Party can't recover cost of translating documents, rules U.S. Supreme Court

By Pat Murphy Dolan Media Newswires BOSTON, MA--A defendant that prevailed in a personal injury case filed in federal court could not recover its costs for translat?ing documents from Japanese to English, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in a 6-3 decision. The ruling reverses a decision from the 9th Circuit. Under 28 U. S. C. §1920, costs that may be awarded to prevailing parties in federal lawsuits in?clude "compensation of interpreters." In this case, the plaintiff is a Japanese citizen who allegedly suffered injuries in a fall at a resort operated by the defendant. The plaintiff filed a premises liability lawsuit against the defendant in U.S. District Court. After the defendant obtained a summary judgment, the resort sought an award of the costs it incurred translating certain relevant documents from Japanese to English. The plaintiff argued that "§1920 is limited to spoken communication," not translation of written documents. (See "Interpreting who pays the cost of translators," Lawyers USA, Feb. 22, 2012.) The Court agreed that the statute did not authorize the recovery of the costs sought by the defendant in this case. "Because the ordinary meaning of the word 'interpreter' is a person who translates orally from one language to another, we hold that 'compensation of interpreters' is limited to the cost of oral translation and does not include the cost of document translation," the Court said. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote the majority opinion. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent joined by Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor. U.S. Supreme Court. Taniguchi v. Kan Pacific Saipan, Ltd., No. 10-1472. May 21, 2012. Lawyers USA No. 993-3819. Entire contents copyrighted © 2012 by The Dolan Company. Published: Thu, Jul 12, 2012

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