# Koprowski v. Commissioner

> United States Tax Court · February 6, 2012 · 138 T.C. 54

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9887569

## Case

- **Full name:** Eugene Koprowski, Petitioner v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue, Respondent
- **Court:** United States Tax Court
- **Decided:** February 6, 2012
- **Citations:** 138 T.C. 54; 138 T.C. No. 5; 2012 U.S. Tax Ct. LEXIS 5
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Holmes
- **Judges:** Gustafson, Judge-, Colvin, Cohen, Halpern, Foley, Vasquez, Gale, Thornton, Goeke, Wherry, Kroupa, Holmes, Morrison, Marvel, Paris
- **Cited by:** 28 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9887569

## Opinion text

Holmes, J., concurring: I agree with the rest of the Court that a final decision in an S case precludes any claim in a later case that could have been raised, subject to the statur tory exception of section 6015(g)(2). I write separately only to note that the same result will certainly follow when the Court finally addresses the question of whether decisions in S cases collaterally estop losing parties from relitigating the same issues in later cases. See Mitchell v. Commissioner, 131 T.C. 215, 221-39 (2008) (Holmes, J., concurring).
The Supreme Court has reminded us that we should not “carve out an approach to administrative review good for tax law only.” Mayo Found. for Med. Educ. & Research v. United States, 562 U.S. _ , _, 131 S. Ct. 704 , 713 (2011). The same goes for the federal common law of judgments: “The preclusive effect of a federal-court judgment is determined by federal common law.” Taylor v. Sturgell, 553 U.S. 880, 891 (2008). It is not our job to try to figure out whether preclusion is a good policy or a bad one and in what circumstances we think it best applies: “A fundamental precept of common-law adjudication, embodied in the related doctrines of collateral estoppel and res judicata, is that a ‘right, question or fact distinctly put in issue and directly determined by a court of competent jurisdiction . . . cannot be disputed in a subsequent suit between the same parties or their privies.”’ Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153 (1979) (quoting S. Pac. R.R. Co. v. United States, 168 U.S. 1, 48-49 (1897)).

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9887569. Public record. Not legal advice.