Beard Becomes First Intermountain Case to Reach the Supreme Court
June 30, 2011
We have been noting for the past few months that the Intermountain issue would be heading to the Supreme Court soon, with the government’s petition in the Home Concrete case due on July 5. The taxpayers in Beard have jumped the line, however, by seeking certiorari ahead of the deadline, and that case is now docketed in the Supreme Court as No. 10-1553. Meanwhile, the government has obtained a 30-day extension until August 3 to file its certiorari petition in Home Concrete. Thus, unless the taxpayer in either Salman Ranch, Grapevine, or one of the D.C. Circuit cases sprints to the Court with its own cert petition well before the deadline, it looks like Beard will be at the head of the line by a good margin.
The petition does not add much to the arguments on the merits of the dispute. The goal of a certiorari petition is to explain to the Court why it is important for it to hear the case. If cert is granted, there is plenty of opportunity for the litigant to address the merits. One of the best ways to convince the Court that it has to step in to a dispute is to demonstrate a conflict among the various courts of appeals, which will lead to different outcomes in similar cases unless the Court steps in. Making that showing on the Intermountain issues is like shooting fish in a barrel. The Beard petition sensibly focuses on discussing the circuit conflicts, both on the statutory interpretation issue (where the Seventh Circuit in Beard is the only court to have ruled that, even without the regulations, the statute should be construed as providing for a six-year statute of limitations (see here)), and on the question whether Chevron deference is owed to the regulations.
There are two items worth noting in the petition that relate to the merits. The petition signals that the taxpayer will argue that Chevron is getting completely out of hand if deference is paid in the context of this case. Specifically, the petition states that the government’s position that “the Treasury is empowered to reject and overrule longstanding precedent of this Court and other courts that it disfavors, simply through the issuance of temporary regulations without notice and public comment threatens obvious, far-reaching consequences.” Second, the petition briefly responds to the argument that Colony should be read as applying only to cases involving a trade or business by pointing out that, although Colony itself did involve a trade or business, the Court was seeking there to establish a rule that would resolve a circuit conflict, and some of the conflicting cases did not involve a trade or business.
The next step is a response by the government, currently due on July 27. In most cases, of course, the government’s response to a cert petition is to oppose the petition and argue that the Court should leave standing the court of appeals decision in favor of the government. Sometimes, however, when there is a circuit conflict on an important issue, the government will “acquiesce” in the petition — meaning that it will tell the Court that the court of appeals decision was correct but that it agrees with the petition that the Supreme Court should hear the case so that it can pronounce a rule that will apply uniformly throughout the country.
The government is virtually certain to agree that the Court should resolve the Intermountain dispute. The only question would seem to be a tactical one: will the government acquiesce in the Beard petition and have the dispute resolved in that case, where the government prevailed below? Or will the government instead try to steer the Court towards a different case where perhaps it believes the facts are more favorable or where the taxpayer prevailed below. The request for an extension in Home Concrete is a pretty good indication that the government is content to let the issue be resolved in Beard.
As far as timing, the government routinely secures extensions of time to respond to certiorari petitions. (You may recall that the government got four extensions to respond to the Kawashima petition. See here). But if the government decides to acquiesce in Beard, that would be a very simple filing, and the government has had plenty of time already to decide what it wants to do in these cases. Thus, it is possible that the government’s response will be filed on July 27.
The Beard petition is linked below.
