Fourth District, Division 3 So Rules in Unpublished Decision.
In Nguyen v. Nguyen, Case No. G040316 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Mar. 11, 2009) (unpublished), a litigant won a bench trial and filed a costs bill, including a request for reimbursement of $2,700 for a Vietnamese interpreter for trial. The trial court awarded $4,200 for interpreter fees, although it erroneously included $1,500 more—an arithmetic error later corrected by the appellate court.
Losing party appealed this award of interpreter costs, but lost on appeal. Justice O’Leary, writing for a 3-0 panel of the Fourth District, Division 3, determined “[t]he cost is not expressly allowed or disallowed under Code of Civil Procedure section 1033.5, subdivisions (a) and (b), and thus is within the court’s discretion under subdivision (c)(4), which provides, ‘Items not mentioned in this section and items assessed upon application may be allowed or denied in the court’s discretion.’” The accurately-claimed $2,700 in interpreter fees were allowed on appeal.
Judicial Discretion – Judge Roy Bean