Cite as: 506 U. S. 9 (1992)
Opinion of the Court
current incarnation of this case is whether there was jurisdiction in the appellate court to review the allegedly unlawful summons enforcement order. On that question, the Government's elaborate statutory argument is largely irrelevant. There is nothing in the statute to suggest that Congress sought to preclude appellate review of district court enforcement orders. To the contrary, we have expressly held that IRS summons enforcement orders are subject to appellate review. See Reisman v. Caplin, 375 U. S. 440, 449 (1964). Thus, whether or not there is jurisdiction in the appellate court to review the District Court's order turns not on the subject matter of Congress' jurisdictional grant to the district courts, but on traditional principles of justiciability, namely, whether an intervening event has rendered the controversy moot. And, as we have already explained, this case is not moot because if the summons were improperly issued or enforced a court could order that the IRS' copies of the tapes be either returned or destroyed.
II
We recognize that several Courts of Appeals have accepted the Government's argument in IRS enforcement proceedings,8 but the force of that line of authority is matched
the lower courts. Compare United States v. Zolin, 809 F. 2d, at 1416- 1417, and United States v. Author Services, Inc., 804 F. 2d 1520, 1525-1526 (CA9 1986) (district court has "considerable" discretion to set terms of enforcement order), opinion amended, 811 F. 2d 1264 (1987), with United States v. Barrett, 837 F. 2d 1341 (CA5 1988) (en banc) (district court lacks authority to "conditionally enforce" IRS summons; inquiry limited to single question of whether summons should be enforced), cert. denied, 492 U. S. 926 (1989).
8 United States v. Kersting, 891 F. 2d 1407, 1410, n. 8 (CA9 1989), cert. denied, 498 U. S. 812 (1990); Hintze v. IRS, 879 F. 2d 121, 124-125 (CA4 1989); United States v. Church of World Peace, 878 F. 2d 1281 (CA10 1989); United States v. Sherlock, 756 F. 2d 1145, 1146-1147 (CA5 1985); United States v. First Family Mortgage Corp., 739 F. 2d 1275, 1278-1279 (CA7 1984); United States v. Kis, 658 F. 2d 526, 533 (CA7 1981), cert. denied, 455 U. S. 1018 (1982); United States v. Equity Farmers Elevator, 652 F. 2d 752
15
Page: Index Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007