Tag:Taxable Costs

Key Insight: Defendant moved to re-tax costs of $11,070.26 for scanning, bates stamping and electronically producing hard copy documents, which the clerk denied. Plaintiff argued the costs were incurred before Plaintiff joined the action, the costs of discovery were not generally recoverable and the amount was excessive. The court disagreed, noting Defendant?s costs were routinely recoverable under 28 U.S.C. ? 1920(4) and were supported by ?sufficiently detailed? invoices (the majority of which were dated after the Plaintiff joined the action). The court granted the motion and taxed $11,070.26 against Plaintiff.

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Court addressed recovery of costs related to electronic discovery pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1920(4) ?applying the law of the regional circuit (in this case, the Eleventh Circuit)”

Nature of Case: Patent Infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to electronic discovery

Key Insight: Addressing taxable costs related to electronic discovery, the court agreed with the reasoning in prior case law that ?costs for electronic .TIFF and .PFD conversion and OCR of documents produced in discovery were permissible exemplification costs, but pre-production document collection and processing costs were not? and concluded that ?database hosting costs separate from .TIFF and OCR conversion, Bates stamping, load file and other physical media generation are non-compensable ??

Nature of Case: Patent litigation

Electronic Data Involved: taxable costs

Key Insight: Noting that it was undisputed that e-discovery costs were available as taxable costs under Section 1920(4), but that there was scant legal authority in the circuit and district giving litigants guidance in seeking those costs, court deducted one-half of defendants’ request for costs related to electronically processing, hosting, and producing documents in discovery as well as electronically processing both sides’ trial exhibits, and awarded defendants $3,454 in e-discovery costs

Nature of Case: Commercial litigation

Electronic Data Involved: ESI and trial exhibits

Key Insight: Court declined to allow recovery of costs related to the copying and maintenance of emails within an electronic database where the party seeking recovery voluntarily assumed the costs to avoid the need to review voluminous hard copy and where the copies were not obtained ?for use in the case? as evidenced by the petitioner?s reliance on only a very small portion of ESI as exhibits in this case

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to storage of emails, ESI

Key Insight: Court found costs associated with converting information into the agreed-upon format and electronically Bates stamping were analogous to copying costs and therefore taxable and thus allowed recovery of such costs over Defendant?s objection

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Court held that ?scanning documents and converting computer data into readable format constitute copying within the meaning of section 1920(4)? but that ?costs associated with storing ESI are not recoverable?

Nature of Case: Misappropriation of trade secrets

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to ESI

Key Insight: Court allowed recovery of costs in categories including, ? ?heavy litigation scanning,? bates labeling in electronic format . . . ?hourly tech time,? ?make 1 blowback set of all PDF files outside off [sic]folders; slipsheet with file name? but declined to allow recovery of ?OCR costs? absent evidence that the parties agreed to make documents searchable

Nature of Case: Taxable costs

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs

Key Insight: Court awarded costs in favor of defendant, including costs related to electronic discovery: ?We have carefully considered Plaintiff’s objections to the nature of the costs sought to be recovered by Defendant, in particular, to the costs incurred in connection with the production of electronically stored information, but we do not find Plaintiff’s objections to be meritorious. As Defendant points out in its briefings, we have awarded as costs the expense of producing electronically stored information in several other recent cases, and Plaintiff’s objections are based largely on judicial decisions issued by courts in other districts and circuits, including the Eastern District of Missouri and the Ninth Circuit Courts of Appeals, which are contrary to the rulings within our Seventh Circuit.?

Electronic Data Involved: ESI (taxable costs)