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Commissioner, 114 T.C. 268 (2000); Renaissance Enter. Trust v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2000-226.
Whether petitioner has the capacity to litigate in this
Court is determined by applicable State law, which, in this case,
appears to be the law of Virginia.4 See Rule 60(c). On the
basis of our review of that law, we are unable to conclude that
Mr. Jablonski, the only signatory on the petition, had the
requisite capacity to petition this Court on petitioner’s behalf.
Accord Mendenhall v. Douglas L. Cooper, Inc., 387 S.E.2d 468 (Va.
1990); Raney v. Four Thirty Seven Land Co., 357 S.E.2d 733, 736
(Va. 1987); Fisher v. Dickenson, 4 S.E. 737 (Va. 1888); cf. Walt
Robbins, Inc. v. Damon Corp., 348 S.E.2d 223, 226 (Va. 1986) (the
trustee of an antecedent deed of trust is a necessary party in a
suit to enforce a mechanic's lien). Petitioner is purportedly a
trust, and Mr. Jablonski has not been proven to be its trustee.
Petitioner has left us unpersuaded that we have jurisdiction
over its case. Thus, we shall grant respondent’s motion to
dismiss this case for lack of jurisdiction.5 See AL Trust v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2000-276; YMO Trust v. Commissioner,
4 Petitioner’s mailing address is in Alexandria, Virginia.
5 Petitioner has also failed to persuade us that it actually
existed on the date of the petition. We lack jurisdiction when a
petitioning trust is a nonexisting entity, and such is the case
where a trust lacks a corpus. See Patz v. Commissioner, 69 T.C.
497, 501 (1977). The record leads us to believe that petitioner
has no corpus.
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