What are Costs?
August 27, 2019 § Leave a comment
What, exactly, are costs within the meaning of the MRCP?
Costs, security for costs, and awards of costs are mentioned in MRCP 3, 4(c)(1), 4(c)(3)(C), 30(h), 41(a)(1), 41(e), 43(f), 53(a), 54, 56(h), 65(c), and 68.
R 54(e) provides that costs are awarded to the prevailing party. The Advisory Committee Note to R 54 includes this helpful guidance:
Three related concepts should be distinguished in considering Rule 54(d): These are costs, fees, and expenses. Costs refer 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.
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.
That is probably enough to get you through most situations. But if you need a more scholarly analysis with case law, I’ll post one here for you tomorrow.
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