Jeffrey and Virginia M. Hambarian - Page 6




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          forced to seek the documents and information by means of                    
          discovery.                                                                  
               Respondent’s discovery requests seek from petitioners the              
          documents that had been received from the prosecuting attorney,             
          along with copies of the electronic media data bases and/or the             
          CD ROM.  Respondent also seeks to obtain the documents selected             
          by petitioner’s defense attorney.  Petitioners refused to turn              
          over the requested documents.3  Petitioners contend that some of            
          the documents received from the prosecuting attorney have                   
          annotations made by Mr. Hambarian’s defense counsel.  Petitioners           
          point out that their cost to convert the documents to electronic            
          media was approximately $70,000.  Respondent is seeking the                 
          electronic data bases and the hard copy of the documents and has            
          offered to pay costs of reproduction.                                       
          Discussion                                                                  
               The question we consider here is whether the compilation of            
          documents and/or the creation of electronic data bases are                  
          protected under the attorney work product doctrine which                    
          originated in Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 511 (1947).  The             


               3 Petitioners are represented in these consolidated cases by           
          different attorneys from those who represent petitioner, Jeffrey            
          Hambarian in the defense of his criminal indictment.  Petitioners           
          raised the point that the requested documents and materials are             
          in the possession of Jeffrey Hambarian’s criminal defense                   
          attorney and that petitioners and their Tax Court attorneys are             
          not in possession of the requested matter.  We fail to understand           
          why that distinction should make any difference in our                      
          consideration of the present discovery requests.                            





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