Court Opinion

ID: 9445096
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:19:27.358836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:07.228372
License: Public Domain

CHAMBERS, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
At oral arguments, counsel for the Commissioner said more than once that our judgment would not be res judicata on Mr. Harrold when his claim is disallowed and he sues to recover payment. While this case comes to us through the tax court and Mr. Harrold’s case may be in a district court or the Court of Claims, yet I cannot believe things are necessarily so inflexible in government that the issues on his claim could not have been determined before or about contemporaneously with this claim against Mrs. Harrold.
It may be noted that by someone’s careful planning the issue in two separate cases of who should get a depletion allowance on oil produced as a consequence of whipstock drilling from the shore into the sea reached the Supreme Court simultaneously in Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Southwest Exploration Company (United States v. Huntington Beach Company), 76 S.Ct. 395, 100 L.Ed. —. There the Southwest case went up through the tax court and this court. Huntington paid the taxes and sued for a refund in the Court of Claims.
Of course, the Commissioner could not schedule when Mr. Harrold, if his refund were disallowed, would file his action within his permissible time. But there is no evidence here that the Commissioner has attempted to set any stage for simultaneous determination of the cases or for the earlier determination of Mr. Harrold’s case. Therefore, we must go ahead and decide the case we have before us.
In addition to the foregoing, I concur in Judge GOODMAN’S opinion.