Litigation Database Hosting Costs Not Taxable

The court denied in part defendants' motion for database costs. "The evolving caselaw is divided on whether, or if so, under what circumstances, database costs ["host[ing] electronic documents . . . data management and indexing, data restoration, discovery support, and microfilm and VHS conversion"] are compensable under Section 1920. . . .This Court concludes that [defendant's] database hosting costs, separate from .TIFF and OCR conversion, Bates stamping, load file and other physical media generation, are non-compensable . . . . The Court recognizes that policy reasons could support a different outcome here, where, as is often true in litigation today, certain pre-production collection and conversion tasks were the necessary preliminary steps for the eventual production of documents in the electronic format agreed upon by the parties. However, similar to the need in the paper-document era for members of the litigation team to gather and organize boxes of documents in warehouses for review and production, the fact that preliminary tasks related to organizing and maintaining electronic data are necessary does not make them taxable under Section 1920."

Alzheimer's Institute of America v. Elan Corporation PLC, et. al., 3-10-cv-00482 (CAND January 31, 2013, Order) (Laporte, M.J.).