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stated above, petitioners are not entitled to relief from the
contracts by which they settled their cases.
Petitioners are no more successful with their related
argument that, “Under this sanction [i.e., the Court of Appeals’
mandate that the Thompson settlement be extended to all parties
properly before that court] it would be unfair, inequitable, and
more of a ‘reward’ than a ‘sanction’ to exclude settled
petitioners.” They urge that they “have paid in substantial
monies and suffered damages to their legal rights equivalent to
those who have withheld monies. Clearly, the Ninth Circuit would
have decreed exclusion of settled cases in the event it
considered their remedies not cognizable by this Trial Court.”
We disagree.
The Court of Appeals’ direction that the equivalent of the
Thompson settlement be extended to “appellants and all other
taxpayers properly before this Court” by its terms excludes those
who knowingly settled their cases after the predicate facts of
the fraud on the Court were disclosed. The language of the Court
of Appeals confirms our view that petitioners’ legal predicament
differs fundamentally from the posture of those who did not
settle. Petitioners’ cases are closed; in contrast, the cases of
those who did not settle are still open. Under the doctrine of
finality discussed above, we find no significance in the fact
that the Court of Appeals did not specifically exclude already-
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