- 7 -
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, but taxpayer had not
raised a specific issue on appeal.3 The case was remanded to
this Court on other grounds, and taxpayer sought to have our
original decision vacated as to the issue that had not been
appealed. This Court, in rejecting taxpayer’s argument, noted:
decisions of this Court may be reviewed by the Courts
of Appeals and by those courts alone. In turn,
judgments of the Courts of Appeals with respect to * *
* decisions of this Court may be reviewed by the
Supreme Court and by that Court alone. Our assumption
of jurisdiction to amend a judgment of the Eighth
Circuit [in this case] would be, in effect, a review of
that court’s judgment, and, hence, a transgression not
only of the traditional jurisdictional limits described
in William D. Lydon, supra, but also of the statutory
jurisdictional limits established by section 7482(a).
The final word on a trial court’s authority to reopen a
decision or judgment after it has been affirmed, modified, or
reversed by a Court of Appeals, however, had not been spoken. In
Standard Oil Co. of Cal. v. United States, 429 U.S. 17 (1976),
the Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of a lower court.
Subsequently, after the mandate of the Supreme Court was issued,
the corporation moved to recall the mandate and have the lower
court’s judgment set aside under rule 60(b) of the Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure. The Supreme Court recognized:
that in the past both this Court and many Courts of
Appeals have required appellate leave before the
District Court could reopen a case which had been
3 See Transp. Manufacturing & Equip. Co. v. Commissioner,
T.C. Memo. 1968-189, affd. in part and vacated in part 434 F.2d
373 (8th Cir. 1970).
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011