IRS Meets Mr. Mxyzptlk
(Title link leads to entire article.)When I see a case called United States v Ultra Dimension, I know that I’m going to have to write about it. The last time I had a good science fiction reference was in April when I wrote about a hobby loss case concerning a retail store called a Wrinkle in Time. I thought I exhausted my knowledge of extra dimensions in that one, but I forgot about Mr. Mxyzptlk . Mr. Mxyzptlk comes from an ultra dimension, specifically the 5th. When he visits our dimension, he favors the city of Metropolis, where he spends his time tormenting Superman. Superman can banish him back to the 5th Dimension for 90 days by getting him to say his name backwards. As I read the case it seemed a little what I call lawyerly for me, but when I saw it also had a reference to a secret identity and time travel, I knew it was a winner.
I don’t know if Fred Neal was influenced by DC Comics, but he may have been. He figured out a way to send his real estate in Harrison County, Texas into the Ultra Dimension (Actually a trust with that name) so that his creditors in this dimension could not molest it. It worked pretty well. He made the transfers from 1993 to 1997 and they were only just reversed (July 14, 2011). That is considerably longer than 90 days.
Mr. Neal did not appear in the decision. Perhaps he has personally winked out into the ultra dimension now that his real estate is back. The decision was two of his many creditors duking it out for who has priority on the real estate. The creditors are Kenneth Goolsby and the United States of America. Mr. Goolsby won a lawsuit against Mr. Neal in 1999. The total with fees was just shy of $25,000. He filed a lien against Mr. Neal in Harrison county, but at least by one school of thought the lien didn’t attach to the real estate. The real estate was in the Ultra Dimension.
