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warranted. See Sherman v. Commissioner, supra; Brennan v.
Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1997-317. Petitioner acknowledges on
brief that “this Court has several times held that payments
received under mass termination programs are not excluded under
sections [sic] 104(a)(2).” She maintains, however, that her
circumstances are distinguishable.
Petitioner correctly observes that in a number of the mass
termination and general release cases, the employee had never
asserted, and the employer was not aware of, any work-related
personal injury claims. See, e.g., Gajda v. Commissioner, T.C.
Memo. 1997-345; Lubart v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1997-343,
affd. 154 F.3d 539 (5th Cir. 1998); Sodoma v. Commissioner, T.C.
Memo. 1996-275, affd. without published opinion 139 F.3d 899 (5th
Cir. 1998); Webb v. Commissioner, supra. She then avers that
PSC’s knowledge of her existing claim, through her previous
complaints, differentiates her situation and shows that PSC
intended the general release to settle such claim. Case law,
however, is contrary to any argument that employer awareness is
sufficient to transmute a payment that otherwise bears all
trappings of severance pay into compensation for personal
injuries.
Two recent decisions regarding payments received pursuant to
a downsizing by International Business Machines Corporation (IBM)
illustrate this point. In Brennan v. Commissioner, supra, the
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