He’s back! Immunologist James (“Little Jim”) Haber wins one, in The Diversified Group Incorporated, et al., Docket No. 17038-18L, filed 12/7/23. He’s going to get to eyeball two (count ’em, two) of three memos IRS personnel prepared in connection with review of this case. One of the three involves an unrelated taxpayer, and so Section 6103 bars production.

But the other two step beyond the bounds of deliberative privilege, and go to the process itself. I’d love to quote Judge Emin (“Eminent”) Toro’s drilldown into the underpinnings of deliberative privilege; somber reasoning and copious citation of precedent abound, worthy of being dragged-and-dropped into every practitioner’s memo of law files.

Unhappily, the Genius Baristas have posted the order in a variant of PDF such that I cannot drag-and-drop. If this were merely a disservice to me, individually, it would be worth, perhaps, a shrug of the shoulders.

But it is a disservice to practitioners generally. Courts, both State and Federal, have held again and again that the right to inspect a document must include the right to abstract and copy. I know an order is not precedent and may not be cited as authority, except in the case to which it pertains and even then only for limited purposes. But the reasoning and cases cited in support thereof should be easily available to all.

If Section 7461 has any meaning, not only should decisions, opinions, and orders be made public, but they should be made public in usable format.

How ’bout it, Judge? You told IRS to play nice. Tell the Genius Baristas to play nice.