TheMightyEthan

The rule that each side pays their own costs is called the American Rule for a reason; it's the rule in just about every U.S. court.

That's what I thought, but without having personal experience in more than about 3 very geographically close courts I didn't want to make a blanket statement like that. A lot of the general rules like that that they taught us in law school aren't quite as general as we were lead to believe.

True, but it's the default rule. There are specific causes of action created by statute, specialized courts, and so on with attorney's fees going to the victor (as well as run-of-the-mill attorney's fees). I had to do a memo on the American Rule for my EU-based firm when I was working abroad, so I studied up on it. Also had to learn all of the various state escheat laws. That German firm loved using me to produce memos that amounted to legal surveys of state law on various matters.