking comment from Blue Ridge was not immediately returned Wednesday.