Tag:Taxable Costs

Key Insight: Court denied Defendant?s request for e-discovery costs. Defendant?s vendor provided services to create optical character recognition (?OCR?) image and text files for Defendant?s productions. The Court concluded that the costs of creating electronic copies of documents are recoverable but the costs of creating a dynamic, indexed and searchable database that allows counsel to search for and within the documents are not recoverable. The Court denied Defendant?s recovery of costs for the technical services provided by their e-discovery vendor.

Nature of Case: Taxable costs

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Court sustained objection to award of taxable costs related to vendor?s work to provide Plaintiff with an image of Plaintiff?s work computer

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Addressing taxable costs, court concluded ?generally? that ?creating forensic images of Defendants? devices and conversion of the relevant imaged copies to TIFF format are within the rubric of ?making copies of any materials? under ? 1920(4) in this case, but are taxable costs only upon a showing they were ?necessarily obtained for use in the case.?? Court also held that the statute ?does not authorize taxation of expenses attributable to keyword searches.? Ultimately, the court concluded that in the present case the ?factual record? was ?insufficient? to determine the recoverable amount and ordered the submission of a revised, and more detailed, bill of costs.

Nature of Case: Claims based on alleged misappropriation of confidential information

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs

Key Insight: Defendant objected to portion of Plaintiff?s bill of costs for electronic data processing, document conversion, exhibit stamping and copy charges. The court sustained Defendant?s objection relating to costs for (i) ?hosting fees, user fees and other miscellaneous database charges? (outside the scope of ?copying or scanning materials?); (ii) converting ESI documents to TIFF format (parties agreed to produce as either native or TIFF files – ?[b]ecause any conversion of the electronic files was the choice of each party,? the conversion was not ?necessarily obtained for use in the case?); (ii) exhibit stamps (not taxable under 1920(4)); (iv) building an electronic database (?steps leading up to the process of copying? do not fall under copying); (v) Plaintiff?s conversion of documents produced to him by the Defendant (?not necessarily obtained?); and (vi) costs of printing electronic documents to paper (for Plaintiff?s convenience rather than necessary). Plaintiff?s recoverable amount was reduced accordingly.

Nature of Case: Taxable costs

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Defendants sought to recover costs incurred to scan and convert paper documents into electronic format, Bates stamp and print the documents they produced; as well as costs for taking corporate representative depositions. Plaintiffs objected ?on the basis that more than two-thirds of the production costs?are the costs of making electronic copies and extra paper copies of documents for [Defendants?] own use.? The court found Defendants costs were incurred in order to comply with the production of ESI, and that costs for Bates stamping was ?reasonable and necessary? – as Defendants pointed out ?producing 125,517 pages?without a single identifying number would render such production entirely useless.? Also, Defendants provided sufficient supporting evidence for the costs incurred in making copies of the produced documents. The court granted Defendants? request for costs. Plaintiffs argued the Clerk of Court?s finding that Defendants failed to meet the requirements of Local Rule 54.1(b)(3) regarding deposition costs was correct. This court indicated 28 U.S.C. ? 1920 provides the ?outer bounds? of a courts? discretion in awarding costs, citing the Third Circuit ?deposition expenses, including the costs of deposition transcripts, may be awarded as costs to the prevailing party if the court determines, at the end of the litigation, that the copies were of papers necessary for use in the case.? Finding Defendants? deposition and transcripts were ?at least ?reasonably necessary? as part of their efforts to effectively litigate this patent case,? the court granted Defendant?s request.

Nature of Case: Taxable costs

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Court held that ?costs of creating and maintaining an electronic platform for e-Discovery are not recoverable under ? 1920(4).?

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Addressing taxable costs for electronic discovery, the court acknowledged the lack of any ?on-point Eleventh Circuit law? and deemed CBT Flint Partners, LLC v. Return Path, Inc., 737 F.3d 1320, 1325 (Fed. Cir. 2013) ?to be the most persuasive circuit court opinion on the issue?; where even CBT Flint Partners LLC did not address costs related to OCR, however, the court indicated it would ?follow the fundamental principle that the costs statute is ?modest? and ?narrow? and ?limited to minor, incidental expenses? and excluded OCR costs from Defendant?s costs request

Nature of Case: Antitrust

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs for electronic discovery

Key Insight: Noting that ?this court has held previously, ?the costs associated with the formatting and preparing of the administrative record are proper and necessarily incurred to produce electronic copies? for use in the case? the court allowed costs for ?converting TIFF images into searchable PDF format, electronically Bates-stamping the PDF images, hyperlinking the PDF images to the index, editing the index, and burning the images to DVDs.?

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs