Case ID: la_142/html/1053-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      SOMMERVILLE, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

(78 South. 114)
    No. 20832.
    SHAW v. BOARD OF COM’RS OF BAYOU TERRE-AUX-BŒUFS DRAINAGE DIST.
    (Feb. 25, 1918.)
    
      (Syllabus by Editorial Staff.)
    
    Costs <&wkey;223 — Motion to Tax Costs — Appellate Jurisdiction — Statute.
    Upon a motion to file a mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States, and to have a bill for costs of the clerk of the state Supreme Court for preparing a copy of the record for the Supreme Court of the United States taxed as costs in the case, and for execution therefor, which would involve the taking of testimony as to the amount and validity of the costs charged for copying the record, the Supreme' Court has no original jurisdiction to tax such costs, and such jurisdiction is not conferred by section 2, Act No. 229 of 1910, providing that all appellate courts shall have the power equitably to tax costs of the lower or appellate court against any party to a suit.
    On .motion to file record and execute mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States, and on motion to tax or fix the clerk’s costs for making a copy of the record for the Supreme Court of the United States.
    Motion to file and execute mandate granted, and motion to tax the cost denied and dismissed.
    W. W. Wall, of New Orleans, for appellee.
   SOMMERVILLE, J.

On motion to file mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States, and to tax costs of court. Mover presents the mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States herein to he filed. It will be so ordered, and the same will be ordered executed.

Mover also asks that a bill of $76 for costs of the clerk of this court for preparing a copy of the record for the Supreme Court of the United States be taxed as costs in the case, and that execution issue therefor. The Supreme Court of the United States has condemned Shaw to pay the costs of court.

The trial and disposition of the latter part of the motion to fix or tax the costs would involve the taking of testimony as to the amount and the validity of the costs charged for copying the record. That cannot be done, as the court is without original jurisdiction, except in specified cases.

Mover refers to section 2, Act 229 of 1910, p. 388, as authority for the court to act in the premises. That section is as follows:

“That all appellate courts of this state shall have the power to tax the costs of the lower or appellate court, or any part thereof, against any party to the suit, as in its judgment may be deemed equitable.”

But the Legislature, in that act, did not attempt to confer original jurisdiction on this court in any way. The act is entitled:

“An act in the relation to the taking of appeals in civil suits and the taxation of costs thereon.”

The first section of the act refers to the preparation of transcripts; and the second section above quoted provides that appellate courts shall have the power to tax all or a portion of the costs of court to either party, in the exercise of its discretion. But the section does not authorize appellate courts to fix or tax the amount of costs in any event.

It is therefore ordered, adjudged, and decreed that the mandate of the Supreme Court of the United States herein be filed and executed, and that that portion of the motion to tax or fix the cost for making a copy of the record herein be denied and dismissed.