Opinion ID: 194765
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: General Operation The section provides:

Text: A judge . . . may tax as costs the following: (6) Compensation of court appointed experts, compensation of interpreters . . . and costs of special interpretation services . . . . Rule 54(d) works in tandem with the statute. It provides, with exceptions not pertinent here, that costs shall be allowed as of course to the prevailing party unless the court otherwise directs. Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d). The combined effect of the statute and rule is to cabin district court discretion in two ways. First, section 1920 has an esemplastic effect. It fills the void resulting from Rule 54(d)'s failure to define the term costs, see Crawford Fitting Co. v. J. T. Gibbons, Inc. , 482 U.S. 437, 441 (1987) (holding that [section] 1920 defines the term `costs' as used in Rule 54(d)), and in that way constrains the district court's power to determine which expense categories constitute taxable costs. In other words, the statute and rule, read together, signify that a district court lacks the ability to assess costs under Rule 54(d) above and beyond those that come within the statutory litany. See id. In light of the foregoing, we conclude that Rule 54(d) confers no discretion on federal courts independent of the statute to tax various types of expenses as costs. See id. accord Denny v. Westfield State College , 880 F.2d 1465, 1468 (1st Cir. 1989) (reasoning that, in light of Crawford Freeman v. Package Mach. Co. , 865 F.2d 1331, 1346 (1st Cir. 1988) (similar). Rather, the discretion that Rule 54(d) portends is solely a negative Crawford accord Rodriguez-Garcia v. Davila , 904 F.2d 90, 100 (1st Cir. 1990). nisi prius court to deviate from this baseline, see , e.g. , Phetosomphone v. Allison Reed Group, Inc. Heddinger v. Ashford Memorial Community Hosp. Emerson v. National Cylinder Gas Co. , 251 F.2d 152, 158 (1st Cir. 1958), awarding costs to a prevailing party is the norm. See Delta Air Lines, Inc. v. August Crossman v. Marcoccio , 806 F.2d 329, 331 (1st Cir. 1986) (observing that Rule 54(d) generally permits prevailing parties to recover their costs), cert. denied Castro v. United States , 775 F.2d 399, 410 (1st Cir. 1985) (noting that a prevailing party ordinarily is entitled to recoup the costs enumerated in section 1920). This presumption, then, constitutes the second constraint on a district court's ability to freewheel in the Rule 54(d) environment. After all, it is difficult to dispute the proposition that a court's discretion in implementing a rule which articulates a norm is more confined than a court's discretion in applying a nondirective rule. See v. American Hosp. Supply Corp. Coyne-Delany Co. v. Capital Dev. Bd. , 717 F.2d 385, 392 (7th Cir. 1983). Beyond the presumption favoring cost recovery for prevailing parties, there is also fairly general agreement that a district court may not exercise its discretion to disallow a prevailing party's bill of costs in whole or in part without articulating reasons. See Schwarz v. Folloder Gilchrist v. Bolger Baez v. United States Dep't of Justice See , 786 F.2d at 730. 9: The See , 786 F.2d at 730. In the Seventh Circuit, costs may be denied only when the losing party is indigent or there has been some fault, misconduct, default, or other action worthy of penalty on the winner's side. Burroughs v. Hills , 741 F.2d 1525, 1542 (7th Cir. 1984), cert. denied , 471 U.S. 1099 (1985). To the present, this court has been more muted both about a district judge's duty to explain a denial of costs and about the reasons that may warrant such a denial. 10: We have, however, reversed a district court's denial of costs to a prevailing party when the court neglected to furnish any valid explanation for the denial. See Templeman v. Chris Craft Corp. , 770 F.2d 245, 249 (1st Cir.), cert. denied , 474 U.S. 1021 (1985). In addressing those subjects today, we stop short of requiring district courts to state reasons or make elaborate findings in every case when acting under Rule 54(d). Instead, we hold that, if the basis for denying costs is readily apparent on the face of the record, a trial court need not explain its action merely for explanation's sake. 11: Although we do not impose an absolute duty to set forth findings in all cases, we remind the district courts that reasonably complete findings at the trial court level invariably facilitate the appellate task. United States v. De Jesus , 984 F.2d 21, 22 n.4 (1st Cir. 1993). If, however, the situation is less than obvious, the court must offer some statement as to why it denied statutory costs to a prevailing party. Adopting this rule balances the need for findings against the proliferation of busywork that threatens to inundate the district courts. It also parallels an approach that has served us well in analogous contexts. See , e.g. , Foster v. Mydas Assocs., Inc. Figueroa-Ruiz v. Alegria Figueroa-Rodriguez v. Lopez-Rivera , 878 F.2d 1488, 1491 (1st Cir. 1988) (discussing the need for findings when the reasons for invoking Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(f)'s sanction provisions are less than evident). 2. Application . Our overview completed, we now apply Rule 54(d) to the facts of this case. Appellants argue that the district court erred by summarily precluding an award of costs under Rule 54(d) without explanation and without even entertaining a bill of costs. We think the contention has partial merit.
To the extent that the district court's order prevents appellants from reclaiming their mandatory cost-sharing assessments through the medium of Rule 54(d), we discern no error. As evidenced by the record, these payments were primarily directed into the operating budgets of the JDD and DLP. In a prior ruling, the district court explained that the assessments helped subsidize such general overhead expenses as rent, utilities, telephone charges, and staff salaries. See Hotel Fire Litig. Id. see also Wahl v. Carrier Mfg. Co. Moore's Federal Practice We will not paint the lily. Rule 54(d) cannot be stretched beyond the parameters defined in section 1920. See Denny Templeman v. Chris Craft Corp. , 770 F.2d 245, 249-50 (1st Cir.), cert. denied Bosse v. Litton Unit Handling Sys. b. The district court's September 11, 1992 final judgment regarding the claims against the pre-fire insurers also barred recovery of any ordinary costs incurred by appellants. The district court gave no explanation for its curt preclusion of taxable costs, and none is evident from the record. Moreover, by acting in so peremptory a manner, the court foreclosed appellants from requesting ordinary costs in the ordinary fashion. See generally D.P.R. Loc. R. 331.1 (allowing prevailing party ten days from entry of judgment in which to file a verified bill of costs). On this record, we think that the district court abused its discretion by depriving appellants of an opportunity to seek ordinary costs, presumptively taxable under Rule 54(d), without a word of explanation. 12: Appellants indicate that they incurred some taxable photocopy expenses. See generally Rodriguez-Garcia , 904 F.2d at 100 (holding certain photocopying expenses recoverable under Rule 54(d)). We have adequate reason to believe that they may also have incurred other expenses taxable as costs. c.