Cecilia M. Hylton v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Is petitioner denied due process of law when the court of appeals failed to timely advise her whether oral argument (which each party requested) would be held on her appeal, as required by Fed. R. App. P. 34(b), and then without affording her the opportunity to argue orally issued its per curiam, one-paragraph decision affirming the Tax Court?

May the court of appeals in an unpublished oneparagraph per curiam opinion reject forty years of developed jurisprudence concerning the taxation of horse-related activities under 26 U.S.C. § 183, by parroting the trial judge’s clearly wrong conclusions characterizing petitioner’s activity as a “hobby,” a decision which affirms a disputed income tax deficiency of over $3.6 million plus interest for up to fourteen years together with an accuracy-related penalty of almost $600,000 which incurs its own interest for twelve years?