In mid-January, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case seeking to clarify which deadlines deprive courts of jurisdiction to hear disputes and which are merely “claims processing rules” that can be tolled. For HLS alum Amy Feinberg ’18, it was an opportunity to use expertise gained during her time as a student in LSC’s Tax Clinic and be part of a team arguing the case before the highest court in the land.
A string of cases – several brought by LSC’s Tax Clinic – has challenged the extent to which statutes setting forth filing deadlines are truly jurisdictional statutes and deprive the courts of the ability to hear untimely cases, or if failure to comply with such rules can be remedied because the statutory deadline is a mere “claims processing rule.”
The latest dispute involved a 30-day deadline for filing a collection due process petition for the US Tax Court, which the law firm fighting the rule, Boechler P.C., missed by one day.
The lawyer who filed the Tax Court petition for Boechler, P.C, and who filed the appeal to the 8th Circuit, reached out to the Tax Clinic after finding the Tax Clinic’s briefs on the issue of jurisdiction. Just a couple weeks before the oral argument in the 8th Circuit, he asked if the Tax Clinic could take over the oral argument. With insufficient time to prepare a student for the argument, the Tax Clinic reached out to clinic alumnae Amy Feinberg who argued an almost identical case before the 4th Circuit while a student in the Tax Clinic. Feinberg, and her firm Latham Watkins, agreed to take the case. Her firm agreed to continue representation seeking en banc review in the 8th Circuit before seeking certiorari in the Supreme Court.
The Tax Clinic is fortunate to partner with a former student and her firm in this effort to change the law, says Tax Clinic Director Keith Fogg. While this particular case is not one in which LSC represents the taxpayer, LSC’s Tax Clinic attorneys and students filed an amicus brief in this latest Supreme Court case.
You can hear arguments in this case before the Supreme Court, read a transcript of the proceedings, and read LSC’s amicus brief and other filings related to this case at the links below.
Boechler, P.C. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Supreme Court Docket Number 20-1472, January 12, 2022