Papak, Paul J., United States Magistrate Judge
Trial court held pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1920(4) that plaintiff was responsible for electronic discovery costs accumulated by defendant’s discovery vendor, which included the costs for processing documents into an electronic database, bates labeling responsive documents, converting documents into PDFs, and storing electronic documents on the vendor’s servers.
Plaintiff brought negligence claims against defendant seeking to recover losses acquired when plaintiff was forced to temporarily shut down its natural gas power plant due to oil being present in the gas supply, resulting in contaminated turbines. The facts of this case are more fully presented in Pacificorp. V. Nw. Pipeline, 879 F. Supp. 2d 1171 (D. Or. 2012).
The court granted summary judgment for defendant and defendant then moved to recover costs pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1920(4) which provides recovery for “fees for exemplification and the costs of making copies of any materials.” Defendant claimed that it should be awarded: (1) costs its discovery vendor accrued in helping defendant recover responsive documents; (2) costs for processing material into an electronic database; (3) costs of bates labeling all responsive documents; (4) costs for converting responsive documents into PDF format; and (5) costs of storing electronic data on the discovery vendor’s servers.
The court held that all of these costs were recoverable with the exception of costs accrued by the vendor for helping defendant recover responsive documents. The court reasoned that this activity involved “intellectual efforts” that are not taxable under 28 U.S.C. §1920(4).
The court found the fact that attorneys and discovery vendor billed the activity as “analyzing documents and strategizing about structuring email search protocols” indicated “that their expertise was not purely technical and was also aimed at identifying responsive materials.”
In regards to the costs accumulated for processing material into an electronic database, the court held that this was “purely technical” and thus taxable. Finally, the court found that the storage of electronic data on the discovery vendor’s servers involved no intellectual effort and thus these costs were also recoverable.
v.
NORTHWEST PIPELINE GP, a Delaware Partnership, and Gas Transmission Northwest Corporation, a California corporation, Defendants
Counsel
Bruce L. Campbell, Justin C. Sawyer, Joshua M. Sasaki, Miller Nash LLP, Portland, OR, for Plaintiff.David W. Elrod, Worthy W. Walker, Elrod, PLLC, Dallas, TX, Paul B. George, Lane Powell PC, Portland, OR, for Defendant.