- 70 - expenses in the amount of $248,049.27 in respect of the PH petitioners’ appellate fee request.54 IV. Interest The PH petitioners seek interest on their fee award from January 17, 2003 (the date of the Court of Appeals’ Dixon V opinion). As discussed in Part III.B.4.c., supra, the “no- interest” rule prohibits the recovery of interest in a suit against the Government absent an express waiver of sovereign immunity from an award of interest. Library of Congress v. Shaw, 478 U.S. at 311. Section 7430 contains no such express waiver, see Wilkerson v. United States, 67 F.3d at 120 n.15; Miller v. Alamo, 992 F.2d at 767; Austin v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 1997- 157, and petitioners do not point to any other provision that might fit the bill. Cf. Miller v. Alamo, supra at 767 (rejecting the argument that 28 U.S.C. sec. 1961(c)(1) operates as an express waiver of sovereign immunity from interest on a section 7430 fee award). Accordingly, we deny the PH petitioners’ request for interest on their fee award.55 54 We shall address the manner in which the awards are to be administered in a separate order or orders implementing this opinion. In that regard, we note that some nontest case petitioners who contributed to the Defense Fund during the relevant period have not been asked to submit net worth affidavits and therefore have not had the opportunity to establish their right to share in the awards. 55 We recognize that in Dixon IV we granted postjudgment interest on petitioners’ sec. 6673(a)(2) fee award. We did so sua sponte on the basis of “this Court’s inherent power to protect its own proceedings from abuse, oppression, and (continued...)Page: Previous 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 Next
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