Panel Also Concluded That Aggregate Costs Descriptions And Failure To Apportion Out For Nonprevailing Parties Are Solid Bases To Tax Costs.
In Srabian v. Triangle Truck Center, Case No. F080066 (5th Dist. Aug. 12, 2022) (unpublished), the Fifth District faced an interesting legal question where a prevailing party used the MC-010 Judicial Council form for claiming costs, which does not have “under penalty of perjury” language. So, the question was whether this was a compliant verification. The majority concluded that it was under CCP § 2015.5, while a dissenting justice found it was not properly sworn to as to comply with CRC 3.1700(a)(1) dictates. What this might countenance is that practitioners include penalty of perjury language in a costs memorandum (adding it to the MC-010 form), with the Judicial Council maybe contemplating an action to include this added language—given that this issue likely may be raised in future cases.
With respect to other issues, the appellate court did agree with some “tax costs” decisions by the lower court, the most important ones teaching us this: (1) each defendant must be considered separately as far as determining the propriety of claimed costs; (2) an aggregate dollar amount without any costs itemization may not be facially proper, especially with respect to specifying costs for each deponent; (3) there is no need for a trial judge to shift through invoices to determine what is proper; and (4) where apportionment is raised as an objection, the burden may indeed shift to the costs claimant for purposes of showing which claimed costs are appropriate.
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