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proceedings before the Court of Appeals and before this Court.
We therefore hold that the issue in the cases at hand was covered
by necessary implication by the opinion of the Court of Appeals
in Dixon V and by its most recent primary mandate. Consequently,
the Dixon V mandate bars this Court from considering petitioners’
requests in the cases at hand to conduct a further inquiry into
respondent’s alleged continued misconduct and to impose sanctions
against respondent for misconduct alleged to have occurred
following the trial, opinion, and original decisions in the test
cases.
Petitioners do not argue in their motion for reconsideration
that further inquiry into respondent’s alleged continued
misconduct would be necessary or helpful in obtaining a better or
more accurate sense of the terms and application of the Thompson
settlement. Nor do we believe such an inquiry would have any
such effect. In these circumstances, to engage in a further
inquiry in the cases at hand (which encompass all pending cases
in the Kersting project in which final decisions have not been
entered) with a view to imposing additional sanctions on
respondent would be inconsistent with and beyond the scope of the
mandate of the Court of Appeals in Dixon V. The decision by the
Court of Appeals in Dixon V not to address Izen’s complaints
about this Court’s restraints on his discovery efforts--which
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