Opinion ID: 769759
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Apportioning the Costs Award Among the Plaintiffs

Text: 78 The final issue is whether the District Court erred in imposing liability for costs jointly and severally among the Plaintiffs. The general rule in this circuit and others is that a district court, in exercising its equitable discretion, may apportion costs between the prevailing and non-prevailing parties as it sees fit. See Croker v. Boeing Co. (Vertol Div.), 662 F.2d 975, 998 (3d Cir. 1981) (en banc), overruled on other grounds, Halderman v. Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp., 673 F.2d 628, 644 (3d Cir. 1982) (en banc); WRIGHT ET AL., supra, S 2668, at 243 & n.31 (collecting cases). This power to apportion between parties also includes the power to divide costs among the losing and winning parties in a case involving multiple defendants and plaintiffs such as this one, which involves nineteen plaintiffs and three defendants whose cases were all consolidated for efficiency's sake by an unopposed order of the District Court. Cf. ADM Corp. v. Speedmaster Packaging Corp., 525 F.2d 662, 665 (3d Cir. 1975) (instructing the district court to consider whether and how the prevailing party's costs should be apportioned between the two non-prevailing parties, given the non- prevailing parties' different responsibilities in forcing the prevailing party to incur costs). In dividing costs among multiple parties on one side of the bar--either prevailing or non-prevailing--the court may choose to impose costs jointly and severally or to disaggregate costs and to impose them individually. 9 79 We read the sparse case law surrounding this issue as placing the burden on the losing parties to introduce evidence and persuade the court that costs should be apportioned, and in the event that they fail to do so, the default rule is that costs may be imposed jointly and severally. Cf. Electronic Specialty Co. v. International Controls Corp., 47 F.R.D. 158, 160 (S.D.N.Y. 1969) (holding that despite the general rule that where there are several plaintiffs who join together each is individually liable for all the costs and not merely for his pro rata share, it is in the interest of justice for [the] defendant to seek no more than one-third of the awarded costs from plaintiffs #1 or #2, because the evidence introduced by plaintiff #1 and #2 established that the defendant would not seek to collect the proportionate share from plaintiff #3). 80 The Plaintiffs contend that they introduced ample evidence justifying an apportionment, and that the District Court erred in not dividing the Defendants' costs among the Plaintiffs. Because the District Court's decision to impose joint and several liability and not to apportion costs involved an application of Rule 54(d)(1), and not an interpretation of the rule's boundaries, we review this determination for abuse of discretion. See supra Section II.B.
81 The Plaintiffs present a relatively strong case for apportioning costs among all nineteen of them. Three of the nineteen Plaintiffs were deceased and left behind no assets against which the Defendants could collect. This meant that sixteen of the nineteen Plaintiffs would bear a slightly disproportionate share of the Defendants' costs. Absent other circumstances, this is not enough, however, to require setting aside the District Court's decision to impose costs jointly and severally. Cf. Southern Agency Co., 393 F.2d at 915 & n.7 (discussed at note 9, supra). While a court may decide to reduce a costs award in such a circumstance, one must remember that our standard of review is limited and that there are only zero-sum gains in costs awards cases: Prevailing parties pay for every dollar that a costs award is reduced. It is within the discretion of the district court, in which equitable discretion is vested according to the terms of Rule 54(d)(1), to decide whether the losing or prevailing party should bear the brunt of such an inequity. We must defer to that judgment absent an abuse of discretion. 82 The Plaintiffs have pointed to a number of other circumstances in arguing that the District Court abused its discretion in not apportioning costs. The Plaintiffs brought their claims as individuals and the District Court consolidated their cases only for efficiency's sake. Therefore, the Plaintiffs submit that they should only be taxed for a one-nineteenth share of the Defendants' costs. Some case law supports this proposition. See, e.g., Davis v. Parkman, 71 F. 961, 964 (1st Cir. 1895) (holding that where the parties and court saw fit, for economical reasons . . . to consolidate the records, in determining costs, the costs should, nevertheless, be justly apportioned between the suits); Modick v. Carvel Stores of New York, Inc., 209 F. Supp. 361, 363 (S.D.N.Y. 1962) (holding that in a case in which several parties' actions were consolidated for trial-- for the convenience of the parties and the court--each case must stand on its own feet so far as costs are concerned). 83 But the litigation world has vastly changed not only since 1895 when Davis was decided, but also since Modick was filed in 1962. The proliferation of complex cases, burgeoning dockets, and scarce judicial resources have made separate trials in cases like this, which are essentially mass tort cases, less a luxury than a near impossibility. This means that both defendants and plaintiffs are forced to expend a great deal of time and money in prosecuting and defending these actions. The advantage in this scheme for plaintiffs is that they are able to share their costs. Defendants do not always have this luxury, and it is often the case, when defending against a mass tort claim of this sort, the defendant will not (and perhaps cannot) earmark each dollar it spends in defending against each of the plaintiffs' individual claims. Moreover, multiple defendants in such cases are more likely than plaintiffs to have separate counsel. 84 Given the abuse of discretion standard of review, and the general similarity of most of the Plaintiffs' claims and costs incurred in response thereto, we hold that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in not apportioning costs among the personal injury plaintiffs. Each of these plaintiffs advanced toxic tort claims that prompted the Defendants to hire experts, conduct studies, and prepare trial exhibits and documents aimed at defending against this class of claims. The Plaintiffs have adduced no evidence suggesting that these costs could be connected--to a greater or lesser degree--with any of the particular Plaintiffs. 85 That is not to say that a district court could not reach the opposite conclusion in such a circumstance, but merely that the decision in this case was not an abuse of discretion. Moreover, our holding should not suggest that there may not be cases in which a district court could find that an individual dragged into the web of a large litigation should not be responsible for the defendants' costs no matter how hard it is disaggregate them precisely. A rough division of costs liability among plaintiffs in such a circumstance may be the most equitable result. At all events, we hold that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in fashioning the costs award liability of the nineteen Plaintiffs generally here.
86 Notwithstanding the general presumption that costs be granted in the prevailing parties' favor and the default rule that they may be imposed jointly and severally, we hold that the District Court abused its discretion in imposing joint and several liability against Plaintiffs James Lament and Sylvan Cohen for the entirety of the Defendants' acceptable costs. Our reasons for so holding are as follows. 87 First, these two Plaintiffs' cases were simply different in kind from the rest of the Plaintiffs'. Lament and Cohen brought diminished value of rental property claims, which were only accountable for a fraction of the Defendants' $154,129.30 in costs. They did not live near the site of the Rail Yard, and hence, they never pursued any of the personal injury or medical monitoring claims that forced the Defendants to expend a great deal of money copying medical records, preparing elaborate trial exhibits, hiring medical experts, and taking scores of depositions. The complexity and centrality to the litigation of these latter claims is demonstrated by a reading of Paoli I , II, and IV, and Lament and Cohen, unlike the other seventeen Plaintiffs, are in no way responsible for these costs. 88 Second, the Plaintiffs have been able to disaggregate the amount of money the Defendants spent on diminution of property value claims ($9,284.59), see Appellants' Br. at 18 n.7, as compared to defense costs in total ($154,129.30). Unlike Plaintiffs' general contention that costs should be disaggregated among the nineteen Plaintiffs, this demonstration enabled the District Court to avoid imposing specific costs on Plaintiffs whose causes of action did not give rise to these costs. The Defendants have not disputed this representation, and the District Court did not focus on this evidence in issuing its costs award order. We find the Plaintiffs' representations compelling. 89 In sum, given the huge disparity of the costs that the Defendants incurred in defending against property claims as compared to personal injury and medical monitoring claims, and the ability easily to disaggregate the costs expended in defending against the different groups of claims, we conclude that the joint and several costs award served only to penalize Lament and Cohen, not to award justifiably the Defendants' their costs. Rule 54(d)(1) was not intended to serve such purposes. See supra Section II.A. 10 90 We will therefore vacate the District Court's costs award order insofar as it affects Cohen and Lamont. On remand Cohen's and Lamont's costs liability must be disaggregated from their fellow Plaintiffs' liability arising out of the personal injury and medical monitoring claims. The Court should exercise its discretion in determining both whether Cohen's liability should be reduced further for his lack of involvement in the case during the last several years, see supra note 10, and whether the Plaintiffs' property-based awards should be imposed in an apportioned or in a joint and several manner. On remand, and as noted above, the Court should also determine whether any of the Plaintiffs' indigency militates in favor of reducing his or her respective costs award liability.