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did not accept respondent’s pretrial settlement offer. In June
1986 Messrs. Seery and McWade addressed the problem by deciding
to employ a test case procedure. Under that procedure, a few
typical cases are selected as test cases, while the petitioners
whose cases are not selected as test cases are encouraged to
execute a piggyback agreement; i.e., a stipulation to be bound by
the outcome of the test cases.
Petitioners and respondent entered into piggyback agreements
providing that petitioners’ cases would be resolved in accordance
with the outcome of the final decisions in the test cases. The
pertinent dates are as follows:
Taxable Docket Dates of Execution Date of
Year No. Petitioners Respondent Filing
1983 15673-87 Undated 9/08/87 9/11/87
1984 18551-88 10/20/88 10/27/88 10/31/88
1986 29249-88 2/16/89 2/23/89 2/27/89
Petitioners, who were still proceeding pro se, signed their
piggyback agreements. Mr. McWade signed petitioners’ piggyback
agreements on behalf of respondent.
Pretrial Proceedings in the Test Cases
Among those petitioners whose cases Messrs. Seery and McWade
selected to be test cases were Mr. Seery’s clients Jerry and
Patricia A. Dixon (the Dixons), plus six other couples and an
individual. The experience of the Dixons typified the experience
of the other test case petitioners. The Dixons’ deficiencies
were for the taxable years 1977 through 1981 and totaled
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