Opinion ID: 567021
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Award of Appellees' Costs

Text: 54 The district court accepted some of the appellants' objections to the appellees' bill of costs and rejected others, but ultimately granted the appellees' request in full because plaintiffs failed to meet their burden of establishing with particularity which costs should be disallowed. E.R. at 18. An award of costs will be disturbed only for abuse of discretion. Alflex Corp. v. Underwriters Laboratories, Inc., 914 F.2d 175, 176 (9th Cir.1990), petition for cert. filed, (March 20, 1991) (No. 90-1782). A district court necessarily abuses its discretion if its ruling is based on erroneous legal conclusions or clearly erroneous assessments of the evidence. Cooter & Gell v. Hartmarx Corp., 110 S.Ct. 2447, 2461 (1990). 55 We affirm the district court's reasoning and award of costs with the following exceptions: The $180.00 and $11,092.24 allowed for microfilming documents duplicates the hard copy costs of the same documents also taxed to the appellants. Under the district court's own principles, these costs should have been disallowed. 56 Although we affirm the remaining costs, we note our disagreement with one of the district court's principles. The district court stated that a party cannot recover costs for copying documents produced to other parties. The court reasoned that such costs were not for documents necessarily obtained by the party producing the documents, as 28 U.S.C. § 1920(4) requires, because the documents were already within the producing party's possession. This construction of § 1920(4) appears novel and unduly narrow. See Illinois v. Sangamo Constr. Co., 657 F.2d 855, 867 (7th Cir.1981) (costs for discovery documents tendered to defendants allowed to plaintiffs under § 1920(4)); E.E.O.C. v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., 111 F.R.D. 385, 393 (N.D.Ill.1986) (same); Fressell v. AT & T Technologies, Inc., 103 F.R.D. 111, 115 (N.D.Ga.1984) (same); cf. 6 Moore's Fed. Practice at p 54.77 (2d ed. 1991) (no suggestion that costs for discovery produced to opposing party not allowed by necessarily obtained language). However, because the district court did not follow its own principle and disallow the specified costs, we affirm the result. 57 Finally, we agree with the appellants and the district court that costs for depositions and documents sent to the appellees at appellants' expense should not be allowed. Nevertheless, the district court's rejection of appellants' assertion that certain documents were sent at their expense is not an abuse of discretion because the appellants offered no proof for their assertions. 58 The bulk of the district court's cost award ($49,439.16) is affirmed. The award of microfilm costs ($180.00 and $11,092.24) is reversed.