12 FEDERAL nnromns.
"I inclose a statement of my account to November lst. The unsettled state
of the large number of cases in question, requiring almost constant watch-
ing. attendance on motions, answering correspondence, and items of expend-
iture, prevents my sending any more satisfactory account at present. "
The decree in the test case that the use of celluloid did not infringe
the vulcanite patent was iiled December 17, 1877, and on the same
clay, according to stipulation, a like decree was entered in all the other
cases. The final decree dismissing the cases, with costs, was on the
twenty-eighth of January, 1878.
Mr. Chandler resists this demand upon various grounds. The lirst
position is that the docket fee is expressly given to the solicitor by sec-
tions 823 and 824 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, and
that the costs for travel and attendance are allowances for his own
tra-vel and attendance. That costs for travel and attendance may be
properly taxed to the prevailing party has been too well settled in
this circuit to be now doubted. To whom these items belong is an-
other question. 'l`hey are not taxed as part of the compensation
allowed by law to attorneys or solicitors, but are rather to be consid- '
ered as taxed to the party. Nichols v. Brunswick, 3 Cliff. 89. The
taxation is the same when no solicitor is employed, but the party ap-
pears for himself. Rev. St. §§ 823, 824, prescribe the amount to be
taxed as compensation for attorneys, solicitors, and proctors, at the
same time guarding against the implication that the fees so prescribed
shall be taken as the just measure of compensation as between solic-
itor and client. It is urged that this statute determines and nxes
by law theminimum of that compensation. But this construction
assumes the purpose of the statute to be the regulation of charges
between solicitor and client, rather than to secure uniformity in the
taxation of costs, in the United States courts. Prior to the statute of
1853, February 26th, the taxation was controlled by no rule of gen-
eral application. This act of February 26, 1853, substituted, in all
the federal courts, for the state practice, its own provisions. Before
its passage, the costs, though made to conform to the allowance for
the same items in the courts of the respective states, were distinctly
taxed and allowed "in favor of parties obtaining judgment." Act
1793, c. 20, § 4. That to secure this uniform rule was the object of
the statute is plain, and there is no reason to conclude there was a
further purpose to change the party in whose favor the allowance
was made, and to take the costs from the party to the suit and give
them to the attorney. "The bill of costs primarily belongs to the
successful party. It is included in his judgment. It is not the at-
torneys though he has a lien upon it." Clay v. Moulton, 70 Me. 315.
"In strictness, all the items included in the bill of cost belong to the
party. " Oooly v. Pattenson, 52 Me. 472.
A usage is claimed that docket fees, and fees allowed for travel and
attendance, shall be taken and treated by the solicitor or attorney as
his own. Such usage is testified to by so many gentlemen of the