(Leagle.com)
Appeal No. 2009-1267, U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit
Although the petition for by the appellant for a panel rehearing was denied, the dissenting opinion by Circuit Judge Pauline Newman is worth noting:
I respectfully dissent from the denial of Chrysler's petition for rehearing en banc. I write separately because of the importance of the issue in this era of electronic record-keeping, for the court holds that a government agency, Customs, can simply deny the correctness of its official electronic records, many years after the records were made and the underlying paper documents discarded, and then place the burden on the affected public to create fresh independent proof of the record or lose all benefit of the record. The government's refusal to rely, or permit the taxpayer to rely, on official government records, has profound consequences in today's electronic culture.
In this case, both the government and the taxpayer had routinely discarded the original hard copy documents that had been filed with the government before July 1, 1990, and from which the permanent electronic records had been made. Having destroyed the original documents and retained only the electronic records, the government has refused to refund the $782,407.45 that the electronic records show as export tax received from Chrysler before July 1, 1990. My colleagues have endorsed that position.
This ruling is of far-reaching import with respect to the status and presumed correctness of government electronic records.
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