In the somewhat altered words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, echoed by The Great Dissenter, a/k/a The Judge Who Writes Like a Human Being, Mark V. Holmes, in Diamond Packaging Corporation, Docket No. 24763-10, a designated hitter for a Friday when, as usual, no decisions are forthcoming.

See my blogpost “Guy on Board”, 9/13/12, wherein Special Trial Judge Daniel A. (“Yuda”) Guy, Jr., told the IRS and Diamond Packaging to play nice and do a proper Rule 70-Branerton show-and-tell. They didn’t listen.

Judge Holmes: “This case is the oldest one on the Court’s May 20, 2013 trial calendar for Buffalo, New York. Well less than a $1 million is at issue, yet the discovery spigot has seemingly been opened to its widest position; there are three pending motions to compel or review the sufficiency of responses to previous rounds of discovery, and filings with titles like ‘reply by respondent to petitioner’s response to respondent’s motion to compel responses to respondent’ first request for production of documents.’ It is not in the taxpayer’s or the Court’s interest to have to keep swimming in such a sea of paper given the stakes involved.” Order, p. 1.

Judge Holmes does a teleconference with the lawyers, tells them to do an agreed pretrial order, setting trial within six months, or if they can’t agree, each submits their own and Judge Holmes, unlike the Ancient Mariner, need stoppeth only one of two.

Until he does stoppeth one of two, or gets a joint pretrial order, “(T)he Court will hold in abeyance until then its action on the various discovery motions and will, if necessary, discuss them in a teleconference rather than order more written responses.” Order, p. 2.

Takeaway: Discovery is not the trial.