Opinion
11455-20L
03-03-2022
Kevin T. Lipka & Shelly Z. Lipka Petitioners v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue Respondent
ORDER
David Gustafson Judge
Petitioners have filed a motion (Doc. 18) for a continuance, to which the Commissioner objects. We will grant the motion.
Trial in this case was scheduled to begin March 28, 2022 (see Doc. 12), and our Standing Pretrial Order (Doc. 13) set deadlines of March 7, 2022, for pretrial memoranda and March 14, 2022, for the joint stipulation of facts. The Commissioner filed a motion (Doc. 14) for summary judgment, for which briefing was concluded March 3, 2022--only 25 days before trial. We will not be able to rule on the motion for summary judgment before pretrial memoranda are due on March 7, 2022, and it is uncertain whether we can rule on the motion before the trial session begins on March 28, 2022. In order to enable us to rule on the Commissioner's motion, it is therefore
ORDERED that petitioner's motion for a continuance is granted, in that this case shall be stricken from the calendar of, and shall not be called at, the trial session beginning March 28, 2022; but the judge signing this order retains jurisdiction over this case in order to address the Commissioner's motion for summary judgment. We have not yet decided whether there is any merit to petitioners' suggestion that "it would better serve both parties and the Court if ... Petitioners had the opportunity to conclude the criminal matter prior to initiating trial of this case." If we grant the motion for summary judgment, then no trial will be necessary; and if we deny the motion for summary judgment, we will at that time decide an appropriate schedule for trial.