Tag:Taxable Costs

Key Insight: Court sustained objection to award of costs for ?monthly expenses associated with maintaining a database of electronically stored information used to locate, retrieve, and store the plaintiffs? emails.?

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Court held clerk did not err in awarding costs for ?loading documents into an electronic data base for production to Plaintiff on computer disks during discovery.?

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Court denied recovery of OCR costs where Defendant failed to show that the step was necessary for making copies, where no party had identified 5th Circuit authority allowing recovery of OCR costs, and where the holding was consistent with the Court?s standing order, which specifically instructed that e-Discovery costs were not allowed, including ?cost for document collection, document processing, and document hosting.?

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Appellate court found no abuse of discretion for award of conversion and character recognition costs where Defendant attested that the costs were necessarily incurred and did not request all costs related to electronic discovery and where the objecting party failed to itemize which costs it claimed were not permissible or provide an explanation of why they were not covered by the statute

Nature of Case: Qui tam; FCA (costs pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1920 (4))

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Reasoning that ?[t]he inquiry about what electronic processes are taxable turns on whether they are part of making copies ?necessarily obtained for use in the case? or instead are solely for the convenience of counsel? the court indicated that it would award costs for load file preparation, but not for processing data

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs

Key Insight: Following discussion of prior decisions in the 3rd, 4th, 6th, 9th and federal circuit courts, the District Court adopted ?the [Third Circuit?s] Race Tires approach, with the caveat that the costs of copying metadata and hard drives be included for reasons stated well [by the Federal Circuit and the Sixth Circuit] in CBT Flint and Colosi? and reduced the award of costs related to e-Discovery ?to include only costs for Bates stamping, shipping and delivery of electronic documents, native file and email conversions, and TIFF image creation and conversion?

Nature of Case: Patent Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs of e-Discovery

Key Insight: Court declined to allow recovery for ?electronic discovery vendor fees? because they are ?outside the scope of Section 1920? (28 U.S.C. 1920)

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs

Key Insight: Plaintiffs brought a ?Motion to Review Clerk?s Taxing of Costs Under F.R.C.P. 54(D)(1).? Specifically, Plaintiffs sought review of the clerk?s determination ?concerning the costs taxed amount of $55,649.98, which accounts for Defendants contracting with a private consulting company, Cyopsis, to retrieve and convert ESI into a retrievable format to produce information requested by Plaintiffs.? The court held that ?[b]ecause Defendants? costs related to the electronically stored information (?ESI?) are expenses enumerated in 28 U.S.C. ? 1920(4), and Plaintiffs were aware that Defendants would have to retain an outside consultant to retrieve and convert the ESI into a retrievable format, Plaintiffs? Motion is denied.?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Court allowed taxable costs for ?the scanning and conversion of documents into TIFF format? noting that the conversion was ?critical due to the complex nature of the case and the sheer volume of documents that were exchanged during discovery and trial? and citing Race Tires Am., Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., 674 F.3d 158, 160, 171 (3d Cir.2012)

Nature of Case: Consolidated claims under Hatch-Waxman Act

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable Costs