Edward F. Murphy - Page 39

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          basis for her calculations.  Considering all of petitioner’s                
          claims of bad faith, we fail to find that Ms. Boudreau conducted            
          the hearing in bad faith.                                                   
               Petitioner claims:  Ms. Boudreau “did not act with                     
          flexibility but with a clear predisposition toward an inflexible            
          and expeditious determination of the Petitioner's matter.”  The             
          facts in evidence hardly lead to that conclusion.  Ms. Boudreau             
          tolerated numerous missed due dates.  She reopened the case after           
          she had closed it on account of a missed due date.  After                   
          rejecting the offer in compromise, she invited another offer.               
          When that offer was not timely received, she closed the case but            
          considered reopening it when Mr. Burke belatedly telephoned her.            
          We do not find that Ms. Boudreau was inflexible.  While she may             
          have been predisposed to an expeditious conclusion of                       
          petitioner’s case, we see nothing wrong with that, given the                
          facts before us.                                                            
               Petitioner claims:  Ms. Boudreau “was biased by her belief             
          that the hearing had to be promptly concluded.”  Besides the fact           
          that Ms. Boudreau rejected the offer and, after almost 2 months,            
          gave up on petitioner’s promise to submit a new offer, petitioner           
          has shown no facts that would support his claim of bias.  As we             
          made plain supra p. 35 of this report, there is no requirement              
          that an Appeals officer wait a certain amount of time                       







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