Episode Details

Today Jim Garrity offers up 14 different, caselaw-supported, arguments to protect your client from being taxed with an opponent's videographer costs following an adverse case outcome. Many lawyers take for granted that the taxation of videographer charges is just as inevitable as for stenographic transcripts. That just isn't so. Listen for more. And remember our show notes contain all the cases mentioned in the episode. Today there are 18 cases in the list. If you can't see them all, click through to our show's home page. Thanks for listening!

SHOW NOTES:

Hemingway Villa Condominium Owners Association, Inc. v. Scottsdale Insurance Company, 2021 WL 7540794, Case No. 1:20-CV-24365-KMM (S. D. Fla. November 22, 2021) (citing FRCP 54(d) and 28 U.S.C. 1920 as authority for taxation of costs, and reciting fact that costs for deposition transcripts are taxable as long as the transcripts were necessarily obtained for use in the case; noting that not all deposition costs, however, are recoverable, including shipping and handling, expedited delivery of transcripts, exhibit costs, or condensed transcripts)

Farmer v. Arabian American Oil Co., 379 U.S. 227, 235 (1964), disapproved on other grounds by Crawford Fitting Co v. J. T. Gibbons, Inc., 482 U. S. 437, 442-43 (1987) (while prevailing party is ordinarily entitled to recover costs, a district court does not have unfettered discretion to award any and every cost that the wing party incurred in pursuit of their case)

Alvarez v. Lakeland Area Mass Transit District, 2020 WL 13119059, Case No. 8:19-CV-01044-33 SPF (M. D. Florida October 2, 2020) (detailing basic standards for taxability of deposition related costs; rejecting taxability of costs for “E – litigation package,” exhibits, scanning, hyperlinking, and shipping and handling;” further rejecting taxability of videographer charges without an explanation from the prevailing party on why the videography was necessary)

Bostick v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., No. 8:16-CV-1400-T-33AAS, 2018 WL 1474712 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 8, 2018), report and recommendation adopted, No. 8:16-CV-1400-T-33AAS, 2018 WL 1461741 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 23, 2018) (video deposition costs may not be awarded under Section 1920(2) without an explanation from the prevailing party on why the video deposition was necessary, citing Morrison v. Reichhold Chem., Inc., 97 F.3d 460, 465–66 (11th Cir. 1996)

Walter v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 2011 WL 13394675 (N. D. Indiana November 4, 2011) (while videography expenses associated with the deposition or of a qualifying type for taxability, the costs may only be taxed if the deposition recordings were necessarily obtained for use in the case; the proper inquiry is whether the deposition was “reasonably necessary” to the case at the time it was taken, not whether it was used in a motion or in court)

Harris Brumfield, Trustee, et al. v. IBG LLC, et al., 2022 WL 972277 (N. D. Illinois March 31, 2022) (court resolve dispute over taxability of videotaping depositions by declining to award costs as to those individuals who resided within the Court’s subpoena jurisdiction at the time of their depositions and at the time of trial, and thus were available for in-person testimony)

Cascades Computer Innovation, LLC v. Samsung Elecs. Co., No. 11 C 4574, 2016 WL 612792, at (N.D. Ill. Feb. 16, 2016) (“A prevailing party may recover costs for both a paper transcript and a video recording of a deposition, but only when it was "reasonable and necessary" for counsel to obtain both,” citing. See Little v. Mitsubishi Motors N. Am., Inc., 514 F.3d 699, 702 (7th Cir. 2008) )

Cherry v. Champion Int'l Corp., 186 F.3d 442, 449 (4th Cir. 1999) (“… unless Champion demonstrates that both costs were “necessarily obtained for use in the case,” 28 U.S.C. § 1920(2), only its transcription costs are recoverable. See Tilton, 115 F.3d at 1478 (adopting similar standard and stating that the