San Antonio v. Hotels.com, L. P.
View Official PDFSummary
A short, plain-English overview of San Antonio v. Hotels.com, L. P..
In San Antonio v. Hotels.com, the City of San Antonio, representing 173 Texas municipalities, was awarded a judgment against online travel companies over hotel occupancy taxes. The Court of Appeals ruled that the companies had not underpaid taxes and upheld the district court's decision that it lacked discretion to alter appellate cost awards. The Supreme Court affirmed, stating that Rule 39 does not allow district courts to change appellate cost allocations determined by courts of appeals.
Holding
The single most important “bottom line” of what the Court decided in San Antonio v. Hotels.com, L. P..
The Court held that Rule 39 does not permit a district court to alter a court of appeals' allocation of the costs listed in subdivision (e) of that Rule.
Key Quotes
Short excerpts from the syllabus in San Antonio v. Hotels.com, L. P. that support the summary and concepts above.
"Rule 39 creates a cohesive scheme for taxing appellate costs that gives discretion over the allocation of appellate costs to the courts of appeals."
"The real work done by the phrase 'taxable in the district court' is in specifying the court in which these costs are to be taxed."
"Limiting a district court's discretion to allocate appellate costs will not cause confusion with the equitable discretion district courts exercise with respect to certain costs incurred in the district court."
