In In re Insurance Installment Fee Cases, 2012 DJDAR 16696 (2012), the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District decided an important class action cost recovery issue. The case arose in the insurance context.

A class action was filed against State Farm (“State Farm”) by a class representative. The representative pursued discovery seeking access to the class members’ personal and payment information, designed to identify which insureds might be eligible as plaintiffs in the class.  State Farm objected to the discovery requests. The plaintiff filed motions to compel the requested documents and the parties agreed to refer the dispute to a discovery referee. The discovery referee overruled State Farm’s objections. State Farm filed written objections to the referee’s recommendation which were subsequently overruled by the trial judge. The trial court also ordered State Farm to pay for and to mail out the notices regarding the discovery propounded by the plaintiffs. The merits of the litigation were subsequently decided in favor of State Farm.

State Farm filed a memorandum of costs after prevailing at the trial court level. In the cost memorandum State Farm sought to recover the $713,463 it incurred in sending out the notices to putative class members. The plaintiffs filed a motion to tax those costs. The trial court granted the motion to tax costs in its entirety.

The court of appeal reversed the trial court’s decision in part, and concluded the trial judge abused his discretion in taxing the costs relating to the mailing of the notices to putative class members. 

The court of appeal noted that certain cost items may be awarded in the trial court’s discretion if they are “reasonably necessary to the conduct of the litigation.” CCP § 1033.5(c)(2) and Seever v. Copley Press, 141 Cal. App. 4th 1550, 1558 (2006). 

However, when a party demands discovery involving significant “special attendant costs” beyond those typically involved in responding to routine discovery, the demanding party should bear those costs if the party is not successful in prevailing in the litigation. 

In reversing the trial court’s decision, the court of appeal reasoned that the costs State Farm incurred in providing the notice were “special attendant” costs beyond those involved in responding to routine discovery.