Court Opinion

ID: 9588139
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:30:30.452356+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:38:01.762036
License: Public Domain

HENRIOD, Justice
(concurring and dissenting) :
I concur in that part of the decision adjudging Lawson to have been a material-man under the statute, but respectfully dissent from that part adjudging that the expense of depositions is assessable as costs. I think this latter conclusion is a product of none of this court’s business, amounts to judicial legislation, and is bottomed on no legitimate authority save our own ipse dix-it.
There were no assessable costs at common law.1 They are strictly statutory.2 There is absolutely nothing in our statutes having to do with depositions being assessable as costs. There was nothing there before the rules were promulgated and it seems clear from Rule 54(d) and the compiler’s notes that no change was intended to include depositions as costs where they did not exist before.
So far as depositions may be canvassed as possible taxable costs they are on exactly the same footing as attorney’s fees which this court twice unanimously has held were not taxable costs.3 Other courts have held depositions not taxable as costs.4
The reason for nontaxability seems obvious : The litigant with means effectively can force an unfair settlement with the deposition, if it can be taxed as costs. It can be an implement of imbalance, like weighing a baseball bat on one plate of the scales of justice against a toothpick on the other. The mere threat of taking deposi*89tions, if they could be taxed as costs, would lead a poor litigant to an undeserved, unfair and unconscionable settlement and to the bankruptcy court if he happened to lose, — and it is pretty difficult these days to buy sure-win-insurance.
The argument that depositions should be taxed as costs because necessary to prepare one’s case, equally would be applicable to expenses in hiring a private eye, taking a trip to Acapulco to interview a witness, or the cost in salary of the time consumed by a lovely Flossie Fosham while taking dictation from her Simon Legree employer. Fact is, most all cases can be developed on both sides by use of interrogatories, requests for admissions, pretrial conferences and the other discovery processes.
In the past few years it has been this writer’s observation and opinion that the deposition has become a basis for abuse in the judicial process. It takes people away from their work, it harasses them without any cross-examination, it increases legal fees and wastes manilla envelopes and scotch tape. It would surprise the average person to know how many cases come to this court where the depositions have not been published. The present case is an example in point. There were three depositions taken. Two of them were never used in court, and the third unnecessarily was used while the witness was in court on the witness stand. It is my guess that everything in these depositions could have been revealed within the four corners of the statutory discovery procedure without our unauthoritative enunciation of a dangerous rule having no common law nor statutory sanction in this state.

. Blackstone’s Commentaries, Vol. Ill, p. 399.

. Footnote 1; such as evidenced by Buie 75(p) (4), briefs; Buie 75(e), matters unessential for appeal; Title 21-5-8, U.C.A.Bepl.Vol.1953, witness fees; Title 78-56-12 and 78-56-9, U.C.A.1953, reporter’s fees; Title 21-5-17, U.C.A.1953, Bepl.Vol.1953, interpreter’s fees; Title 78-25-23, U.C.A.1953, Bepl.Vol.1953, paternity blood tests. Openshaw v. Openshaw, 80 Utah 9, 12 P.2d 364 (1932); Checketts v. Collins, 78 Utah 93, 1 P.2d 950 (1931); Bacon v. Harris, 71 Utah 223, 263 P. 930 (1928); Rickenberg v. Capitol Garage, 68 Utah 30, 249 P. 121 (1926); Houghton v. Barton, 49 Utah 611, 165 P. 471 (1917).

. Hawkins v. Perry, 123 Utah 16, 253 P.2d 372 (1953); Holland v. Brown, 15 Utah 2d 422, 394 P.2d 77 (1964).

. Hamman v. Witherstine, 20 Ohio Misc. 77, 252 N.E.2d 196 (Ohio App.1969); Gustin v. Johannes, 36 Wis. 195, 153 N.W.2d 70 (1967); Long v. Henderson, 459 S.W.2d 542 (Ark.1970).