Opinion
3033-19
04-19-2024
JAVID YADEGAR & MAHNAZ YADEGAR, Petitioners, v. COMMISSIONER OF INTERNAL REVENUE, Respondent
ORDER
Mark V. Holmes, Judge
This case was on the Court's October 19, 2020 trial calendar for New York City. It'd been continued because of its similarity to an even older case, Soleimani v. Commissioner, dkt. no. 8884-13. Petitioners moved to continue this case until Soleimani was decided, which was reasonable because there seemed to be a high probability that the result in Soleimani would lead to a settlement of this case. The Court then released its opinion in Soleimani, but it turned out to be too dependent on its idiosyncratic facts to easily lead to progress in this case. Dr. Yadegar's lawyer then withdrew, which meant we had a four-year-old case about tax years that stretch back to 2007 and in which there has been little progress.
All agreed it made sense to begin informal discovery. Respondent sent a Branerton letter, and began to review the 1 and 1/2 boxes of records in the government's own administrative file to get a working knowledge of the case from them. Informal discovery turned out to be slow as Dr. Yadegar got into a dispute with his lawyers and for a time represented himself. He has now retained new counsel, and we spoke with the parties today. Both agreed that it made sense to put this case on a pretrial-order track, and aim for a special session in Miami sometime in March of next year. Both sides also stressed that many of the documents are in Farsi and will need to be translated; important points of Iranian law during and after the Islamic Revolution will need to be put into the record through expert witnesses. We promised to be flexible in allowing amendments to the pretrial order.
But we need to get this case moving forward, and it is
ORDERED that on or before May 20, 2024 the parties file a joint status report proposing a pretrial order that shall include dates for at least the following events:
1. Identification of each witness expected to be called by name, address, qualifications of the witness, and a brief summary of the expected testimony of each such witness.
2. Completion of formal discovery.
3. Deadline for filing discovery motions.
4. Deadline for exchange and lodging with the Court of expert-witness reports, especially reports on relevant Iranian law.
5. Deadline for filing any motions concerning stipulations of fact.
6. Deadline for submitting any dispositive motions.
7. Deadline for submitting any other pretrial motions (e.g. motions in limine to exclude evidence or to shift the burden of proof).
8. Identification and exchange of any exhibits that each party may offer into evidence as part of his case in chief (excluding only exhibits to be used solely for impeachment).
9. Lodging of stipulations of fact with Court.
10. Submission of trial memoranda with Court.