Opinion ID: 1895159
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Point 3 Miller is entitled to an award of attorney fees and costs.

Text: The Comment to Miss.R.Civ.P. 54(d) provides: Three related concepts should be distinguished in considering Rule 54(d): These are costs, fees, and expenses. Costs refers to those charges that one party has incurred and is permitted to have reimbursed by his opponent as part of the judgment in the action. Although costs has an everyday meaning synonymous with expenses, taxable costs under Rule 54(d) is more limited and represents those official expenses, such as court fees, that a court will assess against a litigant. Costs almost always amount to less than a successful litigant's total expenses in connection with a law suit and their recovery is nearly always awarded to the successful party. See Miss. Code Ann. § 11-53-27 (1972) (successful party to recover costs, generally). Fees are those amounts paid to the court or one of its officers for particular charges that generally are delineated by statute. Most commonly these include such items as filing fees, clerk's and sheriff's charges, and witnesses' fees. In most instances an award of costs will include reimbursement for the fees paid by the party in whose favor the cost award is made. Expenses include all the expenditures actually made by a litigant in connection with the action. Both fees and costs are expenses but by no means constitute all of them. Absent a special statute or rule, or an exceptional exercise of judicial discretion, such items as attorney's fees, travel expenditures, and investigatory expenses will not qualify either as statutory fees or reimbursable costs. These expenses must be borne by the litigants. (citations omitted) (emphasis added) In this case, there is no contractual or statutory authority for awarding attorney fees and litigation expenses, nor is this a case for punitive damages. There is no merit to this argument.