Morris v. Wilson
The only issue in this appeal is whether a defendant who may be entitled to costs under Code of Civil Procedure section 998[1] – because the plaintiffs did not accept his offers to compromise and did not do better at trial – must apportion the costs between or among multiple plaintiffs. The trial court denied the motion of appellant Jacob Wilson to assess costs and enter judgment against respondents Taron Morris and Janae Vannell because he filed a single memorandum of costs, without indicating which costs applied to which plaintiff.
We reverse. We have found no authority for requiring a defendant whose costs may exceed the plaintiffs’ jury verdict to apportion costs when he files his memorandum of costs after the plaintiffs proceeded in lockstep on a single theory and were represented by the same attorney. If the plaintiffs objected to the costs bill, they were required to move to tax costs in the trial court. They made no such motion.[2] We return the matter to the trial court to evaluate Wilson’s request for costs and a judgment in his favor.
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