Judge Patrick J. (“Scholar Pat”) Urda often engages in the Isaiah 58:12 number in discovery disputes. In fact, he has some stock paragraphs for those who use their own stock paragraphs to demand that which they should not.

I was just finishing my August column for an online service when I glanced at Murphy Hollow, LLC, Piedmont Private Equity Manager, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, et al., Docket No. 9620-21, filed 8/30/24. I thought it wasn’t worth a mention, there or here, until a familiar phrase rang a bell.

“We note that the Commissioner takes issue with the organization of the document production up to this point, faulting the partnerships for failing to correlate the response with a request. Our rules do not impose such an obligation. Rule 72(b)(3) provides that ‘[a] party shall produce documents as they are kept in the usual course of business or shall organize and label them to correspond to the categories in the request.’ Here, the partnerships have produced the documents as they are kept in the usual course of business, which is a permissible method of production.” Order, at pp. 4-5.

Check out my blogpost “Discovery Tohubohu,” 4/9/21.

You’d think IRS would’ve gotten the word three years on.