me as though the government's argument is to make these one thousand nine hundred regulations retroactive to nine hundred ninety and that that's not that's not generally permissible you can't do that your honor i i have no idea how the state court could have anticipated regulations that were promulgated two years later it the order that was injured was a by the state order was working with the knowledge that he had at the time and the state court judge that entered the water an in depth well of course the pennsylvania spirit court didn't rule on the orders that in the in the two thousand but they certainly could not have anticipated change of the regulations which and it was a fair at was actually a very new concept i believe it was only in the late eighty's that pennsylvania law and providing for division of tree here in conference the board asked that the military pension domestic relations order also be a part of the record was submitted it i believe is exhibit n and  so when it identifies the plane to which the order of plots and this tsunami expert used the same number eighteen he applied it as a military pension as opposed to what number eighteen in this in the sense that there's confusion as to what one order says if you have one order good everybody says it's the military side of the issue and another the civilian side of the issue letter in two thousand and one but that was because we understood that that issue had already been resolved and had already been settled by the pre hearing submission of the board meeting that had received this order of nine hundred ninety one thought for purposes of this appeal we should assume that under the pretty ninety two regulations that would be paul i'm not sure that that's correct i think we don't we don't know what would happen said it's certainly reasonable for o p m to base the date on when it receives the debases decision the date it when it receives the order as opposed the date the orders and if you look at the federal register notice from july twenty ninth of  regulations in one thousand nine hundred you're not allowed to amend that or right no they were to be amended it can't be amended with respect to a post survivor retirement annuity well in the individual we're talking about it can't be in an act but after the judge the validity of the order by that leader regulations why is that not retroactive well what's important is that the party submit the order quickly after it's entered in all but you know they're not resting my question if it's retroactive to say that it were becomes in d because of later adopted regulation that sounds like retroactivity doesn't well that you were saying it becomes invalid you know you were just saying that you apply you apply the regulations that are in effect at the time that the order is is submitted to o p m as he has to when it was ready that's right called rhetoric well but she again in this situation she had plenty of opportunity to submit the order if she wanted to previous regulations to apply military benefits one into the civilian benefits do you agree with that i would set the record as inconclusive on that issue i looked into it and i was not able to find that the order that that apparently is tab and it's right to the preparing submission but that being said keep in mind when o p m makes its decision it doesn't have that order in front of it it simply has the order the submitted by  mistake so it looks to the fourth for no i understand well let me ask you this do you think that if in fact there were to assume for the moment granted this may be an open question terms of what the record contains but assume for the moment that there were two orders one speaking to military benefits one which is the one we have here speaking to civilian benefits will that not perhaps be relevant in terms of making clear what each order speaks to so that if you had this order standing alone is ambiguous because of the conflicting references one to civilian benefits then to military statutes that you need and certainly would drop away if you said both record both both orders in front of the so you could say i know what they're talking about here and i know what they're talking about here the problem is that o p m as directed by congress will only look to the four corners of the document that that submitted the records aren't clear on that but i'm so i'm obviously speaking hypothetically what's wrong with that but i think the problem with that is there congress has mandated that the specific order at issue must express or provide for the past and there's nothing that permits that the language of the order is ambiguous as well and under fox and schneider if the language is in big u s and fox specifically noted also that if the language of the order refers to another planet or another benefit such as a military term plan b can't fairly be said to provide for the benefit based on that line of conversation and applying it to the border here it's clear that mr hayward is not entitle to take your turn to will give you will extend your time to sort out what you're looking for to to insert judge take your question it page a one ten that's the final met and that brings up the point it will say you know there's another order out there that speaks to the military benefits you can look at this and you know that this order is words that's right but it still was fairly be you were still most fairly be read to provide for the benefit and this court has said in an order that that references other retirement plans such as a mis cite to title ten or if the error in the word was a mistake in its sight or mis cites to civil service retirement system we don't know the answer to that and because of that the order can't be said to express or provide for the benefit thank you you've gotten some tough question is a difficult case because on the one hand you have quite properly you have to represent the government's position with respect to what the regulations require and there's a lot of  good policy reasons behind that so that the pm is not in the position of trying to discern what is or isn't in a particular thing so the panel fully understood stan government's legitimate position in that regard and you are you're unhappy to date is that you've been faced with a case where there are some sympathetic circumstances and someone usual circumstances on the other side so  i'm right and i have my list of cases in front of me and and then i'm not certain i actually saw a case that involved two separate orders that were entered  one of the appendix section eighteen of this of that water in question the plant in which this order applies is the civil service retirement system pension plan in which jack hayward is a participant or any successor transferee plant it's true that throughout the water there were other references to the plant but eighteen is very clear this order we first order the plant at which the owner plies is a civil service retirement us with any authority did exist on the question looking to a parallel order that may not be the best way to describe but i thank you both you mr prager on both know what we're talking