UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

DISTRICT OF OREGON 

REBECCA STRONG, DARRELL LYNN 

BYERS, MICHAEL A. YONALL Y, 

and DONALD L. PETERSON, 

Plaintiffs, 

v. 

CITY OF EUGENE, OFFICER SHAWN 

R. TROTTER (Badge #334), 

SERGEANT WILLIAM SOLESBEE 

(Badge #311 ), DETECTIVE DA VE 

BURROUGHS, and JOHN DOES 

#1-10, 

Defendants. 

AIKEN, Judge: 

Case No. 6:14-cv-01709-AA 

OPINION AND ORDER 

On May 25, 2016, I granted defendants' motion for summary judgment on plaintiffs' 

federal claims and dismissed their state law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). 

Defendants seek costs in the amount of $3,537.56, reflecting fees paid for depositions and 

transcripts obtained in the case. Plaintiffs object. 

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Plaintiffs first argue that the court should not allow costs for depositions taken and 

transcripts obtained in 2013 and 2014, before this lawsuit was filed. Defendants respond that 

they anticipated additional litigation at the time of these depositions, because plaintiffs had made 

legal demands through tort claim notices. Defendants also explain that their utilization of these 

transcripts streamlined depositions in this action and reduced the need for lengthy or additional 

depositions. Defendants thus maintain that the depositions and transcripts were "necessarily 

obtained for use in the case" and properly taxed as costs. 28 U.S.C. § 1920(2). 

Given the notice of potential litigation and defendants' use of the deposition transcripts in 

their motion for summary judgment, I find that these depositions were reasonably necessary at 

the time they were taken, with one exception. Nasser v. WhitePages, Inc., 2014 WL 1630746, at 

*6 (W.D. Va. Apr. 24, 2014); Birkes v. Tillamook Cnty., 2013 WL 796650, at *2 (D. Or. Mar. 4, 

2013). Defendants did not cite the 2014 Trotter deposition transcript in their motion for summary 

judgment, and they fail to explain why it was necessary for use in this case. Further, I reduce the 

costs for the three remaining 2013 and 2014 depositions and transcripts by one-half to account 

for the fact that they also were obtained for use in a prior litigation. 

Plaintiffs also maintain that an award of costs would "chill" civil rights litigation and 

cause hardship because they have limited incomes. However, the amount of the costs is not high 

in the context of litigation, and plaintiffs provide no financial affidavits to support their claim of 

hardship. 

Finally, plaintiffs contend that defendants should not recover costs for 2015 deposition 

transcripts that were not used by them or cited by the court, and that any recoverable costs should 

be limited to transcript pages actually cited and submitted by defendants. I disagree. The 2015 

deposition and transcript costs sought by defendants involved percipient witnesses and were 

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Case 6:14-cv-01709-AA Document 89 Filed 08/18/16 Page 2 of 3
reasonably necessary to the case. Further, regardless of the transcript pages cited or submitted, 

defendants incurred the cost of the entire transcript. 

Accordingly, defendants' Bill of Costs (doc. 79) 1s GRANTED, in part. Costs are 

awarded to defendants in the amount of $2,709.79. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated thls a day of August, 2016. 

Lr2L0 

Ann Aiken 

United States District Judge 

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