Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-334_5h26.pdf
Page Number: 11.0

8 

SAN ANTONIO v. HOTELS.COM, L. P. 

Opinion of the Court 

San Antonio nonetheless maintains that the plain text of 
subdivision (e) vests district courts with discretion over cost
allocations.  That provision lists costs that “are taxable in 
the district court for the benefit of the party entitled to costs 
under this rule.”  Rule 39(e) (emphasis added).  As San An-
tonio  notes,  the  word  “taxable”  can  be  used  to  describe 
something  that  may,  but  need  not  necessarily,  be  taxed.
See,  e.g.,  Random  House  Dictionary  of  the  English  Lan-
guage 1947 (2d ed. 1987) (defining “taxable” as “capable of 
being taxed”); Webster’s Third New International Diction-
ary 2345 (1976) (same).  And San Antonio argues that the
use of this “permissive” term shows that the district court 
has  discretion  to  refuse  to  award  costs  on  equitable 
grounds.  Brief for Petitioner 15. 

San Antonio reads too much into the term “taxable.”  The 
use of that term does suggest that the costs in question are 
not  automatically  or  necessarily  taxed  when  the  case  re-
turns to the district court, but that may mean no more than 
that the party seeking those costs will not get them unless 
it submits a bill of costs with the verification specified by 
statute  and  complies  with  any  other  procedural  require-
ments that the local rules of the court in question impose. 
See 28 U. S. C. §§1920, 1924. 

This modest understanding of the use of the term “taxa-
ble”  is  reinforced  by  the  circumstances  under  which  the 
term was added to Rule 39.  Before 1998, subdivision (e) did 
not provide that the listed costs “are taxable in the district
court,” but instead stated that those costs “shall be taxed in 
the district court.”  Rule 39(e) (1994).  The language of Rule 
39 was changed in 1998 as part of a general “restyling” of
the  Rules  of  Appellate  Procedure,  and  the  Advisory  Com-
mittee’s Note stated that the changes made as part of this
project were “intended to be stylistic only.”  28 U. S. C. App.,
p. 804 (1994 ed., Supp. IV); see also C. Wright, A. Miller, & 
C.  Struve,    Federal  Practice  and  Procedure,  Introduction,