I’d said that, prior to The Big Sleep on Dawson’s Creek, Tax Court unleashed over one thousand (count ’em, one thousand) orders last Thursday and Friday, so many that the daily orders search function was overwhelmed. And I also said that I’d be strip-mining them, seeking ore to refine for this my blog.

Here’s one nugget, from Judge Mark V Holmes, Renee K. Rood, et al., Docket No. 12033-13, filed 11/20/20. Both Renee and IRS were hopeful that an OIC would solve their problems. But getting there, unlike a Greyhound bus trip, wasn’t half the fun.

“They have not as yet been successful, as various obstacles–including most recently the pandemic–keep emerging. In our last teleconference with the parties we stressed that the making and remaking of offers in compromise that don’t get accepted means that settlement may not be realistic. The Court will adopt respondent’s reasonable suggestion for one last status report, but will then put these cases on a pretrial track aiming for trial in May 2021.” Order, at p. 1.

Yes, there are ever-emerging obstacles, as Dawson’s Creek merges with the Blue Danube to give parties new opportunities for indefinite waltzing. But unless the offers manifest a sense of the ridiculous, or the rejections savor of “my way or the highway,” perhaps mediation via Zoom might bring the parties to “yes,” better than the threat of a trial six months away.

And it might could be maybe so that the mediation takes the form of some gentle judicial head-banging; see my blogpost thus entitled.