I’ve often commented before now on the leisurely (not to say lackadaisical) pace of Tax Court litigation. As Hal David memorably wrote “Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass.”

Edisto Georgia, LLC, Golden Eagle Capital Investments, LLC, Partnership Representative, Docket No. 8478-23, filed 6/12/25, is following that path. Petition filed 5/20/23, noticed for trial 4/8/24, twice continued (that’s “adjourned” for us State Courtiers) and now, with trial date in the October session at Columbia, SC (and do I remember October in Columbia, SC, fifty-eight (count ’em, fifty-eight) years ago!), the parties move to continue once more.

I can find no scheduling order on the Tax Court docket page, so one might assume the parties are Branertoning at speed. Or maybe not.

Of course, as trial venue is laid in Columbia, SC, Judge David Gustafson, a Palmetto State native, deals with this latest can-kick, as immediately set forth hereinbelow (as my expensive colleagues would say).

“The motion explains the parties’ work to date and the reasons the case will not be ready for trial in October 2025. In view of their agreement, we will continue the case. However, they ask for trial to be set to begin in 20 months on February 22, 2027. On the one hand, we appreciate the parties’ willingness for the Court to impose a schedule that will prod them to prepare the case for trial; but on the other hand, the case appears to be in the very earliest stages of development, and in such circumstances, setting a trial for a date so far distant is problematic. Doing so would effectively block the Court from setting any other trial session in Columbia that would overlap with that one; but experience teaches us that when a case not ready for trial is set for trial so distant in time, the likelihood that a trial will actually occur on that schedule is low.” Order, at p. 1.

Judge Gustafson grants the third continuance, but sends the case to the general docket.

Taishoff says in State Court we have administrative judges, who scan trial judges’ dockets with the zeal of Hurricane Hunters, seeking dilatory litigants and pushing the assigned judges to clear their dockets. “Select or settle!” they cry. “Pick a jury and try the case, or compromise and stip out.”

This case may present so tangled a fact trail that discovery requires years: somehow I doubt it.