BYRON W. AND EVA G. WOODBURY, PETITIONERS,
v.
COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, RESPONDENT

3d Cir. | 1956-03-21
No. 11786
231 F.2d 121 United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1956) Positive Treatment
Cited by 4 cases

AI-generated. These summaries, headnotes, and key points are machine-generated and may contain errors or omissions. Always verify against the full opinion text below. Not legal advice.


Holding

The court held that the Tax Court did not abuse its discretion in denying a further continuance.


Facts & Procedural History

The taxpayer appealed a Tax Court decision assessing deficiencies, arguing the court abused its discretion by denying a continuance for trial preparat…

The full statement of facts, procedural history, and disposition for this case are member content.

Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence

© FLexlaw, Inc. — AI-generated enrichments are proprietary. All rights reserved.


Opinion of the Court
PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM.

This is an appeal from a finding of the Tax Court which reviewed deficiencies assessed by the Commissioner against the taxpayer, Byron W. Woodbury, the appellant here. Woodbury v. Commissioner, 1955, 14 T.C.M. 191. The Tax Court’s decision, while it did not give the Commissioner all that he claimed, failed to give satisfaction to the taxpayer and he appeals.

The chief objection raised by the taxpayer is that the Tax Court abused its discretion in not giving him a further continuance in order that his counsel, with his assistance, could make adequate preparation of his case. Cf. Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Erie Forge Company, 3 Cir., 1948, 167 F. 2d 71. Petitioner’s present very competent counsel is necessarily embarrassed in urging equity on behalf of the taxpayer upon this point. The case was first listed for trial in December, 1952. The taxpayer was not at that time represented by counsel and at his request a continuance was granted. It was again listed for trial in March, 1953. This time taxpayer had retained counsel to ask for another continuance. He got it and the case was set for trial on Monday, September 14, 1953. The opinion of the Tax Court tells us that at the time the second continuance was granted the taxpayer was warned that he would be required to go to trial at the next call of the case. According to counsel for the taxpayer, and we believe him, he was consulted by the taxpayer only the afternoon of the day before. He obviously had little or no time to consult with his client or to try to get order out of the admittedly chaotic condition of the taxpayer’s business records.

The trial judge insisted that the trial go on as scheduled. Obviously taxpayer’s counsel was at some disadvantage wholely due to the fault of his client who had been treated with extreme leniency and had already had nearly nine months in extra time after the case was called for trial on the first occasion. The trial judge gave attention to the testimony on each one of the points of contest about the tax. It may or may not be that if the taxpayer’s counsel had an opportunity more adequately to prepare the case taxpayer could have made a better showing. We agree with the Tax Court that “the taxpayer has no one but himself to blame for the difficulties which surround him in this case. * * * ” There was no abuse of discretion. If an authority is desired, Silagye v. Commissioner, 2 Cir., 1951, 192 F. 2d 886 will provide it.

The judgment of the Tax Court will be affirmed.


Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus


Citator

Cited By

Authorities Cited

Full citator, related cases, and AI research tools

Open in FLexlaw