Tag: Taxable Costs

Key Insight: Defendant objected to portion of Plaintiff?s bill of costs for electronic data processing, document conversion, exhibit stamping and copy charges. The court sustained Defendant?s objection relating to costs for (i) ?hosting fees, user fees and other miscellaneous database charges? (outside the scope of ?copying or scanning materials?); (ii) converting ESI documents to TIFF format (parties agreed to produce as either native or TIFF files – ?[b]ecause any conversion of the electronic files was the choice of each party,? the conversion was not ?necessarily obtained for use in the case?); (ii) exhibit stamps (not taxable under 1920(4)); (iv) building an electronic database (?steps leading up to the process of copying? do not fall under copying); (v) Plaintiff?s conversion of documents produced to him by the Defendant (?not necessarily obtained?); and (vi) costs of printing electronic documents to paper (for Plaintiff?s convenience rather than necessary). Plaintiff?s recoverable amount was reduced accordingly.

Nature of Case: Taxable costs

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Defendants sought to recover costs incurred to scan and convert paper documents into electronic format, Bates stamp and print the documents they produced; as well as costs for taking corporate representative depositions. Plaintiffs objected ?on the basis that more than two-thirds of the production costs?are the costs of making electronic copies and extra paper copies of documents for [Defendants?] own use.? The court found Defendants costs were incurred in order to comply with the production of ESI, and that costs for Bates stamping was ?reasonable and necessary? – as Defendants pointed out ?producing 125,517 pages?without a single identifying number would render such production entirely useless.? Also, Defendants provided sufficient supporting evidence for the costs incurred in making copies of the produced documents. The court granted Defendants? request for costs. Plaintiffs argued the Clerk of Court?s finding that Defendants failed to meet the requirements of Local Rule 54.1(b)(3) regarding deposition costs was correct. This court indicated 28 U.S.C. ? 1920 provides the ?outer bounds? of a courts? discretion in awarding costs, citing the Third Circuit ?deposition expenses, including the costs of deposition transcripts, may be awarded as costs to the prevailing party if the court determines, at the end of the litigation, that the copies were of papers necessary for use in the case.? Finding Defendants? deposition and transcripts were ?at least ?reasonably necessary? as part of their efforts to effectively litigate this patent case,? the court granted Defendant?s request.

Nature of Case: Taxable costs

Electronic Data Involved: ESI

Key Insight: Court held that ?costs of creating and maintaining an electronic platform for e-Discovery are not recoverable under ? 1920(4).?

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: Noting that ?this court has held previously, ?the costs associated with the formatting and preparing of the administrative record are proper and necessarily incurred to produce electronic copies? for use in the case? the court allowed costs for ?converting TIFF images into searchable PDF format, electronically Bates-stamping the PDF images, hyperlinking the PDF images to the index, editing the index, and burning the images to DVDs.?

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 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 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