Opinion ID: 194765
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ordinary Costs

Text: Presumably, the payments made pursuant to the cost-sharing orders, though substantial, do not comprise the whole of appellants' investment in this sprawling litigation. Their successful defense doubtless required other, more commonplace expenditures, such as photocopy costs of the type and kind routinely associated with litigation. See , e.g. III. WAIVER Having described the expenses appellants seek to recoup, we pause to address a threshold matter. The plaintiffs submit that the pre-fire insurers waived any claim for expense recovery by failing to file bills of costs after judgment entered. See id. (requiring bill of costs to be filed). We demur: the doctrine of waiver presents no barrier to appellants' attempt to recover court costs or request a reallocation of the mandatory cost-sharing assessments. To be sure, the failure seasonably to file a bill of costs with the district court may, in certain circumstances, constitute a waiver of a party's right to recoup costs under Rule 54(d). See Mason v. Belieu , 543 F.2d 215, 222 (D.C. Cir.) (vacating a cost award where plaintiffs had failed to file a bill of costs), cert. denied Similarly, given the clarity and definiteness of the trial court's order, a post-trial motion for reconsideration was not required as a condition precedent to taking an appeal. See Sherrill v. Royal Indus., Inc. Franki Found. Co. v. , 513 F.2d 581, 587 (3d Cir. 1975). The law does not require litigants to run fools' errands. Thus, a party who forgoes an obviously futile task will not ordinarily be held thereby to have waived substantial rights. See Franki Found. Co. v. see also Northern Heel Corp. v. Compo Indus., Inc. , 851 F.2d 456, 461 (1st Cir. 1988) (stating, in a different context, that [t]he law should not be construed idly to require parties to perform futile acts or to engage in empty rituals). A somewhat closer question is whether appellants, by failing to ask the district court, after judgment entered, to readjust the mandatory assessments, thereby waived the right to raise that issue here. We hold they have not. Our decision is largely pragmatic. There is no rule specifically limiting the time within which a party may make a request for an order reallocating case-management expenses. Cf. White v. New Hampshire Dep't of Employment Sec. See Singleton v. Wulff United States v. La Guardia , 902 F.2d 1010, 1013 (1st Cir. 1990). Here, we think it best to exercise our discretion, meet the problem head-on, and excuse appellants' failure to move for reallocation below.