Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-334_5h26.pdf
Page Number: 14

Cite as:  593 U. S. ____ (2021) 

11 

Opinion of the Court 

to resolve.  For example, a party might suggest that taxing
costs  against  it  would  be  unjust  because  of  its  precarious
financial  position,  and  an  opposing  party  might  dispute
that contention on factual grounds.  San Antonio also con-
tends that it will be difficult to allocate appellate costs eq-
uitably before the amount of those costs is known.

These concerns are overblown.  Most appellate costs are
readily  estimable,  rarely  disputed,  and  frankly  not  large 
enough to engender contentious litigation in the great ma-
jority of cases.  We recognize that supersedeas bond premi-
ums are a bit of an outlier in that they can grow quite large.
See, e.g., The Exxon Valdez v. Exxon Mobil Corp., 568 F. 3d 
1077 (CA9 2009) (more than $60 million).  But the underly-
ing supersedeas bonds will often have been negotiated by
the parties, as happened here.  They will in any event have
been approved by the district court, see Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 
62(b), and their premiums will have been paid by one of the
parties to the appeal.  There is no reason to think that liti-
gants and courts will be forced to operate without any sense
of the magnitude of the costs at issue.  Indeed, San Antonio 
admits that it was largely aware of the costs of the bonds in 
this case when they were approved, see Tr. of Oral Arg. 18. 
Nor  is  there  reason  to  think  that  factual  disputes  will
pose  a  recurring  problem.    Experience  proves  the  point.
Rule 39’s basic structure has been in place for more than 50 
years.  Compare  Fed.  Rule  App.  Proc. 39  with  Rule  39 
(1968).  And the courts of appeals resolve tens of thousands
of cases each year.  Admin. Office of the U. S. Courts, Sta-
tistical  Tables  for  the  Federal  Judiciary,  Table  B–1  (Dec. 
31,  2020)  (counting  46,788  appeals  terminated  in  2020). 
Yet San Antonio has not identified any substantial number 
of  cases  where  cost  allocations  under  Rule  39(a)  have  im-
posed real difficulties.  In sum, we see no evidence that ap-
pellate courts have struggled to allocate costs in the past,
and we have no reason to anticipate new problems in the
future.