Moore v. Weinstein Co.
| Decision Date | 25 August 2014 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 3:09–CV–00166. |
| Parties | Samuel David MOORE, Joyce Ellen Moore, and The SJM Trust, Plaintiffs, v. The WEINSTEIN COMPANY, LLC, doing business as Dimension Films; Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer Studios, Inc.; Genius Products, LLC; and Concord Music Group, Inc., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee |
Allison L. Rapp, Arnold P. Lutzker, Jeannette H. Maurer, Jeannette M. Carmadello, Washington, DC, Sean J. Martin, Drescher Heller Pieper Martin PC, Nashville, TN, for Plaintiffs.
Bertram Fields, Los Angeles, CA, Heather J. Hubbard, Robb S. Harvey, Waller, Lansden, Dortch & Davis, LLP, Nashville, TN, for Defendant.
On May 11, 2012, the court granted summary judgment to the defendants. After the Clerk taxed costs against the plaintiffs in the amount of $62,697.45 (Docket No. 383), the plaintiffs filed Objections to the taxation of costs (Docket No. 387), to which the defendants filed a Response in opposition (Docket No. 391), and the plaintiffs filed a Reply (Docket No. 393). On July 9, 2012, the court referred a ruling on the plaintiffs' specific objections to the Magistrate Judge. (Docket No. 386.) On December 18, 2012, after considering the parties' submissions, the Magistrate Judge found that the defendants' costs are properly taxed at $52,728.67. (Docket No. 402.) The plaintiffs have filed Objections to the Magistrate Judge's ruling (Docket No. 403), to which the defendants have filed a Response in opposition (Docket No. 406). For the reasons explained herein, the court construes the Magistrate Judge's ruling as a Report & Recommendation (“R & R”). The court will adopt the R & R in part and reject it in part, and the court will tax $18,396.18 in costs against the plaintiffs and in favor of the defendants.
A magistrate judge's rulings on the taxation of post judgment costs must be treated as a report and recommendation subject to de novo review.1 The court therefore construes the Magistrate Judge's Order as a Report and Recommendation subject to de novo review under Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b).2
Rule 54(d)(1) creates a presumption in favor of awarding costs to the prevailing party but allows the denial of costs at the discretion of the trial court. Knology, Inc. v. Insight Commc'ns. Co., L.P., 460 F.3d 722, 726 (6th Cir.2006) ; White & White, Inc. v. Am. Hosp. Supply Corp., 786 F.2d 728, 730 (6th Cir.1986) () (internal quotation omitted). A denial of costs may be appropriate where taxable expenditures by the prevailing party are unnecessary or unreasonably large, where the prevailing party should be penalized for unnecessarily prolonging trial or for injecting unmeritorious issues, when the prevailing party's recovery is so insignificant that the judgment amounts to a victory for the defendant, or where a case is “close and difficult.” White & White, 786 F.2d at 730. The party objecting to the clerk's taxation generally has the burden of persuading the court that it was improper. BDT Prods., Inc. v. Lexmark Int'l, Inc., 405 F.3d 415, 420 (6th Cir.2005) () ; White & White, 786 F.2d at 730. The capacity of an indigent litigant to pay costs and the losing party's good faith are also factors that the court may weigh. See Sales v. Marshall, 873 F.2d 115, 120 (6th Cir.1989) ; Knology, 460 F.3d at 728.
Here, the plaintiffs contend that the Magistrate Judge should have denied fees entirely or reduced them even further, because (1) the case was sufficiently “close” or “difficult” to merit denying an award of costs entirely, (2) certain additional litigation expenses (particularly costs associated with electronic discovery) are non-taxable or should otherwise be excluded, and (3) the plaintiffs are financially unable to pay the costs taxed.3
The plaintiffs argue that this case was sufficiently “close” to justify denying all costs. In support of this proposition, they cite only to White & White, Inc. v. Am. Hosp. Supply Corp., 786 F.2d 728, 732 (6th Cir.1986) (hereinafter, “White II ” ).
In the underlying lawsuit at issue in White II, the plaintiff brought an antitrust action against the defendant, leading to an 80–day bench trial involving 43 witnesses, 800 exhibits, 15,000 pages of trial transcript, and a 95–page opinion stating the district court's findings of fact and conclusions of law. See White II, 786 F.2d at 732 (). On appeal from the district court's initial entry of judgment in favor of the plaintiff, the Sixth Circuit considered the “prodigious compilation” of legal and factual materials in the case, reversed certain of the district's factual and legal findings, and remanded the case for entry of judgment in favor of the defendant. See White & White, Inc. v. Am. Hosp. Supply Corp., 723 F.2d 495 (6th Cir.1983) ( “White I ” ). On remand following White I, the district court entered judgment for the defendant but refused to award costs to the defendant under Rule 54(d)(1). See White II, 786 F.2d at 729–730 (). The defendant appealed the denial of costs.
In White II, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the district court's refusal to award costs, noting that “the case involved complex issues requiring protracted litigation,” leading to a lengthy trial and the district court's 95–page opinion. The Sixth Circuit stated that “[t]he closeness of a case is not judged by whether one party clearly prevails over another, but by the refinement of perception required to recognize, sift through and organize relevant evidence, and by the difficulty of discerning the law of the case.” In light of the remarkably complicated proceedings below, the Sixth Circuit found that the district court had “acted properly in considering the length and difficulty of the case as a factor in denying costs to [the defendant].” Id.
Drawing on the factors that influenced the White II court, many courts apply White II to cases in which “difficult” or “close” factual or technical issues were tried to a jury, or where a particularly difficult legal or constitutional question was presented. See, e.g., McHugh v. Olympia Entm't, Inc., 37 Fed.Appx. 730, 743 (6th Cir.2002) (); Spurlock v. Metro. Gov't of Nashville, 2013 WL 6237723, at *1–*2 (M.D.Tenn. Dec. 3, 2013) ().
This case is not akin to White II or other cases in which courts have denied costs entirely. The case certainly took a substantial amount of time to litigate and involved voluminous factual and legal submissions. However, as the defendants correctly point out, the plaintiffs brought a litany of claims, all of which were found to be insufficient to survive either the Rule 12 or Rule 56 standards. The court dismissed two defendants from the case at the Rule 12 stage based on a lack of personal jurisdiction (Docket No. 112 at pp. 7–14), and the court permitted some of the remaining claims to proceed by a thread.4 As discovery later revealed, the plaintiffs also falsely claimed (apparently to establish Tennessee as a proper forum) that plaintiff The SJM Trust was a Tennessee trust (it was not) and that it owned the purported common law trademarks and publicity rights at issue in this lawsuit (it did not).5 Furthermore, as detailed in the court's opinion granting summary judgment to the remaining defendants, (1) the plaintiffs failed to establish that two of the three plaintiffs (Joyce Moore and The SJM Trust) had any cognizable interests to assert in the first place (see Docket No. 375 at pp. 53–54), and (2) summary judgment was warranted on Sam Moore's remaining polyglot of federal and state law claims, often on multiple independent grounds, and in some instances without any meaningful attempt by Sam Moore to address the defendants' asserted grounds for dismissal.6 The Sixth Circuit affirmed this court's summary judgment order. See Moore v. Weinstein Co., LLC., 545 Fed.Appx. 405 (6th Cir.2013).
As Magistrate Judge Brown recounted in a previous opinion, during the course of this litigation, the plaintiffs presented shifting theories of liability, and the case seemed like a “lawsuit in search of a theory.” (Docket No. 247 at p. 19.) The plaintiffs were also sanctioned for various discovery abuses, including “vexatious and dilatory discovery tactics with respect to their licensing efforts, enforcement efforts, and damages claims, including disobeying court orders....” (Docket No. 373 at pp. 17–18.)
Taken in context, the fact that this case has a cluttered docket, involved a substantial volume of factual and legal materials, and required a lengthy summary judgment opinion from this court does not favor denying the taxation of costs against the plaintiffs. The plaintiffs played a significant role in protracting this litigation, they pressed several meritless claims long past the point that they should have been abandoned, and they also failed to adduce sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment on any of their myriad of federal and state law claims....
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Moore v. Weinstein Co., Case No. 3:09–CV–00166.
...40 F.Supp.3d 945Samuel David MOORE, Joyce Ellen Moore, and The SJM Trust, Plaintiffs,v.The WEINSTEIN COMPANY, LLC, doing business as Dimension Films; Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer Studios, Inc.; Genius Products, LLC; and Concord Music Group, Inc., Defendant.Case No. 3:09–CV–00166.United States Distri......