I do not know if Judge Cary Douglas Pugh reads this my blog, but she and I certainly agree about the gameplaying and time-wasting which has subverted Tax Court discovery from discovery through informal consultation or communication before resorting to formal discovery procedures, Rule 70(a)(1), into “scorched earth” bushwhacking last-ditchery, better perpetrated by what my alma mater On The Hill Far Above called “swarms of hastily-prepared pettifoggers.”

I’ll spare my readers (and myself) another exegesis anent the deliberative privilege, more particularly bounded and described in Sydney Roads, LLC, Sydney Roads Investments, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, Docket No. 30287-21, filed 2/23/24. And the sealing-vs-unsealing joust over some IRS IM chitchat before an OCC seminar on (surprise) Dixieland Boondockery.

Those who care about this tempest in a pot can check out Order, at pp. 2-4. Briefly, internet chitchat is not deliberative, isn’t privileged, wasn’t sealed, and won’t be. And IRS’ motion to strike deals with stuff that would be allowed in on the trial. Briefly, guys, fuggedaboutit.

But the point is (and my readers doubtless will cry with one voice “A point? How novel!”) what Tax Court STJs and Judges have in common with me.

“The Court will decide the issues pled by the parties on the basis of the admissible evidence at trial and urges the parties to refrain from distracting themselves or the Court with filings that the Court might characterize as ‘redundant, immaterial, impertinent, frivolous, or scandalous.’ The Court urges the parties to focus on trial preparation and limit motions to those that deserve more than a stamp vigorously denying them.” Order, at p. 4.

As the great Andrew Dickson White put it, law school should produce “a fair number of well-trained, large-minded, morally-based lawyers in the best sense.”