Tag: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

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: Court denied motion for electronic discovery costs pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d) and 28 USC 1920 where Defendant?s bill of costs included many line item descriptions for ?intellectual effort? such as ?analyzing the discovery documents,? preparing for and participating in a ?kickoff call? and other communications with co-workers and vendors

Nature of Case: Patent and Copyright infringement

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to electronic discovery

Key Insight: Magistrate Judge recommended the adoption of the approach of the Third Circuit in Race Tires Am. Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., which limits the recoverable costs related to electronic discovery pursuant to 28 U.S.C. ? 1920 and thus granted in part plaintiffs? motion to disallow costs

Nature of Case: Business tort claims

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable costs related to production of ESI

Key Insight: Addressing taxable costs, court approved recovery of costs for scanning but, citing the Third Circuit decision in Race Tires Am. Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Corp., held that ?document collection, processing, and hosting? were not ?recoverable costs? and also held that, where the parties agreed that TIFF images were an acceptable form of production, but not required, the conversion was not ?necessarily obtained for use in the case? and thus related costs were not taxable under ? 1920; court indicated in footnote that had TIFF been the only agreed upon format of production, the outcome may have been different

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Court addressed question of taxable costs and relied heavily on Hecker v. Deere & Co., 556 F.3d 575 (7th Cir. 2009) and Race Tires Am. Inc. v. Hoosier Racing Tire Corp., 674 F.3d 158 (3d Cir. 2012) and allowed recover as to rendering ESI word searchable, the creation of TIFF images, the creation of hard copies, photocopying, the creation of graphics for use at the hearing, and fees for obtaining transcripts but denied recovery as to the creation of a litigation database, processing of ESI, extraction of metadata, deduplication, electronic data hosting, and ?preparing ESI for production?

Nature of Case: Violations of Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Court granted motion to award costs for imaging electronic information for document production where the court found that ?those costs fall within ?the cost of making copies of any materials? and were ?necessarily obtained for use in the case?? pursuant to 28 U.S.C. ? 1920(4) but declined to award costs incurred to purchase hard drives for document production where the court reasoned that the drives were reusable and ?properly considered overhead.?

Nature of Case: Copyright infringement, trade secret misappropriation and related claims

Electronic Data Involved: Taxable cost related to production of ESI