please the court the issue that's presented before you today is whether arcus had a duty to prevent or report the delivery of a large propane gas tank to a commercial building in the city of chicago after nine years on this job with three security guards on duty with eighty surveillance cameras covering the first floor of the building the elevators in the building and all floors of this building with a security that required these guards to report every and any situation that could lead to property loss or property damage did r v s have a duty where i was security guard testified that he had previously stopped people trying to bring tanks into this building through the lobby and onto a passenger elevator where in august security guard has testified that if he had seen a tank coming into this building we don't know what door of the building this came into it's not part of the record but we know that he came into the building and we know that it went up in an elevator to the sixth floor in the two thousand there was no other fire problem right natural gas mean i go to my right have you mean i'm just saying i think it's propane so i think they're telling my by the way if you need to know the stuff which is what you were still a repair things and make them then you should get the propane from them in even after this explosion that there was seven of your brief page eleven of your brief you point out that the air for the explosion the new procedure was established and even then mars the management company decided they were going to propane and if i can go back and answer your first question first in two thousand people shut the gas off to the building advised the tenants they could use alternatives in order to conduct their business until the gas was reenergized once the gas was turned back on in two thousand peoples in mahler's instructed the tenants that they could no longer use propane gas in fact there's testimony in this record that people's instructed that they wouldn't reenergize the building until the ten certain things including removal of propane tanks from the building so that was the status in two thousand that's people yesterday you actually write this in the briefs and they talk about people's gas being insistent we're not going to turn around for individual tenants their natural gas until we know was not to be in this building outside of that interval where the gas was turned off to the building after april of two thousand and two when this explosion occurred the building manager said to argus you need to be checking these people coming into this building we want you to report to us when a delivery man comes in with a tank report to us and send them up to our office we want you to do your job that's why we have you in this lobby tonight if you decide you're right that's right that specific directive no i can't stand before you would say that we put that in writing or that we said you need to do that you need to inspect a tank before this explosion but well they would be much smarter tank right the security guards making nine dollars an hour  two she would want them anywhere near a tank of propane reiterates here and when they say inspected take i don't mean to perform a scientific test to determine that it's propane i mean i see a big tank i need to figure out what's in the tank i need to ask the right question that's what i'm talking about the propane tanks the record estimated i believe it about one hundred pounds it's not a tank that can be carried upstairs it's a large tank that comes into the building on a cart and is moved in an shall perform the security services as outlined according to the post orders then we get to the security manual the security manual is one hundred twenty five page document that i guess authored for security services at this building inside the security manual argues his own language suggests that the procedures are designed to minimize and prevent losses to the client due to security and emergency conditions that can result from fire fast and explosions i guess in its own language said the guards head to observe and report any violations of rules observe and report any problems report any and every situation which might lead to damage or loss of property every and any situation that's argus is words without limitation in a security manual that they wrote for this see those where the reliance of the other were of the third person his induced him in the series to him would be more to forgo other remedies or precautions against such a risk the hom results from their negligence as fully  we we have on it we hired a security firm to guard this building with millions of dollars injure enjoy even a specific purpose to prevent loss or damage or property from things like explosions ok we were lied to we hired experts in the industry we put them down there we gave an eighty surveillance cameras we allowed them to put three people in our building for the shift in question one monitoring the video feeds one supervising the entire building one operating the freight elevator on which the tank would have gone up we said to them this is your duty we're putting you here to to stop monitor prevent report anything that could lead to damage or loss of property in this building we relied on them to do that job now we didn't ask them to figure out if somebody had an envelope in their pocket with something dangerous in it we said monitor report and prevent things that could lead to damage a property in this building rolling in a huge child painting a rethink in the entire world was there well again i would remind the court that i distracted the security manual insurance will have to pay rather than the building's insurance should anything go wrong or be an explosion or an armed robbery when our words right now i don't think we are and here's why why we've got the incident in two thousand that creates the awareness ok we've got it i guess explosion in this building we have people coming in and saying ok we're going to reenergize the building but you've got to get rid of all of your alternative sources of gas including propane ok so we've got that knowledge we've got a security company that's been there for years for nine years knows about the incident in two thousand knows about the explosion we equipped them as best we can with security cameras with  guards with it and we're not again we're not talking about something that's undetectable we're talking about something that can be observed by standing there on a monitor certainly in the elevator and all we're asking is if they would in addition to the security manual in the contract here we have the testimony of the argus employees how the boarders was the argus employee on duty on the date this explosion occurred in april of two thousand and two he said before two thousand and two tanks had to be taken up on a freight elevator before april one two thousand and two he had stopped people trying to bring tanks through the lobby onto a passenger elevator he also testified that if he had seen a tank that was unlike the thin nero tanks he was used to he would have stopped the delivery person and would have asked what was in the tank that's  with a propane tank on the freight elevator under everything that the argus guard knew should he have made that phone call should he have called a rich man and said are we supposed to let propane tanks in i know that after two thousand we're not supposed to have propane in this building that's all it would have taken it was for a jury to decide under the terms of this enormous security man manual with the history of the duties that they had previously undertaken and shouldn't imagine  pouncer that it's not often we have insurance companies offer saying duty is not a question of law you know it's a question for twelve years of shoes that's what we need we need people who come off the street decide what we should do and we don't hear that and i don't mean to make fun of that's what this is and  to we change i mean but i'm not asking you to change that well settled principle of law the existence of the duty is a question of law even argus won't tell you they didn't have a duty they had a duty to provide security  client child requests and the whole point of all this is that security services at the client's request that requires interpretation of the language that language has many different meanings i guess in its security manual provided some of the definition for those terms but that term is the nature ambiguous and once you get to in ambiguous term like that it's inappropriate for the trial court to is to ascribe its own meaning what did security correct but what they did but what they did to say what jay richmond testified to is that he advised the guards you need to determine why people are in this building what they're doing here for what purpose and if it's inappropriate you need to escort them from the building but the vast majority that is explained was for bombs another called almost people now but there are now one panhandlers hanging around the jewelry which is a good idea but those duties were in no way limited in that regard according to the terms of the own manual that they wrote i mean when you take on the responsibility to prevent loss of property by any and all means report any and every situation that can that can result in property damage and you don't limit that duty and that's something that you write yourself in order to get this contract what we're saying is the jury should be allowed to determine did the failure to stop a big dangerous tank of gas coming into this commercial building did argus this failure to say hey wait a minute i got a check on this was that something that was covered by the terms of the contract the security manual and based upon their prior behavior they had redirected people bringing tanks into this building before away from the as necessary as this first question was you know away from the front door of that language is all in the security manual in addition to the language asking them to report to monitor the to prevent any incidents that could lead to damage to the building that's why it's a question of fact that's why a jury should have been allowed to decide this because the manual gave these security guards certain responsibilities and whether or not this particular incident fell within the general language the general all encompassing language that are distracted we think should have been decided by a jury one covering also a couple minutes was full of crap reply i i can address the statute of limitations security and his affidavit he attested that the security guards have the obligation to prevent delivery of propane gas to a commercial building and i think under the law that they had opinion is admissible on the interpretation of their duty under this contract if you don't mind i'm going to address the last argument real quickly here on the affidavits i believe it is a matter of discretion with the trial court and if you look at the range of glenview versus north korea woods water until the company t assess the ambiguity so what is in our opinion the law that it's up to the trial court of the discretion of the of the experts affidavits we addressed in our case that if the defects that continue with them there's one defect i believe that stood out in this and that is that these experts never did identify what they reviewed the even make those opinions so they're not even using their opinions to interpret words of the contract but later ron if i can i'm going to move to the main argument here and and what i heard here is what i've seen in the present all long and it is to me this is it is a clear expansion of took the words security services said alone just alone those two words could be ambiguous ok but when you put it in the context of the whole sentence it security services that were requested by the client i don't think there's any dispute when you look at it in that sense it's not in vegas there's no there's no discussion even before the judge mentions the word m and big u s and in her room she mentions in the ruling but there's not even review of what words are in big u s what words are susceptible to two different term potations in a contract because it says security services as requested by the client so what the court did and i think correctly is just analyzing we revis as you request the services with the understanding that it has to be specific and it can't be expanded and i think that's what we did in any way shape or form you look at the contract or the manual there's nothing in there that says that they were going to specifically check any packages being brought into the premises the moment propane tanks or any text and the one thing about that is this is something that's well known it was always known the quality of the security guard think that would be required to do that type of thing is different than the seven eight dollars an hour and they could stepha differently if he did that but it was really up to the country squire was up to to request the services they knew tanks were being brought into they wanted things to be checked they could have done that and they never did they never did this case and i think you're absolutely right there's nothing in any of that testimony or anything in that manual says that they're going to check packages as a whole different effort i think judge brewer knew that you know the type of effort they're talking about and this one getting into the expanded it's sort of a an expansion you look at the daily center in newtown the security steers and there's all of that the securities in completely different they're checking cars checking things being prodded and that was not what was being done in the mailers build it was free access to the to the building and and to maybe i don't know for sure because guesses were going to be bought in anyways or there's all sorts of things that were supposed to be brought here the argument here is maybe propane wasn't supposed to be nervous that was the thing that exploded but certainly other things are being brought in or they need to do their work  but if they want good services and they requested it maybe we're not here but it wasn't you know her and i think it's patently unfair under the facts in the law to expand the duty after the fact to include th think that's the fundamental problem here isn't it we're going to fundamental fairness in contract law they had agreed to two requests services and pay for there's another central only here they were going to pay for the services as part of the contract and their insurers i can be held on the hook for disastrous events even though i don't know what they could have done differently and any of these things if you write a contract that we're on the hook you're on the hook right you're in the maybe way they're all going out of business i would restatement is that there's an element of reliance that they're going to and that's clearly not here i mean mr richmond knows what's going on he has the right if he if he says that he thinks propane is not appropriate for the building he could put that in the lease agreements with his tenants and say you can't bring it and then inform the security guards that it forced it but that's not in any way shape or form what he did either ok and so for him to claim which i did actually i don't think it's when i think this is sort of a fabrication after the fact to try to get a duty established but mr richmond he can't really say that there's that's right or reliance here because he knows that thanks for being brought in he knows this and all he can testify to is he has two guards to maybe check to see if somebody was in here and find out the reason but even if they asked that question even if they did follow up with that in the person said they were here to make a delivery and shorter delivery document fact the matter is they would have better been anyways because they showed a basis to be in the building and that's all they did but i know that you know mr richmond knew that this is going on and if he wanted to services he could have asked for that he chose to ensure that  there is no evidence in this record that jay richmond knew that propane tanks were being delivered after the building was reenergized in two thousand he no it's a misrepresentation of his testimony he knew propane was allowed to bring the interval where the gas was turned off to the belding he specifically indicated in his testimony and i'll find the pages for you i believe it's five nineteen if the record he specifically testified that he knew during that interval the propane was being delivered after the building was re energized he had no knowledge of any propane being delivered to this building that was something that was represented in our guesses briefs and stated just now in the end if you look at the testimony it's simply in accurate when he was asked that question he limited that knowledge to the interval where the gas was turned off to the building we are not asking this court to expand on the duties under the contract in the security manual what we're saying is this case involves interpretation of language interpretation of the language in the documents the interpretation of the duty based on what these are security guards had done for nine years that's a question of fact the trial court said it she said when we see security services i mean it's such an impact he was term what our security services she made the point those services can vary from building to building and location to location then she improperly ascribe own meaning after finding the security services can have many meanings she chose one what we're saying is i'm not saying we win today what we're saying is under these facts with this security manual drafted by a company that's been doing this for years that promise to observe report prevent monitor pedestrian traffic monitor elevator traffic what we're saying is only let a jury decide if  to do something as simple as say is that propane in that tank what if you got in that tank we're not asking them to inspect packages this was a huge tank rolled into a commercial building all my asking is to you for you to allow a jury to say you know what argus may have agreed to do that this was not a question of law to be decided by a court this involves the interpretation of language and the meaning of language is a classic question of fact this court well knows this comes here on summary judgment the depositions the documents the testimony has to be strictly construed against the moving party if the language improper to make a determination as a matter of law that's all we're saying and we'd ask that you reverse this case send it back to the trial court so that a jury can make the determination thank you very much thank you for the arguments in the