Judges and lawyers have a trade jargon that can confound the human being. It’s grown up over the centuries, starting with William the Conqueror sticking the Angles and Saxons with Norman French, and continuing through medieval Latin. Then we get the add-ons that clever litigants dream up and judges enjoy.

And it ends up with Tommy Hobbes’ immortal jibe in Book VIII of Leviathan: “When men write whole volumes of such stuffe, are they not Mad, or intend to make others so?”

Steps into the breach Judge Mark V. Holmes, who tells it in English to Michele Louise Dostert, Docket No. 27122-16 L., filed 8/28/17.

Like his exegeses “Basis for Dummies,” 11/24/11, and “The Sum of its Parts,” 3/12/12, you have to read the whole thing.

Here’s a sample.

“Ms. Dostert was a North Dakota resident when she filed her petition. This means that how we decide this summary-judgment motion is dictated by a case called Robinette v. Commissioner, 439 F.3d 455 (8th Cir. 2006). This case requires the Tax Court to follow what lawyers call the ‘record rule.’ What this means is that the Court has to look at the same things that the IRS looked at during the collection due process hearing (the so-called ‘administrative record’) to decide whether the IRS officer abused his discretion in upholding the lien. An IRS officer abuses his discretion if he makes a decision based on an erroneous view of the law or a clearly erroneous analysis of the facts. Fargo v. Commissioner, 447 F.3d 706, 709 (9th Cir. 2006).” Order, at pp. 1-2.

Ms. D wants to contest liability, but never petitioned the SNOD, and her late-filed attempt at a return for the year at issue was unsigned…multiple times.

As the well-known chess analyst from Adelaide, SA, puts it “And we can stop here.”