Filed 9/15/26 CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
SECOND APPELLATE DISTRICT
DIVISION THREE
MARGARET ELIZABETH MEEHAN, B343396
Plaintiff and Appellant, (Los Angeles County Super. Ct. No. 19STCV20756)
v.
JAIME MARTIR AGUIRRE et al.,
Defendants and Respondents.
APPEAL from an order of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, James E. Blancarte, Judge. Affirmed.
Kowal Law Group, Timothy M. Kowal, Teddy T. Davis, Ryan Merker and Richard J. Radcliffe, for Plaintiff and Appellant.
Horvitz & Levy, John F. Querio and Steven S. Fleischman;
Skane Mills, Elizabeth A. Skane, Heather L. Mills and Jonathan E. Tarkowski for Defendants and Respondents.
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Plaintiff and Appellant Margaret Meehan appeals from an order granting in part defendants and respondents Jaime Aguirre and R & Y Castellanos Trucking, Inc.’s (defendants) motion to tax costs. Meehan, the prevailing party in her personal injury action, sought, among other things, expert witness costs and prejudgment interest from the date of her first settlement offer made pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure section 998. 1 The trial court found that she could not recover her expert costs or prejudgment interest because her recovery did not exceed her final pretrial section 998 offer. The trial court also taxed certain costs requested by Meehan under section 1033.5 for her failure to demonstrate that they were reasonably necessary or reasonable in amount. We affirm.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND On August 4, 2017, Meehan was riding her bicycle in the bike lane on Woodruff Avenue in Lakewood, California, when she collided with a semi-trailer operated by Aguirre and owned by his employer, R & Y. Meehan sued Aguirre and R & Y for damages she claimed resulted from this collision, including a traumatic brain injury. Meehan filed her complaint, alleging motor vehicle negligence, on June 12, 2019.
During the pendency of the parties’ action, Meehan served four settlement offers pursuant to section 998 on Aguirre and R & Y. The first offer, in the amount of $1,000,000 to resolve the matter in its entirety, was made on August 26, 2021. The second and third offers, also for $1,000,000, were made on March 4, 2022 and March 6, 2023, respectively. The defendants allowed all
1 All further undesignated statutory references are to the Code of
Civil Procedure.
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three of these offers to expire. On April 27, 2023, nearly four years after the initiation of the lawsuit and after 29 months of open discovery, Meehan made a final section 998 offer of $2,000,000. Defendants did not accept this offer and it expired after the statutory 30-day period. (§ 998, subd. (b)(1).)
Meehan’s case proceeded to a six-week bench trial, beginning on November 29, 2023. After the conclusion of the trial, submission of closing briefs, and additional briefing from the parties on the issues of causation and damages, the court took the matter under submission and rendered its judgment on August 27, 2024. The court found defendants negligent and Meehan comparatively negligent, apportioning damages 85 percent to defendants and 15 percent to Meehan. The trial court awarded damages to Meehan of $1,250,000, reduced to $1,062,500 after accounting for her comparative negligence.
After trial, Meehan filed a memorandum of costs, seeking a total of $993,180.30 in costs. This included $313,510.27 in prejudgment interest, calculated from August 26, 2021, the date that Meehan served defendants with her first section 998 offer, and $326,093.10 2 in expert witness fees. Meehan argued that she was entitled to expert fees and prejudgment interest under section 998 and Civil Code section 3291, which respectively authorize the trial court to award expert costs and require the recovery of prejudgment interest, where an “offer made by a plaintiff is not accepted and the defendant fails to obtain a more favorable judgment.” (§ 998, subd. (d); Civ. Code, §3291.) Meehan additionally sought $17,952.59 in court reporter fees and
2 The record variously refers to witness fees in the amount of
$326,195.10. The difference is immaterial to the court’s analysis.
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$284,316.13 for models, enlargements and photocopies of exhibits, among other recoverable costs under section 1033.5.
Defendants filed a motion to tax or strike costs, arguing that Meehan was not entitled to interest or expert fees because her recovery did not exceed her final section 998 offer of $2,000,000. Defendants also sought to tax $6,345.30 of the requested court reporter fees as nonrecoverable trial transcript costs and to tax $274,947.53 of the costs requested for models, enlargements, and photocopies as “excessive and unreasonable.” Meehan opposed this motion.
After taking the matter under submission, the trial court issued its ruling on December 5, 2024, granting defendants’ motion in part. The court found that Meehan’s fourth and final section 998 offer of $2,000,000 was controlling for purposes of determining whether the defendants “fail[ed] to obtain a more favorable judgment” at trial. (§ 998, subd. (d).) It reasoned that when Meehan’s “allowable costs of $353,474.93 are added to the judgment amount of $1,062,500, Plaintiff’s total judgment is $1,415,974.93,” and thus defendants obtained a more favorable judgment at trial than had they accepted Meehan’s last section 998 offer of $2,000,000. It therefore struck Meehan’s request for expert fees and prejudgment interest in its entirety.
The trial court then addressed defendants’ request to tax specific costs sought by Meehan. With respect to the trial transcripts sought as part of the court reporter fees, the court found that they were not expressly prohibited nor authorized by statute. However, the court found that Meehan presented “no evidence” regarding any court order for transcripts, nor had she provided any invoices, and therefore had “not met her burden in substantiating such costs.” The court consequently granted
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defendants’ motion to tax the $6,345.30 attributable to the trial transcripts. The trial court also granted defendants’ request to tax $12,125 of the requested costs for models, enlargements, and photocopies, which reflected the cost of creating a “Day in the Life” video that was not presented at trial. Again, the court granted the motion because it found that Meehan failed to meet her burden to “attest[ ] to the reasonableness or necessity of such video.” The trial court also granted defendants’ request to tax $175,409.75 in trial technician costs within this same category because Meehan failed to provide invoices substantiating those costs to allow the court to assess their reasonableness and necessity.
The trial court denied the defendants’ requests to reduce the $22,065.60 Mehan sought for the preparation of video animations and the $12,319.78 sought for binder printing and delivery services. The trial court found that defendants failed to substantiate their objections to these costs on their stated grounds that the requested amounts were excessive and unreasonable, and therefore had “not met their burden in challenging the necessity or reasonableness of such cost[s].” The court taxed Meehan’s costs for a total of $833,585.42 and awarded costs of $159,594.88.
Meehan timely appealed the trial court’s costs order.
DISCUSSION
Meehan challenges the trial court’s order denying recovery of expert fees and prejudgment interest under section 998 and Civil Code section 3291. A trial court’s award of costs, including its determination whether the prerequisites of section 998 have been satisfied to allow an award of costs under either section 998 or section 3291, is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. (Adams v.
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Ford Motor Co. (2011) 199 Cal.App.4th 1475, 1482; Lewis v. Ukran (2019) 36 Cal.App.5th 886, 896.) Where this application is based upon the trial court’s interpretation of the statute, this is a question of law, which we review de novo. (See, e.g., Litt v. Eisenhower Medical Center (2015) 237 Cal.App.4th 1217, 1221 [“Ordinarily, review of a trial court’s determination that a litigant is a prevailing party and the reasonableness of a section 998 award is for an abuse of discretion. [Citations.] However, de novo review is required where the matters before the appellate court involve the resolution of questions of law, rather than the resolution of disputed facts”]; see also Martinez v. Brownco Construction Co. (2013) 56 Cal.4th 1014, 1018 (Martinez) [“Because this issue involves the application of law to undisputed facts, we review the matter de novo”].) Meehan is additionally challenging the trial court’s order taxing the costs she sought under section 1033.5 as not reasonably necessary to the litigation, and this is also reviewed for an abuse of discretion. (Naser v. Lakeridge Athletic Club (2014) 227 Cal.App.4th 571, 576.)
We therefore review de novo the trial court’s construction of section 998 and Civil Code 3291, and we review for an abuse of discretion the trial court’s order taxing specific items of costs. The court will not disturb the trial court’s cost award absent a showing “that the trial court exercised its discretion in an ‘arbitrary, capricious or patently absurd manner.’ ” (Adams v. Ford Motor Co., supra, 199 Cal.App.4th at p. 1482.) Code of Civil Procedure Section 998 and Civil Code Section 3291 “The right to recover costs in litigation ‘ “exists solely by virtue of statute.” ’ ” (Madrigal v. Hyundai Motor America (2025) 17 Cal.5th 592, 602 (Madrigal).) Section 1033.5 sets forth
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generally allowable costs, subject to the trial court’s determination that they were “reasonably necessary to the conduct of the litigation rather than merely convenient or beneficial to its preparation.” (§ 1033.5, subd. (c)(2).) The scheme created by section 998 additionally authorizes a court to award plaintiff their costs for expert witnesses—a cost not generally allowed under section 1033.5—provided the prerequisites of the statute are satisfied. (§ 998, subd. (d).) The plaintiff is eligible to reap the benefits of section 998 if they make a written offer that (1) conforms with the content requirements of that section, (2) is not accepted within 30 days, and (3) the defendant “fails to obtain a more favorable judgment or award” at trial. (§ 998, subds. (b), (d).) If those requirements are met, then the court may award the plaintiff their expert costs incurred after the date of their section 998 offer. (§ 998, subd. (d).) Civil Code section 3291 provides further financial benefits to a personal injury plaintiff that satisfies these requirements by requiring an award of prejudgment interest “calculated from the date of the plaintiff’s first offer pursuant to Section 998 . . . which is exceeded by the judgment.” (Civ. Code, § 3291.)
“The clear policy behind section 998 is to encourage the settlement of lawsuits before trial. [Citations.] It does so ‘by providing a strong financial disincentive to a party . . . who fails to achieve a better result than that party could have achieved by accepting his or her opponent’s settlement offer.’ ” (Madrigal, supra, 17 Cal.5th at p. 603.) While the policy of section 998 is clear, the statute itself is often opaque on how to address the various complexities that arise with its application. Courts have therefore relied on contract law to assist in their application of section 998 to questions where the statute is silent. “When the
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language of section 998 does not provide a definitive answer for a particular application of its terms, courts may consult and apply general contract law principles . . . [and] [a] general contract law principle may be found controlling if the policy of encouraging settlements is ‘best promoted’ thereby.” (Martinez, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 1020, quoting T.M. Cobb Co., Inc. v Superior Court (1984) 36 Cal.3d 273, 281 (T.M. Cobb).)
One of the questions that courts have had to answer without guidance from the plain language of the statute is how to treat successive section 998 offers when not all offers are exceeded by the judgment. The Courts of Appeal in both Distefano v. Hall (1968) 263 Cal.App.2d 380 (Distefano) and Wilson v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 382 (Wilson) answered this question by applying general contract principles to hold that a later offer generally extinguishes earlier section 998 offers, and it is the later offer that must be compared against the judgment. In Distefano, the defendants’ first offer of compromise 3 was rejected, the plaintiff won at trial but the judgment was reversed upon appeal; prior to retrial, defendants made a second offer which was also rejected. (Distefano, at pp. 382–383.) The plaintiff’s ultimate recovery was more than the defendants’ second offer but less than the first. (Id. at p. 384.) The Distefano court held that, to give the full effect to the legislative goal of encouraging settlement, it was necessary to allow the parties to reevaluate their respective positions and here, “where a case has been tried, appealed and reversed for
3 Distefano applied section 997, the precursor statute to section
998, which is identical to section 998 in all respects meaningful to this discussion. (Distefano, supra, 263 Cal.App.2d at p. 384.)
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retrial . . . an offer of compromise made before the second trial pursuant to section [998] should clearly supersede that made before the first trial.” (Id. at p. 385.)
In Wilson, supra, 72 Cal.App.4th at p. 387, the court considered whether a plaintiff was entitled to the benefits of section 998 where she made two offers that were not accepted by the defendant and she received a judgment at trial that exceeded her first offer but was less than her second. While the plaintiff argued that she was entitled to expert costs under section 998 because her recovery exceeded her first offer, the court disagreed. (Wilson, at p. 388.) The court reasoned that “the legislative purpose of section 998 is generally better served by a bright line rule in which the parties know that any judgment will be measured against a single valid statutory offer—i.e., the statutory offer most recently rejected—regardless of offers made earlier in the litigation.” (Id. at p. 391.)
While the California Supreme Court has not explicitly affirmed the last offer rule from Wilson and Distefano, it has discussed their holdings with approval. In Martinez, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 1023, the Supreme Court acknowledged that “under the so-called ‘last offer rule’ applied in Wilson and Distefano, when a party makes successive unrevoked and unaccepted section 998 offers, the last such offer is the only operative offer with respect to the statutory benefits and burdens.” The court further assumed “the propriety of applying the last offer rule where, as in Distefano and Wilson, an offeree obtains a judgment or award less favorable than a first section 998 offer but more favorable than the later offer.” (Id. at p. 1026.) The court nonetheless declined to apply the last offer rule in Martinez, reasoning that the policy goals underlying section 998 were not
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served under the different facts of that specific case, where “plaintiff serve[d] two unaccepted and unrevoked statutory offers, and the defendant fail[ed] to obtain a judgment more favorable than either offer.” (Ibid.) Instead, in such cases, Martinez directs the trial court to determine recoverable section 998 costs from the date of the first offer, while allowing the court the discretion to decline to award costs where gamesmanship appears. (Id. at p. 1027.) Thus, even though it was not applied on the specific facts of that case, Martinez did not “reject” the last offer rule from Distefano and Wilson where there are multiple offers and the final judgment falls between them, contrary to Meehan’s argument.
Other panels of this district have relied on this last offer rule as the starting point for resolving more nuanced questions in the application of section 998. In Palmer v. Schindler Elevator Corp. (2003) 108 Cal.App.4th 154, 157–158, the court considered whether plaintiff’s second section 998 offer, made less than 30 days after the first and which was found to be invalid, extinguished plaintiff’s first offer. In concluding that the second offer, even though invalid, superseded the first, the court recognized the last offer rule as an accepted principle in the application of section 998, stating that “California law . . . provides that a prior settlement offer is extinguished by a subsequent settlement offer to the same party.” (Id. at p. 157.) The Palmer court further expressed its holding as “adopt[ing] the bright-line rule . . . : A later offer under section 998 extinguishes any earlier offers, regardless of the validity of the offers.” (Id. at p. 158.) In One Star, Inc. v. STAAR Surgical Co. (2009) 179 Cal.App.4th 1082, 1091, another panel considered the “effect of a withdrawn section 998 settlement offer on earlier offers,” to
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determine which, if any, section 998 offer controlled where a later offer was withdrawn within the statutory 30-day period. The court again relied on the correctness of the last offer rule, and stated its holding as follows: “The rule we adopt here is . . . a party’s last section 998 offer is effective unless expressly revoked; if the last offer is revoked, the prior offer is the relevant offer for purposes of section 998[ ].” (Id. at pp. 1094–1095.) 4 We again adopt this rule and hold that where a plaintiff makes multiple valid and unrevoked section 998 offers, and their award is less favorable than their final offer, it is this last offer that controls for purposes of determining any entitlement to section 998 benefits. As prior courts have reasoned, the reliance on general contract principles under such circumstances advances the purpose of section 998 by encouraging settlement
4 Meehan argues that the recent California Supreme Court
decision in Gorobets v. Jaguar Land Rover North America, LLC (2026) 20 Cal.5th 501, altered this analysis. We disagree. In Gorobets, “[t]he sole question presented . . . is whether a settlement offer that permits an offeree to choose between two distinct sets of settlement terms as a form of acceptance can qualify as a valid offer for cost-shifting purposes under section 998.” (Id. at p. 516.) It did not seek to upend the last offer rule, and, in fact, implicitly continued to endorse this rule when it addressed the argument that “simultaneous 998 offers are categorically too uncertain because, when ‘offers [are] made at the same time, a court cannot rely on the timing of the offers to dictate which is the operative one.’ ” (Id. at p. 552.) It held that “an offer that permits an offeree to accept by selecting between two discrete alternatives is best understood as a single offer for section 998 purposes,” thus providing a framework for courts to continue to apply the last offer rule while still acknowledging the viability of simultaneous 998 offers. (Ibid.)
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while avoiding gamesmanship. It provides the parties with the flexibility to adjust their offers as facts develop and the certainty of knowing which offer will control, both of which the courts have recognized increase the likelihood and frequency of offers, and the “more offers that are made, the more likely the chance for settlement.” (T.M. Cobb, supra, 36 Cal.3d at p. 281.)
In this case, Meehan submitted multiple section 998 offers, none of which was accepted by defendants. Her recovery exceeded her first offers but fell short of her last section 998 offer, which was double those that preceded it. This is precisely the scenario contemplated by the court in Wilson when it reasoned that the last offer rule would limit mischief and encourage settlement—specifically by avoiding a situation where a “plaintiff might be encouraged to maintain a higher settlement demand on the eve of trial and refuse to settle a case that should otherwise be settled if the plaintiff finds comfort in the knowledge that, even if plaintiff receives an award less than his or her last demand, plaintiff might still enjoy the cost reimbursement benefits of section 998 so long as the award exceeded a lower demand made by the plaintiff sometime during the course of the litigation.” (Wilson, supra, 72 Cal.App.4th at p. 391.) In considering whether this rule would advance the underlying goal of saving court resources by avoiding trial, the Wilson court further noted that “[o]n the eve of trial [plaintiff] was unwilling to save the parties and the trial court the cost of trial for anything less than [her higher offer], yet she now asks to be reimbursed ‘998’ costs as if she would have been willing to do so for [her lower offer]. While we do not suggest impropriety, such fictions tend to undermine respect for our system of justice.” (Ibid.) Meehan here, on the eve of trial, refused to settle for less
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than $2,000,000, yet seeks reimbursement as though she had been willing to do so for $1,000,000. Like the Wilson court, we are similarly “reluctant to endorse” such a fiction. (Ibid.)
The last offer rule was properly applied in this case, and required that the court evaluate Meehan’s entitlement to the benefits of section 998 with reference to her final offer of $2,000,000. Meehan’s recovery of $1,062,500 plus her allowable costs did not exceed her $2,000,000 offer—even had the court not stricken certain costs—and therefore defendants did not “fail to obtain a more favorable judgment” at trial. The trial court did not err in applying the last offer rule to find that Meehan was not entitled to expert witness fees pursuant to section 998, subdivision (d).
Meehan also argues that her entitlement to prejudgment interest under Civil Code section 3291 should not be controlled by the last offer rule. Meehan relies primarily on the language of this section, as follows: “If the plaintiff makes an offer pursuant to Section 998 of the Code of Civil Procedure which the defendant does not accept prior to trial or within 30 days, whichever occurs first, and the plaintiff obtains a more favorable judgment, the judgment shall bear interest at the legal rate of 10 percent per annum calculated from the date of the plaintiff's first offer pursuant to Section 998 of the Code of Civil Procedure which is exceeded by the judgment, and interest shall accrue until the satisfaction of judgment.” (Civ. Code, § 3291, italics added.) Meehan asks us to focus on the “first offer” language, which she contends requires that the court award prejudgment interest under this section whenever the plaintiff makes an offer that is exceeded by their judgment at trial, irrespective of whether later offers are also exceeded by the judgment.
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The Third Appellate District in Wilson rejected the argument presented by Meehan, and we agree with its reasoning. The court in Wilson considered whether to award prejudgment interest under Civil Code section 3291 to the plaintiff where her judgment exceeded her first, but not her last, section 998 settlement offer. (Wilson, supra, 72 Cal.App.4th at p. 393.) It held that “[b]ecause Wilson failed to satisfy the prerequisite to the application of section 3291—in that she did not obtain a more favorable judgment than her compromise offer of $249,000—she is not entitled to recover prejudgment interest.” (Ibid.) It also examined the impact of the alternative rule—i.e., applying the benefits triggered by satisfying the prerequisites of section 998 whenever the plaintiff makes any unaccepted offer that is less than their post-trial recovery. It found that “[w]hile a rule such as that arguably might promote settlement in some cases, its potential for mischief, or at least confusion, is apparent.” (Id. at p. 391.)
The First Appellate District also acknowledged the applicability of the last offer rule and the reasoning of Wilson to the application of Civil Code 3291 in cases such as Meehan’s in Ray v. Goodman (2006) 142 Cal.App.4th 83 (Ray). In laying out the applicable legal principles, the court rhetorically asked and answered the precise questions posed here:
“(1) Does a second section 998 offer from a plaintiff revoke an earlier such offer from the same plaintiff for purposes of that statute? (Answer: yes, per [Wilson, Distefano, and T.M. Cobb].) (2) If that [second] offer is more than the ensuing judgment, but the ensuing judgment is less than the first section 998 offer, is the plaintiff entitled to prejudgment interest? (No, per Wilson, because the first offer was revoked by the second, and the ‘prerequisite’ for the
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triggering of section 998 is thus not met because the ensuing judgment was less than the then-operative second settlement offer made by the plaintiff.)” (Id. at p. 91.) Like Martinez, the court in Ray declined to apply this rule to the case before it because it involved two offers that were both exceeded by the judgment, “thus clearly triggering prejudgment interest under section 3291.” (Ray, supra, 142 Cal.App.4th at p. 91.) Meehan’s case, however, falls squarely within the facts presented by Wilson, and there is no cause to deviate.
Meehan asserts that the defendants unreasonably refused to settle and unnecessarily increased the costs of litigation; she claims that such behavior should not be rewarded by allowing them to avoid the burdens that come with the failure to exceed a section 998 offer at trial. Defendants, for their part, dispute this characterization and have provided their own gloss on the years of litigation that preceded the judgment in this case. Regardless, even if Meehan’s account was accurate, the general policy goal of encouraging settlement does not allow the court to award the statutory benefits of section 998 and Civil Code section 3291 simply where a particular application would benefit the party more willing to compromise. Rather, it is appropriate to reject an application where it “injects uncertainty into the section 998 process [or] [i]f a proposed rule would encourage gamesmanship or spawn disputes over the operation of section 998.” (Martinez, supra, 56 Cal.4th at p. 1021.) Allowing a personal injury plaintiff to recover prejudgment interest where plaintiff’s final offer failed to satisfy the prerequisites of section 998, but any prior offer managed to meet those requirements, would undoubtedly create opportunity for new forms of mischief, an outcome that courts have repeatedly tried to avoid. We also decline to encourage the
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potential for shenanigans and conclude that the trial court did not err in striking Meehan’s prejudgment interest from her memorandum of costs. Code of Civil Procedure Section 1033.5 Meehan’s brief also argues that the trial court “erred in denying costs that were reasonably and necessarily incurred” under section 1033.5. She specifically identifies the trial technician costs of $175,409.75 and references her Day in the Life video as the improperly excluded costs. Meehan’s contention appears to be that the trial court denied these costs based on the “flawed legal premise” that her last offer was the operative section 998 offer and thus “never exercised its discretion under the correct legal standard.” A plaintiff’s entitlement to the benefits of section 998 and Civil Code section 3291 is not a prerequisite to recover costs under section 1033.5. The trial court’s order unambiguously reflects that the trial court denied these additional costs for reasons completely unrelated to whether Meehan’s section 998 offer was exceeded by the judgment.
“[A]ny award of costs—whether categorically recoverable under section 1033.5, subdivision (a) or allowable in the court’s discretion under section 1033.5(c)(4)—must meet the requirements of subdivision (c)(2) and (3).” (Segal v. ASICS America Corp. (2022) 12 Cal.5th 651, 667 (Segal).) Subdivision (c)(2) and (c)(3), respectively, require that the costs be “reasonably necessary to the conduct of the litigation rather than merely convenient or beneficial to its preparation” and “reasonable in amount.” (§ 1033.5, subd. (c)(2), (3).) “Where costs are not expressly allowed by the statute, the burden is on the party claiming the costs to show that the charges were
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reasonable and necessary.” (Foothill-De Anza Community College Dist. v. Emerich (2007) 158 Cal.App.4th 11, 29.)
The costs that Meehan claims were improperly stricken were for a trial technician to assist with “in-court exhibit presentation and management” and a Day in the Life video that was not admitted at trial. The trial court correctly stated that both items were neither expressly allowed as costs under section 1033.5, subdivision (a), nor expressly prohibited under subdivision (b). While these costs could have been granted under the court’s discretion under section 1033.5, subdivision (c), it was incumbent upon Meehan to meet her burden to substantiate these costs as “reasonably necessary to the conduct of the litigation” and “reasonable in amount.” (§ 1033.5, subd. (c)(2), (3); Segal, supra, 12 Cal.5th at p. 667.) Although Meehan states that she “submitted detailed documentation showing the purpose and amount of each expense,” the record is devoid of such evidence. As the trial court observed, there were no invoices provided to allow it to determine the reasonableness of the $175,409.75 cost of the trial technician, nor was there any declaration provided to explain the necessity of the unused Day in the Life video. We therefore cannot find that the trial court abused its discretion in striking those costs when Meehan failed to meet her evidentiary burden required for the court to exercise its discretion to grant the costs sought.
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DISPOSITION
The order is affirmed. Respondents are awarded their costs on appeal.
CERTIFIED FOR PUBLICATION IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
OCHOA, J. *
We concur:
ADAMS, P. J.
HANASONO, J.
* Judge of the Los Angeles Superior Court, assigned by the Chief Justice pursuant to article VI, section 6 of the California Constitution.