Tag:Taxable Costs

Key Insight: Court declined to allow costs for OCR, ?concordance hosting,? ??volume mastering,? ?unitization,? ?document imaging,? ?CD duplication,? and ?media formatting,?? but did allow costs associated with TIFF and PDF conversion

Nature of Case: Patent

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs related to e-Discovery

Key Insight: Where Plaintiffs objected to Defendants? recovery of ESI-related costs because the parties agreed that the costs of producing ESI from reasonably accessible sources would be borne by the producing party, the court reasoned that ?it did not follow that the scope of the agreement [could] be expanded to also address the costs recoverable to the prevailing party upon completion of the case,? that ?the parties agreed to require the production of metadata, in addition to simply reformatting the information into a non-editable format,? and that ?[t]he costs for such production are recoverable? and found that the copying costs incurred for the production of ESI were required for use in the case, limited to allowable costs, and reasonable and thus Plaintiff?s motion for a review of the clerk?s order taxing costs was denied

Nature of Case: Taxable costs where parties had agreed that producing parties would bear cost of production from reasonably accessible sources

Key Insight: Addressing Defendant?s request for $16,200.00 in costs charged by third party vendor who assisted in email production, including $16,000 for ?Digital Tech Time per GB: Tiff Conversion, OCR, Endorse & Export for Searchable PDF,? court concluded that converting files to TIFF or PDF was the equivalent of ?making copies? and was recoverable but that costs for making a document searchable are not recoverable; where Defendant failed to provide an adequate breakdown of the costs for each service provided, court reduced the requested recovery and awarded $4,000 for the ?Tiff conversion portion of the invoice? and also awarded $200 for the cost of two hard drives utilized for the email production

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs ( 28 U.S.C. ? 1920(4))

Key Insight: Court allowed Defendant to recover electronic conversion costs where conversions were undertaken to meet discovery requests of Plaintiff

Nature of Case: Theft of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to e-Discovery

Key Insight: Court disallowed costs for ? ?iConnect Licensing Fees,? data hosting, ?OCR,? and near-line hosting? ?arising out of the storage and analysis of electronically stored information? as well as ?outside labor charges? described as ?tech time?

Nature of Case: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Citing Race Tires Am., Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., 674 F.3d 158 (3d Cir. 2012), the court declined to tax costs for all ESI costs where relevant invoices ?did not clearly show any services performed to create a readable format,? where OCR charges are not taxable, where there were no entries in the relevant invoices for ?scanning hard copy documents or converting native files to TIFF format? (both taxable costs) and where it was not clear from the invoices that the services were conducted for Plaintiff?s benefit, rather than Defendant?s; court rejected argument that OCR should be taxed because of the parties? agreement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Allowing taxable costs for the conversion of native files to TIFF

Nature of Case: Defamation

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Court rejected reasoning that ESI-related costs were recoverable because ?the parties in this case agreed ? to the form of production for ESI? and found that ?the parties? stipulation regarding the production of ESI cannot make ESI-related costs ?necessary? ? unless the costs are copying costs? which the court was unable to discern from Plaintiff?s submission and thus the court declined to tax the ESI-related costs requested; court?s analysis noted 4th Circuit precedent indicating that ?making copies for purposes of cost recovery ? is expressly limited to the cost of converting native files to non-editable formats and copying those files onto discs.?

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Court indicated that it was “not readily apparent what ESI activities the charges at issue cover[ed], or how th[ose] activities constitute[d] either of the two applicable types of taxable costs identified in Race Tires Amer., Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire, Corp., 674 F.3d 158 (3d Cir. 2012) and, following an extensive discussion of the reasoning and findings in Race Tire, indicated that ?the highly technical nature of the services simply does not exempt parties who seek to recover their electronic discovery costs under ?1920(4) from showing that the costs fall within the subsection?s limited allowance for ?the cost of making copies of any materials?? and vacated and remanded the case, suggesting that the court consider an evidentiary hearing or taking additional evidence to make its decision

Nature of Case: Fair Labor Standards Act

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs

Key Insight: Where parties entered into an agreement that set forth parameters for production of ESI, District Court held that ?when the costs of complying with the agreement are within the obligations of the Agreement and reasonably incurred in complying with the Agreement, they are recoverable? and circuit court, on appeal, concluded that District Court acted within its discretion: ?The district court held that the e-discovery costs incurred in procedures required by the ESI Agreement are within the scope of ? 1920. Relying on the Agreement, the district court did not separate the activities required by the e-discovery Agreement. We conclude that the district acted within its discretion.?

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs ( 28 U.S.C. ? 1920)