Opinion
4865-19W
07-06-2022
LAWRENCE W. DOYLE & JOHN F. MOYNIHAN, Petitioners v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
ORDER
David Gustafson, Judge
On July 30, 2022, petitioners filed a motion (Doc. 142), with a cover sheet entitled "Motion to Seal" and a title page entitled "Motion for Leave to File Amended Exhibit B to Petitioners' Second Supplement to the Administrative Record Under Seal". (The phrase "Amended Exhibit B to" in that longer title is apparently incorrect, and seems to be a phrase wrongly held over from the title appearing on Doc. 129.) The motion to seal states that the Commissioner has no objection. We will grant the motion.
The document to be sealed (Doc. 143) is entitled "Second Supplement to Administrative Record by Resp." (Doc. 143), and it consists of pages "COM000077" through "-622". We note that the numbering should apparently have begun with "-79", to follow the last page, numbered "COM000078", in Doc. 130. We do not direct that this error be corrected b y an amended filing, but we encourage the parties to be as careful as possible in preparing the record in this case, to eliminate potential confusion. We further point out to petitioner that a document submitted under a motion for leave to file should be "lodged" not "filed" (a distinction that helps the Clerk of the Court recognize a submission that should be temporarily sealed while the motion to seal is still pending).
Petitioners also filed a motion (Doc. 144) entitled "Motion for in Camera Review" on the cover sheet but entitled on the first page of the document "Petitioners' Motion for In Camera Review and Request for Hearing". That is, the filing combines two motions in violation of Rule 54(b) ("Joinder of Motions: Unless otherwise permitted by the Court, motions shall be separately stated and not joined together"). We will not at this time schedule a hearing. As to the request for "in camera" review, we understand that phrase to describe a review of documents by a judge in chambers at the request of one party but without disclosure to the other party. In this instance, however, it does not appear that petitioners have withheld from the Commissioner disclosure of any documents that have been submitted to the Court, so we have no occasion for in camera review. We think that the "sealing" of documents as requested by the parties addresses petitioners' concern.
It is
ORDERED that petitioners' motion for leave to file under seal (Doc. 142) is granted. The Clerk of the Court shall remove the subject filing--Doc. 143--from the Court's public records, and that document shall be retained by the Court in a sealed file which shall not be inspected by any person or entity not a party to this case except by an order of the Court. It is further
ORDERED that the motion for in camera review (Doc. 144) is denied.