News, Developments and Practical Advice on eDiscovery in the trenches of Litigation

Discovery Advocate

Home | Discovery Advocate

A few months ago, the <a href="http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/112316p.pdf">Third Circuit</a> slashed a district court’s award of costs by over $300,000, holding that with the exception of scanning and converting native files to TIFF format, e-discovery costs are not recoverable as taxable costs against a losing party under <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1920">28 U.S.C. § 1920(4)</a>. (See this blog’s discussion of the Third Circuit’s <a href="http://www.discoveryadvocate.com/2012/03/23/third-circuit-limits-taxable-ediscovery-costs/#more-170">"sizzling opinion"</a>.)

Now, the defendants in <a href="http://articles.law360.s3.amazonaws.com/0353000/353126/RacingTirePetition.pdf">Hoosier Racing Tire Corp. v. Race Tires America, Inc. </a>have petitioned the Supreme Court for writ of certiorari, arguing that the Third Circuit ignored the “plain language” of the statute and that the Third Circuit’s holding creates a Circuit conflict. In particular, Petitioners focus on the Federal Circuit’s decision in <a href="http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-federal-circuit/1586672.html">In re Ricoh Patent Litigation</a>, which broadly interpreted 28 U.S.C. § 1920(4), and allowed the prevailing party to recover the costs incurred in creating a document production database and other related e-discovery vendor activities.

Bloggers received a lot of ink in the cert petition. Among others, the petition cited <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/joe_palazzolo">Joe Palazzola</a>’s terrific WSJ Law Blog <a href="http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2012/03/16/third-circuit-winners-still-have-to-shoulder-most-e-discovery-costs/">post</a> (the source of our “sizzling opinion” reference), and <a href="http://profile.typepad.com/6p0133f301dad7970b">Nicholas Wagoner’s</a> <a href="http://www.circuitsplits.com/">Circuit Splits</a>  (as authority for the existence of a circuit split). In mid-March Wagoner identified the <a href="http://www.circuitsplits.com/2012/03/recovering-the-cost-of-e-discovery.html">taxing of e-discovery costs</a> as a matter “ripe for review.” Whether the Supreme Court will agree remains to be seen.

Will SCOTUS Weigh In on the Taxation of e-Discovery Costs?