Tag: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)

Key Insight: Finding the reasoning of the Third Circuit in Race Tires America Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., 674 F.3d 158 (3d Cir. 2012) persuasive, the court in this case found only a portion of Defendant?s claimed costs were recoverable: court allowed recovery for the imaging of hard copy files and for uploading hard copy materials into a database for electronic production and also acknowledged that the conversion of documents into TIFF images was recoverable, but declined to allow recovery for ?logical document determination? (?organizing documents to avoid single page production?), ?project management and technical services,? most ?ingestion services,? and ?professional services? such as establishing protocols for processing and quality control measures to ensure those protocols were met

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to ediscovery

Key Insight: Acknowledging that the Eight Circuit has not yet addressed how section 1920(4) relates to electronically stored information, the court noted the persuasive reasoning in Race Tires America, Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., 674 F.3d 158 (3d Cir. 2012) which held that ?scanning documents and converting computer data into readable format constitute copying within the meaning of section 1920(4)? and found the amounts sought by Plaintiff to be reasonable

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable electronic discovery costs

Key Insight: Where defendant sought ?the cost of file conversion, Bates labeling, and storing electronic documents produced during litigation,? the clerk taxed only the ?cost of TIFF conversion . . . and the costs of making copies of original dvd?s and the original CD?

Nature of Case: Patent infringement

Electronic Data Involved: ESI Taxable costs

Key Insight: Addressing taxable costs, court allowed recovery of costs related to conversion of documents to TIFF file format which the parties agreed would be the format of production but declined to allow costs for hosting electronic documents

Electronic Data Involved: ESI/ taxable costs

Key Insight: Noting that ?courts have allowed parties to recover the costs of converting paper documents into electronic files where responsive discovery documents were produced in electronic format,? the court found that defendants could recover $68,829.60 and $24,102.39 respectively ?for creating electronic images of documents responsive to Relator?s discovery requests?

Nature of Case: False Claims Act

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs for ediscovery

Key Insight: Court approved recovery of costs related to making one set of copies of the at issue documents, including bates labeling , but found that the city had ?not met its burden of establishing that the additional expenses, including scanning, OCR, and the production of a master DVD, were reasonably necessary under ? 1920(4)?

Nature of Case: Unlawful retaliation under Title VII

Electronic Data Involved: taxable costs

Key Insight: Noting that ?[t]he Lanham Act and the Copyright Act allow recovery of reasonable costs that are otherwise non-taxable under 28 U.S.C. ? 1920? and that Defendant?s claimed e-discovery costs were reasonable, the court reasoned that ?[c]ourts have found e-discovery costs reasonable and recoverable if they were ?not accrued merely for the convenience of counsel,?? that the claimed costs ?were mainly accrued in response to [Plaintiff?s] discovery requests (e.g. the majority of the costs are for converting materials into the agreed upon .tiff format),? and that Plaintiff had not ?identified any costs that [were] ?merely for the convenience of counsel?? and thus found that Defendant?s e-discovery costs were recoverable

Nature of Case: Trade dress and copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: 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