Title 22A: Fees and Costs

Section 1: Legal Paraphrase

Title 22A, the Fees and Costs Act, is the statutory price list for the machinery of justice. Chapter 1 fixes the fees and mileage payable to witnesses, jurors, and persons serving subpoenas, and authorizes fee waivers for the poor (N.J.S.A. 22A:1-1.1 to -7). Chapter 2 governs court costs and clerk fees at every level — the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Law and Chancery Divisions, probate and surrogate matters, and municipal courts — including the bill-of-costs provision defining what a prevailing party may tax against the loser (N.J.S.A. 22A:2-1 to -44). Chapter 3 addresses fees and costs in criminal proceedings (N.J.S.A. 22A:3-4 to -6). Chapter 4 sets the fees of sheriffs, county clerks, registers, and other county officers, and directs how collected fees are accounted for and remitted (N.J.S.A. 22A:4-1 to -21). Chapter 5 covers Tax Court fees (N.J.S.A. 22A:5-1). Because these fees derive solely from statute, courts construe them strictly.

Section 2: ELI-10 Explanation

Think of going to court like going to the movies. The movie doesn't play for free — someone must be paid: the person selling tickets, the person showing you to your seat, and the people on the screen. Courts are the same. The helpers — clerks who stamp papers, sheriffs who deliver official papers, witnesses who come to tell what they saw, and ordinary people called for jury duty — all get paid for their work. Title 22A is the official price list saying exactly how much each one gets. It also says that when you win a lawsuit, the person who lost usually has to reimburse you for certain court expenses, like paying your witnesses to show up. And if you are very poor, the law lets the court skip the fees, so justice is not only for people with money.

Section 3: General Application & Case Example 1

How It Is Applied

Title 22A operates wherever litigation touches money. When a complaint is filed, the clerk collects the statutory filing fee (e.g., N.J.S.A. 22A:2-25); when witnesses attend trial, they are paid the per-day attendance fee and mileage set by N.J.S.A. 22A:1-4; jurors receive their statutory allowance (N.J.S.A. 22A:1-1.1); and sheriffs charge the fees fixed by N.J.S.A. 22A:4-8 for serving process. The Title's best-known mechanism is the bill of costs: under N.J.S.A. 22A:2-8, a prevailing party may include in taxed costs only the "legal fees of witnesses" — the fixed statutory attendance and mileage amounts — not the actual fee an expert witness charged. Courts repeatedly hold that fees under Title 22A are in derogation of the common law and are strictly construed, so neither officers nor litigants may collect more than the statute specifies. The Title thus governs private litigants, attorneys, county officials, and every court clerk in the State. (Statutory text: New Jersey Revised Statutes Title 22A, https://law.justia.com/codes/new-jersey/title-22a/.)

Case Example

• Case Name & Citation: Helton v. Prudential Property & Casualty Insurance Co., 205 N.J. Super. 196, 500 A.2d 717 (App. Div. 1985)
• Statute Applied: N.J.S.A. 22A:2-8 (bill of costs; witness fees) and N.J.S.A. 22A:1-4 (statutory witness attendance fees and mileage)
• Brief Summary: Helton sued Prudential for no-fault PIP benefits after an auto accident; the trial judge awarded her $1,821 in unpaid chiropractic bills, interest, $1,800 in counsel fees, and taxed costs, but denied her request to add the $500 fee her treating chiropractor charged for testifying. The Appellate Division affirmed, holding that N.J.S.A. 22A:2-8 confines taxed costs to the "legal fees of witnesses" — the stated attendance fees and mileage set out in N.J.S.A. 22A:1-4 — and that the disbursements taxable under R. 4:42-8(c) "relate to the fees and mileage rates set forth in N.J.S.A. 22A:1-4." A litigant therefore cannot recover an expert's actual fee as a cost, even when the expert's testimony was necessary.
• Source Link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=15594601910930541936

Section 4: ELI-10 Application & Case Example 2

Real World Example (Explained Simply)

Pretend the sheriff is a delivery person with an official badge. When someone loses a lawsuit and owes money, the winner can ask the sheriff to collect it — the sheriff shows up with official papers. Under Title 22A, the sheriff may charge a fee for the jobs he actually does, but only the jobs named on the law's price list. Now imagine this: the sheriff grabs money sitting in a bank account — but then, before anything is sold, the two sides settle, and the winner says, "Never mind, we worked it out." The sheriff answers, "Fine, but pay me my fee for grabbing the money." The court said: no fee. The price list pays sheriffs for selling property at a public sale, not for merely touching money — and since fees come only from the law, the sheriff cannot invent a new one. If the rulebook does not say it, he does not get paid for it.

Case Example

• Case Name & Citation: International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local No. 1470 v. Gillen, 174 N.J. Super. 326, 416 A.2d 446 (App. Div. 1980)
• Statute Applied: N.J.S.A. 22A:4-8 (fees and mileage of sheriffs and other officers)
• Brief Summary: The union owed a money judgment, and the Sheriff of Hudson County levied execution on cash owed to the union. After the underlying dispute was settled, the sheriff refused to lift the levy unless paid his commission for serving the writ. The Chancery Division agreed the sheriff was entitled to a commission, but the Appellate Division reversed, holding that a sheriff's right to compensation "is derived from statute and must be strictly construed." Because N.J.S.A. 22A:4-8 authorizes a sheriff's commission only in connection with execution sales of property, the sheriff could not collect a commission for levying upon cash. The decision is a leading illustration of the strict-construction rule that pervades Title 22A.
• Source Link: https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16032693702379575914