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John M. Marshall, et al. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue

Paid petition · United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, No. 17-72955, 17-72958, 17-72960 · judgment July 23, 2019


Certiorari denied · March 2, 2020
Pre-decision estimate: 6% cert probability (95% interval 4%–8%)

Before the decision, modestly above the 4.1% base rate. The model weighted this up for a Ninth Circuit decision below, a circuit split argued in the petition, and a dissent in the court below (flagged in the petition).

Question presented

In Commissioner v. Stern, 357 U.S. 39 (1958), this Court held that whether a transferee of property is liable for the transferor’s federal taxes is predominantly a question of the state law applicable to private creditors. The question presented is: Whether, when the true form of the transaction is at issue, the court must determine whether state law would permit a private creditor to collapse or recharacterize the transaction in analogous circumstances, or whether the court can instead look to federal law, state tax law, and/or the law of other states.

Counsel of record

For petitioner
Robert Carton Weaver
Foster Garvey P.C.

For respondent
Noel John Francisco
Jones Day

Case

Conference history
Distributed for 1 conference

Amicus briefs
1 cert-stage

Linked docket
19A676

Proceedings

  1. Mar 02 2020
    Petition DENIED.
  2. Feb 24 2020
    Brief amici curiae of Professors Mary Anderson and W. Brian Dowis filed. (Distributed)
  3. Feb 12 2020
    DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 2/28/2020.
  4. Feb 07 2020
    Waiver of right of respondent Commissioner of Internal Revenue to respond filed.
  5. Jan 30 2020
    Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due March 4, 2020)
  6. Dec 17 2019
    Application (19A676) granted by Justice Kagan extending the time to file until January 30, 2020.
  7. Dec 16 2019
    Application (19A676) to extend the time to file a petition for a writ of certiorari from December 31, 2019 to January 30, 2020, submitted to Justice Kagan.