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parties and their privies to the prior judgment; (4) the parties
must actually have litigated the issues and the resolution of
these issues must have been essential to the prior decision; and
(5) the controlling facts and applicable legal rules must remain
unchanged from those in the prior litigation. Peck v.
Commissioner, 90 T.C. 162, 166-167 (1988), affd. 904 F.2d 525
(9th Cir. 1990).
The statement in the Court of Appeals’ opinion in Beall does
not establish that respondent failed to return documents or that
respondent returned other documents in disarray. First,
petitioner was not a party to the dispute in Beall. Second, as
respondent correctly notes, the Court of Appeals’ opinion in
Beall related to the review of a District Court’s decision to
grant a motion of respondent’s that was treated as a motion to
dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be
granted pursuant to rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil
Procedure. Pursuant to that rule:
“a claim may be dismissed when a plaintiff fails to
allege any set of facts in support of his claim which
would entitle him to relief,” and “the court accepts as
true the well-pled factual allegations in the
complaint, and construes them in the light most
favorable to the plaintiff.”
Beall v. United States, 335 F. Supp. 2d at 747 (quoting Taylor v.
Books A Million, Inc., 296 F.3d 376, 378 (5th Cir. 2002))
(internal citations removed). Applying this standard, both the
District Court and the Court of Appeals were required to accept
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