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between petitioner and WWMC. Mr. Blazyk’s only contact with
Universal occurred when petitioner asked WWMC to issue the checks
for his services to Universal. Until June 2000, Mr. Blazyk did
not know and never had any contact with Mr. Chisum, although Mr.
Chisum claims that he was either Universal’s trustee, or an
officer or agent of Universal’s trustee, during most of
Universal’s existence. Finally, petitioner did not report (and
has not conceded) that he received any salary (or other income)
as a result of the payments made to Universal for his services.
All this leads us to conclude that there was no negotiation
between petitioner and Universal, and no contract requiring
petitioner to supply his services to Universal and giving
Universal the right to control petitioner’s work. It also causes
us to conclude that Universal did not have a contract with WWMC
obligating Universal to provide services. In this connection, we
note that petitioner did not testify (or offer any other
evidence) about the nature of his employment relationship, if
any, with Universal, about the existence of any contracts he had
with Universal, or about Universal’s relationships or contracts
with the recipients of petitioner’s services. In these
circumstances, we draw the normal inference from petitioner’s
failure to offer evidence on these matters, which is that the
evidence, if produced, would not have been helpful to his cause.
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