DEATH AND TAXES: Should the IRS refund...

DEATH AND TAXES: Should the IRS refund a check that an elderly--possibly senile--man wrote by mistake? The IRS thought not, citing a rule that refund claims must be filed within two years. But a federal appeals court disagreed. One judge said it was “unconscionable” to keep the money just because San Fernando Valley resident Stanley B. McGill mistakenly sent the government $7,000. McGill, age 93 at the time, had meant to send in only $700, his daughter said.

REFUND? The court said a judge should order a refund if he decides McGill, who later died, was mentally incompetent. . . . But the case may wind up in the Supreme Court, said the lawyer for McGill’s daughter, because two other federal appeals courts have ruled that the deadline for claiming tax refunds cannot be suspended.

O.J. EFFECT: Courtroom groupies hoping to transfer their fixation to the Menendez brothers retrial had better get a life. . . . Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Stanley Weisberg pulled the plug on TV coverage of the murder trial of the two brothers, including Erik, above (B1). The reason: fear that the coverage would influence jurors.

PENNY PINCHER: Students at Leona Cox Community School in Canyon Country soon hope to be looking at a cool million . . . pennies, that is. They are out to collect 1 million pennies by mid-June. Math teacher Kay Rich wants students to know what a million looks like. . . . To do it, the kids will have to collect 5,555.5 pennies each school day.