Thomas v. United States

758 F. Supp. 529, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2797, 1991 WL 30012
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Missouri
DecidedMarch 8, 1991
DocketNos. 88-0529C(6), 88-0530C(6) and 88-0531C(6)
StatusPublished

This text of 758 F. Supp. 529 (Thomas v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Missouri primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Thomas v. United States, 758 F. Supp. 529, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2797, 1991 WL 30012 (E.D. Mo. 1991).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM

GUNN, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court on the merits of plaintiff’s claims after a seven-day trial before the Court sitting without a jury. This Court having considered the pleadings, the testimony of the witnesses, the documents in evidence, and the stipulations of the parties, and being fully advised in the premises, hereby makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law, as required by Rule 52 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Fed.R.Civ.P. 52.

FINDINGS OF FACT

1. This is a consolidated civil action filed by plaintiff Jon C. Thomas seeking review of three separate Final Partnership Administrative Adjustments (FPAA) under 26 U.S.C. § 6226 issued to the following three separate partnerships: Rhineland Cattle Partners, Ltd. (RCP'Ltd.), Rhineland Cattle Partners II (RCP II) and Rhineland Cattle Partners III (RCP III). On December 28, 1987, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) issued three separate FPAA notices [531]*531to -plaintiff as the tax matters partner for RCP Ltd., RCP II and RCP III. Plaintiff originally filed the following civil actions: Cause No. 88-0531C(5) on behalf of RCP Ltd. for a review of the FPAA determination relating to taxable year 1982; Cause No. 88-0530C(3) on behalf of RCP II for a review of the FPAA determination relating to taxable years 1983 and 1984; and Cause No. 88-0529C(6) on behalf of RCP III for a review of the FPAA determination relating to taxable year 1984. On October 5, 1988, this Court entered an order consolidating the three separate civil actions filed by plaintiff contesting the FPAA notices issued by the IRS.

2. Plaintiff raised between five and twenty head of Hereford cattle, using natural breeding, during his college years, and this was his only previous cattle breeding experience prior to the formation of the cattle breeding partnerships with Timothy L. Rhine in 1982. Plaintiff had no prior experience managing a cattle breeding partnership or formal education related to cattle or cattle embryo transplants prior to the formation of the partnerships at issue here. As a result of plaintiffs limited experience in the cattle industry, plaintiff relied on Rhine as his primary source of information and expertise for the cattle breeding partnerships. Rhine also sold plaintiff the recipients and the embryos for the partnerships.

3. In the summer of 1982, plaintiff and Rhine agreed to form a cattle breeding partnership with plaintiff serving as general partner and tax matters partner and Rhine serving as herd manager. To prepare for the formation of the RCP Ltd. cattle breeding partnership in November of 1982, plaintiff reviewed scientific and economic information on the cattle industry and visited Rhineland Ranch two or three times. RCP II was formally instituted in October of 1983, and RCP III was formally instituted in October of 1984 with plaintiff serving as the eventual general partner and tax matters partner for each partnership. Rhine was the herd manager for each partnership. For serving in the capacity as herd manager for the three herds, Rhine received $1,200.00 per cow per year in the initial partnership herd from RCP Ltd. and $1,500.00 per cow per year in the initial partnership herd from RCP II and RCP III. Under the consulting agreement between plaintiff and Rhine, plaintiff paid Rhine $100.00 and half of his back-end profits. The three partnerships were projected to be in operation for thirty-six months and to sell their herds within three years of partnership formation. All three partnerships started operations in the last week of the relevant tax year. Plaintiff, not Rhine, decided the business plan and the structure of RCP Ltd., RCP II and RCP III.

4. The private placement memoranda for RCP Ltd., RCP II and RCP III were prepared under the direction of plaintiff as general partner for the three partnerships and were reviewed by him prior to issuance. The private placement memoranda for the three partnerships contained essentially the same information. Although the three private placement memoranda specifically provided that “partnership breeding operations will be conducted at Rhineland Ranch,” the cattle for the three herds were maintained at a number of locations, some of the locations were only leased by Rhine and one, Alberta Livestock Transplants, was neither owned nor leased by him. The three programs were designed so that the herds would- be formed by transplanting embryos from full blood Simmental and Simbrah cattle into purebred recipient cows. After the formation of the three partnerships, the three herds were designed to grow through the rebreeding of the original recipient cows, also known as the process of calving, and not through the purchase of additional cows or new embryo transplants. The rebreeding of the original recipient cows was important to the objectives of the three partnerships, because the herds were designed to grow via rebreed-ing of the original recipient purebred cows. The partnerships did not purchase additional Simmental heifers, embryos or semen after the original purchase of the embryos and recipients.

5. The designation of full blood for Simmental cattle means that the animal is of [532]*532foreign ancestry or whose direct parents were of foreign ancestry on both sides. The designation of purebred for Simmental cattle means that if the cow is female, it is seven-eighths Simmental, and if the cow is male, it is fifteen/sixteenths Simmental.

6.In violation of the private placement memoranda provision requiring that the recipient cattle be purebred or full blood Simmental, except to the extent of certain provisions of the memorandum for RCP III and the sales agreement executed on December 30, 1982 between RCP Ltd. and Rhine, thirty-six of the fifty-five recipient cattle Rhine sold to RCP Ltd. were seventy-five per cent Simmental and two were only fifty per cent Simmental. An important goal for the RCP Ltd. partnership was for the recipient cows to be purebred inasmuch as after the first generation of embryo transplant calves was born the partnership intended the cattle herd to grow solely through rebreeding the original recipient cattle, either through natural service or artificial insemination. Records of RCP Ltd. indicate that of those fifty-five cows listed with dates of birth prior to December 1982, none was full blood Simmental. Consequently, thirty-eight of the fifty-five cows were not purebred and none was full blood Simmental. In fact, the sales contract dated December 30, 1982 between plaintiff and Rhine concerning RCP Ltd. did not include the number of recipient cattle and embryos to be purchased, because at the time this sales contract was executed, Rhine did not own the cattle he was purporting to sell to RCP Ltd. Plaintiff purchased the recipient cattle for RCP Ltd. from Rhine for $4,300.00 per embryo transplant unit even though Rhine paid Longcrier Farms $2,750.00 per embryo transplant unit. Although the sales agreement provided in relevant part that “seller hereby agrees to perform all necessary services and operations to transplant the embryos purchased by purchaser ... into the recipient cattle also purchased by purchaser,” Rhine did not perform nor supervise any of the embryo transplant operations for the original generation of the RCP Ltd.

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Bluebook (online)
758 F. Supp. 529, 1991 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2797, 1991 WL 30012, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thomas-v-united-states-moed-1991.