Appeals Panel Debates Whether Expert and E‑Discovery Costs Are Recoverable

A central dispute at argument was whether expert witness and e‑discovery fees may be recovered as "costs of said action" under the statute the parties cited. Matthew Wolf argued that Washington precedent (as he read it) excludes non‑statutory attorney and expert fees from the statutory bucket and that the state did not satisfy the six‑factor Absher test to recover those items.

Assistant Attorney General Paula Pera responded that cases cited by appellants (Hayes, Howard) interpret different statutes and statutory schemes and that the Consumer Protection Act can be read more liberally, allowing equitable exceptions. The judges pressed both sides on statutory construction and on whether the legislature intended "costs" to include the categories at issue. Counsel also debated whether discrete statutory wording differences (referred to in argument as digit groupings such as "1980 six‑eight‑zero" / "0 8 0") change the recoverability analysis.

The court questioned how a trial judge can exercise meaningful review of fee awards when many time entries are redacted and whether courts should conduct in‑camera reviews or otherwise scrutinize partially redacted entries before authorizing recovery.