JUDGMENTS: A Big Check From the IRS

With April 15 at hand, it somehow seems fitting that the IRS has a big payment to make. In what may be one of the largest awards ever levied against the agency, a federal judge in Houston ruled last week that the Federal Government must pay $10.9 million to Elvis Johnson, a retired Galveston insurance executive.

Johnson, now 69, sued the IRS in 1983, claiming that the agency had destroyed his career. Two years earlier, a federal prosecutor had promised not to disclose a plea bargain in which Johnson settled a $6,000 tax-evasion case. Instead the IRS trumpeted details of the case in a press release. After that Johnson was pushed out of his job as executive vice president of the American National Insurance Co., based in Galveston, Texas. The sweetest part of the award is that some of Johnson's cash from the IRS will be tax free.