On June 7, 2017, following a jury trial, the Court entered judgment in favor of Defendants. (Doc. 167.) Defendants filed an application for the Clerk to tax $52,188.72 in costs, which Plaintiff opposed. (Docs. 168, 169.) See C.D. Cal. L.R. 54-2, 54-6. The clerk entered a bill of costs in the amount of $10,796.92. (Doc. 176.) Defendants move the Court to re-tax certain costs that were denied by the Clerk, which they characterize as follows:

(Mot. at 2, Doc. 179; Ex. B, Doc. 179-2.) See C.D. Cal. L.R. 54-8.

After a district court enters judgment in a case, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d)(1) allows the prevailing party to recover taxable costs from the other party. Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d)(1). Rule 54 states that “[u]nless a federal statute, these rules, or a court order provides otherwise, costs—other than attorney’s fees—should be allowed.” That said, “a district court’s discretion to award costs is limited to particular types of costs enumerated in 28 U.S.C. § 1920.” In re Online DVD-Rental Antitrust Litigation, 779 F.3d 914, 926 (9th Cir. 2015) (citing Crawford Fitting Co. v. J.T. Gibbons, Inc., 482 U.S. 4373, 441 (1987)).

Taxable costs are defined in 28 U.S.C. § 1920, and are limited to the following:

The scope of taxable costs under section 1920 is “narrow,” “limited” and “modest.” Taniguchi v. Kan Pac. Saipan Ltd., 132 S.Ct. 1997, 2006 (2012)(holding “interpreters” under paragraph (6) of section 1920 does not apply to “translators of written materials”). See also Kalitta Air L.L.C. v. Central Texas Airborne Sys. Inc., 741 F.3d 955, 958 (9th Cir. 2013). Local Rule 54sets forth the taxable costs that are allowed under 28 U.S.C. § 1920 within the Central District of California. See generally C.D. Cal. L.R. 54.

*2 The Court addresses each of the five categories of costs identified in the Background section. The Court finds that of the costs Defendants seek to re-tax in their Motion, $ 4487.64 in trial exhibit printing costs, $4,050.00 in database management costs, $1072.89 in document OCR costs, $168.75 in document coding costs, and $300.00 in visual aids costs are taxable.

Defendants seek recovery of the cost of video depositions for three witnesses: Cary Hardwick, Joy Hardwick, and Kendall Hardwick. (Mem. at 3, Doc. 179.) They contend that the videos were “not merely convenient but essential should Defendants have been required to impeach any of these witnesses' testimonies at trial.” (Id.)

28 U.S.C. § 1920(2) provides for the recovery of “[f]ees for printed or electronically recorded transcripts necessarily obtained for use in the case.” 28 U.S.C. § 1920(2). The local rule excludes as taxable “the cost of videotaping or recording depositions unless otherwise ordered by the Court.” C.D. Cal. R. 54-3.5(a). Taking the local rule into consideration, a court in this district found that a video deposition was not necessarily obtained “given that Defendant likely could have highlighted—and did in fact highlight—inconsistencies in Plaintiff’s testimony through paper deposition transcripts.” Gunchick v. Federal Insurance Company, No. 14-cv-1162-RSWL, 2015 WL 4551041 at *2 (C.D. Cal. July 17, 2015). See also Yeager v. Bowlin, No. 08-cv-102-WBS, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 24537 at *6-*7 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 25, 2010) (denying costs for video recording depositions where printed transcript was available and could be used for impeachment).

Defendants urge that the fact that they did not use the videorecordings at trial is not dispositive, as “[n]ecessity is determined as of the time of taking.” Colosi v. Jones Lang LaSalle Americas, Inc., 781 F. 293, 295 (6th Cir. 2015) (quoting Sales v. Marshall, 873 F.2d 115, 120 (6th Cir. 1989)). Their reliance on Colosi is misplaced. In that case the plaintiff challenged the necessity of any transcript for three witnesses, not the cost of both videotaped and printed transcripts. The Court finds the reasoning of Gunchick and Yeagerpersuasive. Because Defendants could have used, and did use, only printed deposition transcripts to impeach the witnesses, and offer no justification for the video depositions aside from impeachment, the Court concludes that the videotaped depositions were not necessarily obtained. Accordingly, Defendants' $2,033.75 in costs associated with videotaping the depositions are not taxable under the statute and the local rules and may not be recovered.

Defendants seek to recover the costs of rough draft depositions of Cary Hardwick, Joy Hardwick, and Kendall Hardwick, and an expedited transcript of Kendall Hardwick’s deposition. (Mem. at 4-5.) Local Rule 54-3.5(a) specifies that taxable costs include the “cost of the original and one copy” of each deposition, “including non-expedited transcripts.” Courts in this Circuit have regularly disallowed rough draft deposition costs over and above the original and one copy allowed by these rules, and the Court agrees that these charges are not appropriate here. See, e.g., Andreson v. International Paper Co., No. 13-cv-2079-CAS, 2015 WL 3648972 at *8 (C.D. Cal. June 10, 2015); Petroliam Nasional Berhard v. GoDaddy.com, Inc., No. 09-5939-PJH, 2012 WL 1610979 at *2 (N.D. Cal. May 8, 2012). Accordingly, Defendants' $363.00 in rough draft fees are disallowed.

*3 Costs for an expedited transcripts for Kendall Hardwick are also disallowed. The Local Rules explicitly allow taxing of “non-expedited transcripts.” Defendants argue that the expedited transcript was necessary to support an urgent motion to compel. However, following Kendall’s deposition on August 11, 2014, the motion to compel was not filed until October 13, 2014, and the fact discovery cutoff was not until January 2, 2015. (Mot. to Compel at 4-5, Doc. 25; Sched. Order, Doc. 12.) Based on these dates, Defendants have not presented a compelling reason to contravene the local rules. See Davis v. Professional Musicians Local 47, No. 12-cv-960-BRO, 2015 WL 12733441 at *4 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 17, 2015)(declining to award expedited deposition transcript costs where parties are aware of deadlines and have reasonable time to meet them). Accordingly, Defendants' $292.00 in expediting fees are disallowed.

Defendants seek to recover the costs of providing three sets of trial exhibits and binders as ordered by the Court. (Mem. at 6.) Under Local Rule 54-3.10(f), items taxable as costs include “[f]ees for certification or exemplification of any document or record necessarily obtained for use in this case.” C.D. Cal. L.R. 54-3.10(f). Moreover, under this District’s Local Rules the list of document preparation costs that may be taxed is not exhaustive. See C.D. Cal. L.R. 54-3.10 (allowing “[d]ocument preparation costs, including....”). See also In re Katz Call Processing Patent Litigation, No. 07-ML-01816-B-RGK (FFMx), 2009 WL 8635997, at *1 (C.D. Cal. Sept. 8, 2009) (noting prior decisions from this district finding the list non-exhaustive, and that under the rule, “this Court clearly has the discretion to award costs associated with making copies for document production”).

Plaintiff argues that Defendants' trial exhibit printing costs should be denied or reduced. First, she argues that the “volume of the exhibits is entirely of Defendants' own doing.” (Opp. at 5.) Second, she argues that the Defendants “voluntarily chose to enlist extremely costly services” for printing, and the Court should therefore reduce any awarded costs. (Id. at 6.)

Document production costs are plainly allowed under both section 1920 and the Local Rules, and both rules are permissive as to this issue. Further, Defendants paid for three sets of binders in compliance with this Court’s Civil Trial Order and the Local Rules. (Doc. 13.) However, a court may consider whether costs are “unnecessary or unreasonably large.” Lichter Foundation Inc. v. Welch, 269 F.2d 142, 146 (6th Cir. 1959.) The Court in its discretion reduces document reproduction costs on the grounds that the exhibits were unnecessarily voluminous. Defendants' exhibits totaled “over 18,000 pages of documents.” (Reply, Doc. 181 at 4.) Yet, only about 1,000 of those 18,000 pages were ultimately admitted into evidence.[1] (Joint Exhibit List, Doc. 166 at 9-25.) While the Court does not find it unreasonable that an experienced attorney would overestimate the number and kind of exhibits necessary for trial, the Court does not find it reasonable that Defendants overestimated by a factor of 18. Therefore, the Court reduces the taxable printing costs by fifty percent.[2] This brings Defendants' taxable printing costs to $4487.64.

*4 Defendants request a total of $24,345.78 for digital “exemplification” of trial exhibits. This includes database management, document coding, document optical character recognition (OCR), a Power Point presentation, and pre-trial litigation support. (Mem. at 8.)

In Online DVD, the Ninth Circuit addressed Taniguchi’s application to section 1920(4), governing “exemplification” costs. 779 F.3d at 928. The Ninth Circuit reiterated its prior decision that under section 1920, “fees are permitted only for the physical preparation and duplication of documents, not the intellectual effort involved in their production.” Id. at 927 (citing Romero v. City of Pomona, 883 F.2d 718, 1428 (9th Cir. 1989), abrogated on other grounds by Townsend v. Holman Consulting Corp., 929 F.2d 1358, 1363 (9th Cir. 1991) (en banc)). It held that the “proper application of a narrowly construed § 1920(4) requires that the tasks and services for which an award of costs is being considered must be described and established with sufficient specificity, particularity, and clarity as to permit a determination that costs are awarded for making copies.” Id. at 928. Thus, although there is a presumption that costs are to be awarded and that district courts must explain their reasons for denying costs, Association of Mexican-American Educators v. State of California, 231 F.3d 572, 592 (9th Cir. 2000), the party requesting costs must still provide the Court enough information to determine that the requested costs are within the scope of the federal statute and local rules.

With these principles in mind, the Court will address each requested category in turn.

Defendants request $8,100.00 in database management costs. (Mem. at 8.) In Online DVD, the Ninth Circuit held that activities like uploading data into an online database may be taxable as a copying activity. Id. at 929. It ultimately determined that the particular “uploading” charges in Online DVDwere nontaxable because the parties had not established that the copies were necessarily made. Id. at 930. It further held that professional services for “processing, native review, data analysis, and production services” were nontaxable, noting that the description of activities “grouped an extremely broad range of activities into a single category.” Id. at 921. Moreover, in construing section 1920(4) narrowly, courts have held that “only the costs of creating the produced duplicates are included, not a number of preparatory or ancillary costs commonly incurred leading up to, in conjunction with, or after duplication.” CBT Flint Partners, LLC v. Return Path, Inc., 737 F.3d 1320, 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2013).

The Court concludes that the use of the database itself, and associated costs with preparing the documents for the database, fall within the definition of “necessary copies.” Using the digital exhibits made the trial much more efficient for both the jury and Court. However, as noted in the previous section, to the extent that the volume of trial exhibits was unreasonable, the time spent creating a database of those exhibits would also be unreasonable.

Moreover, based on the records provided by Defendants, the Court is unable to conclude that the all of activities billed for database management are allowable. For example, the billing description “assisted with preparing trial exhibits” is entirely unilluminating as to what tasks were performed and whether they are taxable. (Mot. Ex. A, Doc. 179 at 109.) Elsewhere, a billing description reads “assisted with coding bates numbers for the trial exhibits. Prepared an index with beg bates and end bates. Prepared a CSV file of the Bates numbers at the page level. Assisted with making the PDF of trial exhibits for the cross examination of D.F. Hardwick.” (Id. at 114.) Some of these activities, such as coding bates numbers on exhibits, may be taxable as part of making necessary copies. Following the Ninth Circuit’s direction that “the circumstances in which a copy will be deemed ‘necessarily obtained’ for use in a case will be extremely limited,” other activities such as preparing a CSV file are not taxable. Online DVD, 779 F.3d at 930. Grouping these activities together into a single billing line does not allow the Court to properly determine whether the costs relate to the making of necessary copies.

*5 Accordingly, the $8,100.00 cost for database management is reduced by fifty percent, to account both for block billing and for the unreasonably large number of documents noted in the previous section. The Court finds that $4050.00 of these costs are taxable.

Defendants request $337.50 in document coding costs, which the billing statements clarify are Bates stamping costs. (Mem. at 8; Mot. Ex. A, Doc. 179 at 108-116.) The Court concludes that Bates stamping court exhibits falls within the scope of taxable costs associated with duplication documents. See Competitive Technologies v. Fujitsu Ltd., No. 02-cv-1673-JCS, 2006 WL 6338914 at *8 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 23, 2006). The Court reduced printing costs to reflect the overly voluminous nature of Defendants' exhibits, and reduces Bates stamping costs in accordance with that reduction. Accordingly, the Court awards $168.75 in costs for document coding.

Defendants request $2,145.78 in document OCR costs. (Mem. at 8.) As with the requested charges for database management, Defendants must show that the OCR processing was performed as part of the process of making necessary copies in this case. Although the court in Online DVDheld that the “faithful production of electronically stored information may require processes such as optical character recognition,” it limited the taxing of such processes to circumstances where such technical processes are for “copies [that] are also ‘necessarily obtained for use in the case.’ ” 779 F.3d at 927-928. As noted above, the estimate by Defendants' counsel of the number of documents necessary for this case was unreasonable. The Court therefore reduces the OCR costs by fifty percent, to $1072.89.

Defendants ask the Court to tax $1,275.00 for the cost of creating a Power Point presentation. (Mem. at 8.) Counsel argues that the Power Point was a “reasonably necessary” visual aid that assisted both the jury and the Court to understand the complex Constitutional issues raised at the trial. (Id. at 10.) Such visual aids are contemplated by Local Rule 54-3.12, which makes such visual aids taxable. The Court is persuaded that the Power Point was “reasonably necessary.” However, the Court in its discretion reduces the costs as unreasonably large. Lichter, 269 F.2d at 146. For example, the bulk of the billing for the Power Point comes from a billed line item of six hours to “[r]ework[ ] and change[ ] the format for the following text powerpoint slides from page/line document provided by the attorneys.” Charging six hours for this task is unreasonable. See also Gunchick, 2015 WL 4451041 at *2(denying costs for slide show where majority of slides were “enlarged copies of exhibits already entered into evidence” and “simple slides that do not seem to justify their high price tag.”). The Court reduces the requested $1,275.00 in costs to create the Power Point to $300.00, representing two hours at the rate provided in the billing statements.

Lastly, Defendants request $12,487.50 in pre-trial litigation support costs. (Mem. at 8.) The billing statements presented to support these costs use block billing, grouping activities like “email exchanges” and “project management” without more specific descriptions of the tasks undertaken. (Mot. Ex. A, Doc. 179 at 108-116.) Some entries appear to include printing, but these activities are grouped in the same entry with others that are clearly not printing, like reviewing notes or mailing documents. (Id.) It is also not clear whether the printing activities referenced here duplicate the general printing costs billed separately.

*6 Defendants assert that the services provided by Litigation Support Professionals “were not intellectual efforts typically entrusted to lawyers.” (Mem. at 7.) In Jardin v. DATAllegro, Inc., the court awarded project management costs where “the project manager did not review documents or contribute to any strategic decision-making” but undertook “duties ... limited to the physical production of data.” No. 08-cv-1462-IEG, 2011 WL 4835742 at *9 (S.D. Cal. Oct. 12, 2011). The tasks as described in Litigation Support Professional’s records for email exchanges, project management, and multiple meetings with counsel do not convince the Court that these charges were simply to oversee the production of data. The tasks are just as likely similar to costs disallowed in Summit Technology, Inc. v. Nidek Co., Ltd.: applying a narrow interpretation of section 1920(4), the Federal Circuit disallowed costs for “hourly consulting fees, with tasks ranging from ‘animation’ to ‘client planning meetings’ ” and close work between attorneys and the litigation support professionals “in developing the exhibits.” 435 F.3d 1371, 1377 n5 (Fed. Cir. 2006).

Based on these records, the Court is unable to conclude that the billed costs for pre-trial litigation support are taxable. Defendants have not described the tasks “with sufficient specificity, particularity, and clarity as to permit a determination that costs are awarded for making copies.” Online DVD, 779 F.3d at 928. And again, the use of block billing does not provide the Court a basis to award partial costs for potentially taxable activities like printing. Accordingly, the Court disallows the $12,487.50 in pre-trial litigation support costs.

Finally, Defendants seek a total of $5,162.50 for what they characterize as “audio & video clip exemplification.” (Mem. at 8-9.) The charges include $2,212.50 in video clip creation, $2,875.00 in video digitization and synchronization, and $75.00 in deposition management.

Puzzlingly, Defendants neither cite nor attempt to distinguish Kalitta Air LLC v. Central Texas Airborne System Inc., 741 F.3d 955 (9th Cir. 2013). Kalittamakes clear that neither video clip creation nor synchronization are taxable costs under section 1920. Id. at 958-59. See also Fowler v. California Highway Patrol, No. 13-cv-01026-THE, 2014 WL 3965027 at *4 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 13, 2014).

Accordingly, the Court does not allow the audio & video clip exemplification costs.

Hardwick requests that the Court use its discretion to deny or reduce the Defendants' costs award in consideration of the potential chilling effect of a large cost award on civil rights plaintiffs and Hardwick’s limited resource. (Opp. at 11-13.) The Clerk’s prior award was for $10,796.92, and the Court in this order taxes costs totaling $10,034.28. (Mot. Ex. B at 1, Doc. 179.) This brings the total cost award to $20,831.20.

The Ninth Circuit has recognized a number of factors that “would justify a district court’s refusal to award costs to a prevailing party,” including “the losing party’s limited financial resources” and “the chilling effect of future civil rights litigants.” Save Our Valley v. Sound Transit, 335 F.3d 932, 945 (9th Cir. 2003) (citing Stanley v. University of Southern California, 178 F.3d 1069, 1079 (9th Cir. 1999)). Further, factors such as the “public importance” of the issues raised and that the “legal questions ... raised are close and complex” could justify a district court’s decision to deny costs. Id. at 946.

This trial followed an appeal by Defendants of this Court’s denial of summary judgment on the issue of absolute and qualified immunity; the denial was affirmed on appeal. Hardwick v. County of Orange, 844 F.3d 1112. The Ninth Circuit’s published decision set precedent on an important issue that may affect future civil rights litigants. Nonetheless, the Court does not find the issues to have been of such importance or so complex as to justify a denial of costs.

*7 Moreover, Hardwick has not adequately shown that her financial condition makes the payment of costs overly burdensome. She addresses the burden issue by alluding to the fact that, at the time of trial, she was a recent college graduate and was unemployed. (Opp. at 13.) However, she submits no declaration as to her current income, assets, or expenses. Absent any evidentiary showing, the Court is without a basis to conclude that the costs awarded are inequitable.

The Court therefore declines to exercise its discretion to reduce the costs.

For the reasons stated above Defendants' Motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART. Of the costs Defendants seek to re-tax in their Motion, the Court finds the following are taxable: $4487.64 in trial exhibit printing costs, $4,050.00 in database management costs, $1,072.89 in document OCR costs, $168.75 in document coding costs, and $300.00 in visual aids costs, totaling $10,034.28.