Opinion ID: 770907
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Award of Costs, Including Attorney Fees

Text: 23 The district court thoroughly examined Wal-Mart's itemized accounting of the costs and fees it incurred in defending against Rogers' earlier suit. The court awarded the full $185 in costs, but reduced the $1,888 of requested attorney fees by $306.45, to account for those fees which remain[ed] of benefit in this matter[.] The court ordered Rogers to pay Wal-Mart $1766.55. Rogers has contested this award of costs and the subsequent dismissal of her case. 24 Fed.R.Civ.P. 41(d) provides:If a plaintiff who has once dismissed an action in any court commences an action based upon or including the same claim against the same defendant, the court may make such order for the payment of costs of the action previously dismissed as it may deem proper and may stay the proceedings in the action until the plaintiff has complied with the order. 25 A district court's grant of a Rule 41(d) motion and related order of dismissal are reviewed for abuse of discretion. See Duffy v. Ford Motor Co., 218 F.3d 623, 633 (6th Cir. 2000). 26 Rogers declares that she merely wished to litigate her claims in state court and relies on a couple of cases in which a court refused to award costs under Rule 41(d) because the court found no evidence of vexatious intent. See Wahl v. City of Wichita, 701 F.Supp. 1530, 1533 (D. Kan. 1988); Sewell v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 137 F.R.D. 28 (D. Kan. 1991). Rogers' claim of pure motive does not win the day because nothing in the language of Rule 41(d) . . . suggests that a defendant must show 'bad faith' before a district court can order payment of costs incurred in a voluntarily dismissed previous action. Esquival v. Arau, 913 F.Supp. 1382, 1388 (C.D. Cal. 1996). In addition, Rogers fails to mention that Rule 41(d) is meant not only to prevent vexatious litigation, but also to prevent forum shopping, especially by plaintiffs who have suffered setbacks in one court and dismiss to try their luck somewhere else. See Robinson v. Nelson, No. 98-10802-MLW, 1999 WL 95720, at  (D. Mass. Feb. 18, 1999). Hence, Rule 41(d) is also intended to prevent attempts to gain any tactical advantage by dismissing and refiling th[e] suit. Sewell v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 137 F.R.D. at 29. 27 As Wal-Mart points out, Rogers did not seek to dismiss the initial action until after she had missed the court's deadline for disclosing her expert witnesses. This evidences at least some attempt to wipe the slate clean after an initial setback in federal court and gain a tactical advantage by re-filing in state court. Hence, the district court did not abuse its discretion in awarding costs of $185 to Wal-Mart. 28 Rogers also specifically contests the district court's inclusion of attorney fees as part of its award of costs under Rule 41(d). There is a split of authority as to whether Rule 41(d) authorizes attorney fees as part of an award of costs, but it seems that the majority of courts find that attorney fees are available under Rule 41(d). The Sixth Circuit has recently recognized the split but declined to make a ruling: although . . . most courts have concluded that attorney fees may be awarded under Rule 41(d), the matter is far from settled in this circuit or in most others. Duffy v. Ford Motor Co., 218 F.3d at 632. 29 We now hold that attorney fees are not available under Rule 41(d). The reason is simple--the rule does not explicitly provide for them. Where Congress has intended to provide for an award of attorney fees, it has usually stated as much and not left the courts guessing. Further, the law generally recognizes a difference between the terms costs and attorney fees and we have no desire to conflate the two terms. Rather, we must assume that Congress was aware of the distinction and was careful with its words when it approved Rule 41(d) 4 . 30 We realize that an award of attorney fees may be authorized, even if not expressly provided for, if the statute otherwise evinces an intent to provide for such fees. Key Tronic Corp. v. United States, 511 U.S. 809, 815 (1994). However, the structure of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is ambiguous at best on the question of attorney fees. For instance, whereas Rule 41(d) only speaks of costs and does not mention attorney fees, several other provisions in the Federal Rules explicitly provide for recovery of attorney fees. See Simeone v. First Bank Nat'l. Ass'n, 125 F.R.D. 150, 155 (D. Minn. 1989) (listing Fed.R.Civ.P. 30(g)(2), 37(a)(4), 37(c), 37(d) & 56(g)). In addition, Title 28 U.S.C. § 1920 lists the items a court may tax as costs to a prevailing party under Rule 54(d) but does not include attorney fees. Id.; see also Anders v. FPA Corp., 164 F.R.D. 383, 390 (D.N.J. 1995) (denying attorney fees in part because of lack of express authorization). The non-inclusion of attorney fees under § 1920 indicates that, at least in some contexts, Congress does not consider attorney fees to be part of an award of costs. 31 Of course, many courts have permitted an award of attorney fees under Rule 41(d). They often rely on what they consider to be the policy behind the rule and, in our view, give too little weight to its plain language. See, e.g., Behrle v. Olshansky, 139 F.R.D. 370, 372-73 (W.D. Ark. 1991). In addition, some courts find attorney fees available under Rule 41(d) because, in their view, there ought to be a certain parallelism between Rule 41(d) and Rule 41(a)(2), which also does not explicitly mention attorney fees. In Esquival v. Arau, 913 F.Supp. 1382, 1391 (C.D. Cal. 1996), for instance, the court reasoned that because Rule 41(a)(2) permits a court to condition voluntary dismissal without prejudice on payment of attorney fees, Rule 41(d) also ought to permit attorney fees. The reasoning is that because both rules are intended to prevent vexatious litigation and forum shopping, it would be inconsistent to conclude that a court has discretion to condition Rule 41(a)(2) voluntary dismissal without prejudice on payment of attorney fees, but that a court does not have discretion to exact the same payment from a plaintiff who has noticed a Rule 41(a)(1) dismissal in a previous case. Esquival, 913 F.Supp. at 1391. 32 One commentator accounts for this anomaly by suggesting that Rule 41(a)(2) contemplates a negotiation between the court and the litigant, but Rule 41(d) does not. Hence, these two rules are meant to operate differently. See Edward X. Clinton, Jr., Does Rule 41(d) Authorize an Award of Attorney's Fees?, 71 St. John's L. Rev. 81, 86 (1997). We do not hang our hat on this rationale; but we note it as further evidence that the structure of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure is not so clear on this issue that it overcomes the absence of an express provision for attorney fees in Rule 41(d). In short, we are persuaded by the fact that Congress did not explicitly provide for attorney fees in Rule 41(d). We do not find that the structure of the Civil Rules is so unambiguous that we can divine a contrary intent on the part of Congress. And we think it improper to essentially re-draft the rule ourselvesby reading into it language that is not there. 33 For these reasons, that portion of the district court's order which awarded Wal-Mart $1581.55 in attorney fees cannot stand.