Willy, Willy, Willy – I wish I could stop peeking in and seeing nonsense.
The OP started with a question about Maryland and, for some reason, you analogize to California and then the information about that state wrong. Why not just address Maryland or pass?
There is very little in a Memorandum of Costs that would be subject to the Court’s arbitrary decision, because so much is statutory. Perhaps you could focus on reasonable attorneys’ fees, witness fees (if you used experts) and anything that you might throw into the category of “other”, but that’s about it, and I’m confident you’d agree. Remember, we’re talking about a Memorandum of Costs (MC-010). You called it.
Now, if we’re talking about a Memorandum of Costs After Judgment, Acknowledgement of Credit, and Declaration of Accrued Interest it would be different. That would be (MC-012) and that’s all statutory within the last two years. And while it’s used for some of the purposes to which you refer – “filing fees, Process Server fees or [statutory fees] incurred in attempts to recover a judgement (sic)” you’d kinda, sorta be right and wrong (if the Maryland OP cares). But you said you’re talking about MC-010, not MC-012.
And it gets so confusing because you can use MC-012 just to credit payments and add accrued interest to the writ, so, if you want the interest, of course there would be a reason to file it before the writ as Court Clerk says. The judgment debtor has 10 days to file a motion to tax costs, so your writ won’t be processed until that time has passed with no motion and your writ gets held-up for 10 days. And you have a statutory obligation to account for credit . . . .
Fees – costs. The same thing? No. Used interchangeably? No. MC-010 and MC-012 the same thing? No.
Guess I’ll go back to work. Too overwhelming for me. Good luck in Maryland, OP. Hope you learned a lot (about California).