I thought ex-Ch J Maurice B. (“Mighty Mo”) Foley put paid to stealth after his epic amendment to Rule 147(a) ditched The Stealth Subpoena. But today we have William A. DePietri & Beth Ann DePietri, Docket No. 7936-22, filed 11/17/23, and Estate of Kevin Giblin, Deceased, Catherine Giblin, Personal Representative, Docket No. 2182-22, of even date therewith.

Both are routine Rule 37(c) denials of IRS motion to deem admitted undenied allegations in the (amended) Answer. I blogged neither STJ Adam B. (“Sport”) Landy’s order permitting said amendment nor the order granting the joint motion to consolidate; pretty much run of the mill.

So I was going to pass on these two otherwise routine orders, until I read the last sentence in each: “Respondent is advised that in the future such motions should not bear more than one docket number and should not be filed in more than one case.”

Before I said “Huh?” I checked to make sure the cases had not been severed. Nothing on either docket to that effect.

Rule 141(a) was my next stop, but the Tax Court website still had the last sentence as it had always been. “Unless otherwise ordered, the caption of all documents subsequently filed in consolidated cases shall include all of the docket numbers arranged in chronological order, but may include only the name of the oldest case with an appropriate indication of other parties.”

I couldn’t find any otherwise order either.

Do we now have stealth severance or stealth amendments to the Rules?

Note I’m quick enough to jump on counsel when they seriously get it wrong, but I think here IRS’ counsel got an undeserved admonition.