Those of us who loved to play Parker Bros.’ Depression-era anodyne will remember drawing that card, with the inevitable agony or ecstasy. If our younger sibling had houses and hotels, it was game-over, followed by weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. If Boardwalk were still no-one’s-land, and we could afford the trophy property, we jumped on it. If neutral and we could not, we knew that relief was around the corner, as on our next turn we would we pass “GO” and collect our $200.

Oh those days, “gone alas like our youth, too soon.”

But the Supremes handed that ticket to Historic Boardwalk Hall, LLC, New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, Tax Matters Partner, Docket No. 11273-07, telling the taxpayer to take a walk (where not specified).

So Judge Goeke gets to push the parties around (in an old-fashioned Atlantic City boardwalk rolling chair, I mean; although an alternative meaning is entirely possible). The Order in this case was filed 6/5/13.

For background, see my blogposts “Social Engineering Trumps the Code”, 1/3/11, and “Honor Your Partner?”, 9/3/12.

To summarize, HBH was a team-up by NJSEA and Pitney-Bowes, the postage meterer, to rehab an historic structure on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City and give P-B big Section 47 tax credits. But unlike the ditty made famous in the June Haver and George Montgomery 1946 classic, life wasn’t peaches and cream. IRS blew up the deal, Tax Court found for P-B in 136 T. C. 1, filed 1/3/11, but the mean ol’ Third Circuit reversed and remanded.

So now for a quick Rule 155, no?

Not so fast. When Judge Goeke asked for supplemental briefs, P-B said they filed for certiorari with the High Court. “On May 28, 2013, the Supreme Court denied certiorari to petitioner (2013 WL 249846, 81 USLW 3431 (May 28, 2013)). The parties telephonically contacted the Court stating that because the parties could not agree upon the scope of the mandate, a joint written status report would not be filed and requested a telephonic conference call. That conference call took place on June 4, 2013.” Order, p.1.

So Judge Goeke wants each side to set forth what they think Third Circuit wanted Tax Court to do.

But Judge Goeke skips the hundred-year-old admonition from the Supremes anent remands: “That [lower] court cannot vary it, or examine it for any other purpose than execution; or give any other or further relief; or review it, even for apparent error, upon any matter decided upon appeal; or intermeddle with it, further than to settle so much as has been remanded.” In re Sanford Fork & Tool Co., 160 U.S. 247, 255 (1895). Depending, of course, upon what actually was remanded.

So again we  take a walk on the Boardwalk.