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3. The Stare Decisis Doctrine Is Violated
The majority are so determined to expedite the collection
process, they opt to overrule Meyer v. Commissioner, 115 T.C. 417
(2000), sua sponte. The parties do not question, and have not
briefed, the rule established by Meyer. Moreover, in overruling
Meyer the majority ignore existing case law (i.e., Offiler,
Moorhous, and Kennedy) and show no regard for stare decisis:
the means by which we ensure that the law will not merely
change erratically, but will develop in a principled and
intelligible fashion. That doctrine permits society to
presume that bedrock principles are founded in the law
rather than in the proclivities of individuals, and
thereby contributes to the integrity of our
constitutional system of government, both in appearance
and in fact. * * * any detours from the straight path of
stare decisis in our past have occurred for articulable
reasons, and only when the Court has felt obliged "to
bring its opinions into agreement with experience and
with facts newly ascertained." Burnet v. Coronado Oil &
Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393, 412, 52 S.Ct. 443, 449, 76 L.Ed.
815 (1932) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). [Vasquez v.
Hillery, 474 U.S. 254, 265-266 (1986).]
There are no articulable reasons for overturning Meyer, except
the majority’s desire to relieve respondent of the burden of
holding hearings for those taxpayers respondent and the Court deem
to have meritless arguments. See Lunsford II (“we do not believe
that it is either necessary or productive to remand this case”).
The majority’s only explicit justification for ignoring the
doctrine of stare decisis is that Meyer v. Commissioner, supra,
“has resulted in unjustified delay in the resolution of cases.”
Majority op. p. 10. “Unjustified delay” from whose perspective?
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