Court Opinion

ID: 9475912
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:42:32.968066+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:01.514331
License: Public Domain

REYNOLDS, Senior District Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the Court’s result, but I cannot agree with its reasoning. I would affirm the decision of the tax court because the taxpayer was not the prevailing party within the meaning of 26 U.S.C. § 7430(c)(2). While the taxpayer may have achieved the result he sought — the Internal Revenue Service gave up on its collection efforts — the taxpayer cannot be said to have “prevailed” through his motion to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction when it was the taxpayer himself who brought the case before the wrong court.
Even if the taxpayer could be found to have “prevailed,” I take particular exception with this Court’s adoption of the analysis of the tax court’s decision in Fuller v. Commissioner, 51 T.C.M. (CCH) 336 (1986), that once the suit had been dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, the tax court lacked jurisdiction to award attorney’s fees in connection with the merits of the parties’ positions on the jurisdictional question.
Just because the tax court found that it did not have the power to determine the merits of the dispute between the parties, it does not follow that it lacked jurisdiction to award fees based upon the reasonableness of the parties’ positions regarding a question over which the tax court did have jurisdiction, i.e., whether the tax court had jurisdiction. The tax court had jurisdiction over any questions which necessarily re*863volve around the question of jurisdiction, including attorney fees.
The suggestion in this case that the taxpayer’s motion for fees and costs could have been saved had he submitted the request simultaneously with his motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction might make sense as a matter of convenience, but it is certainly not required by either the statute or as a matter of logic.
The taxpayer’s problem here is not that he filed his motion for fees too late, but that he challenged the government in the wrong forum. A party cannot file his lawsuit in a court that lacks jurisdiction and then claim to have “prevailed” when his own motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction is granted. This is true even if the other party gives up its position on the “merits”.