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Edwards v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 690 F.2d 595, 598-599 (6th Cir.
1982). Both this Court and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth
Circuit, to which appeal in this case lies, have accepted the
doctrine of judicial estoppel. See Helfand v. Gerson, 105 F.3d
530 (9th Cir. 1997); Huddleston v. Commissioner, 100 T.C. 17, 28-
29 (1993).
The doctrine of judicial estoppel focuses on the
relationship between a party and the courts, and it seeks to
protect the integrity of the judicial process by preventing a
party from successfully asserting one position before a court and
thereafter asserting a completely contradictory position before
the same or another court merely because it is now in that
party’s interest to do so. Edwards v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., supra
at 599; Huddleston v. Commissioner, supra at 26. Whether or not
to apply the doctrine is within the sound discretion of the
court, but it should be applied with caution in order “to avoid
impinging on the truth-seeking function of the court because the
doctrine precludes a contradictory position without examining the
truth of either statement.” Daugharty v. Commissioner, T.C.
Memo. 1997-349 (quoting Teledyne Indus., Inc. v. NLRB, 911 F.2d
1214, 1218 (6th Cir. 1990)), affd. without published opinion 158
F.3d 588 (11th Cir. 1998)).
Judicial estoppel generally requires acceptance by a court
of the prior position and does not require privity or detrimental
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