The Jarndyce Case, Judge Mark Holmes, and the Taxation Literary Tradition

We welcome back guest blogger Bob Kamman. Although Bob has practiced tax law in the Phoenix area for many years, he began his studies and his career as a journalist. Today, he draws from the Tax Court judge most likely to make literary references to provide us with a literary background on one of Judge Holmes’ opinions as well as some additional literary happenings at the Court. Because the supporting references needed for this post differ from those in most of our post, Bob has used footnotes which can be found, appropriately, at the end of the post. Keith

Lawyers and law students can be categorized as those who already recognize the name Jarndyce, and those who eventually will. Tax Court Judge Mark Holmes falls into the first category, as shown by his reference in his “undesignated” order of October 23, 2017, in an estate-tax case filed in 2005.

“This complex case,” Judge Holmes wrote, “was on the Court’s December 10, 2007 trial calendar for Miami, Florida, and stems from the death of Mr. Boulis back in 2001. Related cases sprawled over two continents and several different courts, but the last pieces were several peripheral issues in the probate proceeding that remained on appeal in the state-court system until last year. The final state-court issues are about fees appropriately charged to the estate during this Jarndyce v. Jarndyce – like litigation. The parties report mediation ongoing. If this mediation succeeds in producing a settlement, it remains likely that the liquidation of administrative expenses will be the last remaining chores in this long-running case.”

The reader will not find Jarndyce in any published case reports, nor with a Lexis search. Rather, its story is one of the related plots in the classic novel by Charles Dickens, “Bleak House.” To understand the English legal system of the 19th Century, much of which provided the framework for American procedure, one must read Dickens. He was not a lawyer, but as a young man he worked as a court reporter, as in both meanings: Shorthand transcription of court proceedings, and newspaper coverage of trials. The fictional Jarndyce case may be an exaggeration of how prolonged litigation can deplete an estate, but it was a familiar story to readers on both sides of the Atlantic in 1853.

I searched other Tax Court orders and decisions available at the Court’s website. Surprisingly, this is the only reference to Jarndyce. I searched for Dickens. There were petitioners named Dickens, and petitioners with an address on Dickens Street. But the only other Dickens reference came from an opinion by the same Judge Holmes.

That Summary Opinion was written in 2004, and gained some media attention at the time. The case involved a playwright who had not yet shown a profit. Judge Holmes wrote his 28-page opinion in two acts. Act 1 was “Background” and Act 2 was “Discussion.” Next time you research Section 183, this case would be a good starting point. But for everyone, Judge Holmes’ “Prologue” is like Dickens’ “Christmas Carol.” It can be read and enjoyed, one taxable year after another. Before the start of another busy filing season may be the best time to renew our appreciation:

* * *

“Taxation! Wherein? And what taxation?”

       Henry VIII act I, sc. 2 [Footnote *1]

Prologue

It is a truth little remarked on by scholars that tax law has been a fount of literature for 5,000 years. The oldest literary work still extant–the Epic of Gilgamesh–is a long narrative of a friendship begun during a protest against government exactions.[*2] In more recent times, some of our language’s most notable authors have used fiction to delve into tax policy: consider Shakespeare’s criticism of the supply-side effects of a 16-percent tax rate; [*3] Swift’s precocious suggestion of a system of voluntary self-assessment; [*4] and Dickens’ trenchant observation on the problems of multijurisdictional taxing coordination:

[The town’s] people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed. [*5]

Taxation has also sparked creativity in newer literary genres. See It’s a Privilege on Urinetown: The Musical (RCA Victor) (musical re excise tax); J. Kornbluth, Love and Taxes (staged monologue re income tax) (unpublished manuscript, 2003). Tax collecting jobs have helped finance the careers of such notable revenue agents as Chaucer,[*6] Paine,[*7] and Hawthorne.[*8] And tax records are a famously important source of information for scholars of both ancient civilizations [*9] and modern authors.[*10]

This case follows in that long, but little-noted, tradition. Petitioner, N. Joseph Calarco, is a respected professor of theater at Wayne State University in Detroit. He also writes plays. On his 1997 tax return, he deducted his playwriting expenses as a Schedule C business loss. Respondent disallowed both the loss and several itemized deductions that petitioner took on his Schedule A. These disallowances created a deficiency of $3,869 to which respondent added an accuracy related penalty of $774. Petitioner, following the lead of Henry VIII’s first Queen Katherine, [*11] filed a timely petition in this Court. . . .

* * *

Judge Holmes added an Epilogue to his opinion in the Boulis case. I had read it several times before I realized that “survive” rhymes with “155.”

Epilogue

Dramatists used to finish with some rhymes,

Mostly iambs with a pinch of dactyly,

But in these more prosaic times

Works usually end more matter-of-factily.

In our Court, though, the oldest ways seem somehow to survive–

A decision will be entered

under Rule 155.

FOOTNOTES:

1 This case was heard pursuant to the provisions of Internal Revenue Code section 7463. Section citations are all to that Code. This decision is not reviewable by any other court, nor should the opinion or its literary references be cited as precedent in future proceedings.

2 David Ferry, “Gilgamesh, A New Rendering In English Verse”, 14-15 (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 1992).

3 Shakespeare, “Henry VIII”, act I, sc. ii. (“A sixt part of each? / A trembling contribution! Why, we take / From every tree, lap, bark and part o’ th’ timber; / And, though we leave it with a root, thus hack’d, / the air will drink the sap.”)

4 Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, A Voyage to Laputa, Etc. 162 (W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., New York, 1964) (1726). (“The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favourites of the other sex, and the assessment according to the number and natures of the favours they have received; for which they are allowed to be their own vouchers. . . . The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty, and skill in dressing; wherein they had the same privilege with the men, to be determined by their own judgment.”) See generally Levmore, “Self-Assessed Valuation Systems For Tort and Other Law”, 68 Va.L.Rev. 771, 779 (1982).

5 Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities” 119 (Everyman’s Library, Knopf, 2002) (1859).

6 While Controller of the Customs, “[t]here was great variety in what [Chaucer] had to do, and he came in contact with a variety of people. He must have seen infinite venality, witnessed colorful subterfuges, heard improbable and ridiculous dodges and lies and excuses.” Donald Howard, “Chaucer” 212 (1987).

7 “I act myself in the humble station of an officer of excise, though somewhat differently circumstanced to what many of them are, and have been a principal promoter of a plan for applying to Parliament this session for an increase in salary.” Letter of Thomas Paine to Oliver Goldsmith, December 21, 1772, Reprinted in George Hindmarch, “Thomas Paine: The Case of the King of England And His Officers of Excise”, Published by the Author in 1998, Surrey, England.

8 Indeed, it is reported that Hawthorne once contemplated writing sketches entitled “Romance of the Revenue Service” and “an ethical work in two volumes on the subject of Duties”, though sadly neither project was ever undertaken. Randall Stewart, “Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Biography” 53 (Archon Books, 1970).

9 See, e.g., Tonia Sharlach, “Provincial Taxation and the Ur III State” (2004).

10 See A. L. Rowse, “William Shakespeare, A Biography” 280-281 (1963) (use of obscure records to trace author’s movements); Vitale v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1999-131 (use of obscene records to trace author’s movements).

11 “These exactions, whereof my sovereign would have note, they are most pestilent to the bearing; and, to bear’ em the back is sacrifice to the load.” “Henry VIII”, I. ii. 11. 47-50.