Plaintiff Did Not Subsequently Renew His Objections At The Trial Level, Meaning The Addition Of Costs Was A Ministerial Act Rather Than A Substantial Amendment to the Judgment.
Max v. Shih, Case No. B322716 (2d Dist., Div. 1 July 27, 2023) (unpublished) is a situation which reminds counsel to renew motions to strike costs, after they are taken off calendar, to avoid arguments that the costs memoranda are beyond challenge when it comes to being included in a subsequent amended judgment. What happened in this one is that plaintiff moved to tax costs filed by the defense, with the motion taken off calendar by the trial judge for insufficiency, but never renewed. Years later, the defense requested an amended judgment to include the costs not challenged earlier, a request which was granted. Plaintiff’s challenges on appeal to the amended judgment were unsuccessful. The main problem was that addition of costs, absent a motion to tax, is a ministerial clerk act, not a significant amendment to a judgment (at best, a clerical correction to a judgment). On the merits, a joint memorandum of costs by joint respondents was proper because all of them prevailed so that sharing trial counsel and costs did not require an allocation of a different, more diminished, nature.
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