Taniguchi v. Kan Pacific Saipan, Ltd.

2012-05-21

Headline: Court limits recoverable language-service costs, ruling that “compensation of interpreters” covers only oral interpretation and bars prevailing parties from recovering written document translation expenses in federal cases.

Holding: The Court held that the statutory phrase listing taxable court costs (28 U.S.C. §1920(6)) refers to oral interpreters only and does not permit prevailing parties to recover costs of translating written documents.

Real World Impact:

Prevailing parties cannot recover document translation costs under §1920(6).
Litigants with foreign-language documents may need to pay translation expenses themselves.
District courts can deny or limit translation-related awards.

Topics: translation costs, court costs, foreign-language evidence, litigation expenses

Summary

Background

A Japanese professional baseball player sued the owner of a resort in the Northern Mariana Islands after he was injured on the resort’s property. The resort paid to translate various Japanese documents into English to prepare its defense. After the district court granted summary judgment for the resort, it awarded those translation bills as costs under the statute that lists taxable court costs, treating them as "compensation of interpreters." The Ninth Circuit affirmed, creating a split among federal appeals courts.

Reasoning

The Court addressed whether the ordinary meaning of “interpreter” includes people who translate written documents. Looking to dictionaries, professional usage, and the Court Interpreters Act’s provisions about simultaneous and consecutive modes of interpretation, the Court concluded that “interpreter” ordinarily means someone who translates spoken words orally. Because the Act’s context and technical terms emphasize oral modes, the Court held that Congress used “interpreter” in that ordinary, oral sense and did not include document translators within §1920(6).

Real world impact

The decision means prevailing parties in federal lawsuits generally cannot recover the cost of translating written documents under §1920(6). Parties who need documents translated may therefore have to pay those costs themselves or seek recovery under some other, nonstatutory route. The ruling resolves the circuit split by adopting a narrower, text-based rule focused on oral interpretation.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Ginsburg, joined by Justices Breyer and Sotomayor, dissented, arguing that the word can reasonably include written translation, that district courts have long allowed such awards, and that practical needs support reimbursing document translation costs.