have ten minutes preferreds if you would you like to reserve any part of doubt for your rebuttal i would like to reserve at least two minutes please all right i'll try to help watch the clock and you can as well all right thank you pumping operations and ran from the oil pumping operations to a disposal facility the purpose of the line is is that when oil is pumped up to the ground  both water and oil comes to the ground and there is mechanisms that are used to separate the water from the oil once the water is separated from the oil the water is this appeal had to do with the fact that it is meconis position that the federal district court could have made a determination and was mandated to make a few terminations that because of the release of the salt water was soley caused by the excavator involved and the the argument is that this particular is too should never went to the jury that there was there was only one conclusion that could have been reached as to who caused the actual release of the salt water you know how to count so how can that be how can that be true i mean when i read this it sounds like something i might have gotten in law school in my torts class about you know you get literally could've gotten a hypo that says somebody was negligent in failing to report that they had this line and somebody else did something and then acted negligently afterwards who was the cause of the who was the cause of it and i think you say one has to go to charity because there's mixed causation here and stuff to jury to kind of figure out contributory issues like the black letter law case that way so i don't i didn't quite get your argument that it only i understand  not reporting their line to the one calls herself it's just it's actual damage to the line the cost of repairing that wine because they were not registered with the one called notification center that there's two particular damages here the damage to the line and then the nd damage is actually the real property damage as a result of the release it's important to note that at the time that this room go up he struck the line line was not charged with salt water and so if mr and called he would if the pack showed and they want to spew did that if indeed it only took a couple hours to locate the owner when the release was actually discovered and the the owner of the facility testified in deposition and are in the exhibits if he would have been contacted he would have come and repaired the wine in fact did come and repair the lying immediately after it was discovered that there was salt water release that the federal district court had ample facts which were undisputed and as a matter of law to determine that the actual property damage not damage the line but the actual property d never being able to predict after forty two years of doing this things turn out either at trial or on appeal so i raised that because i truly thought perhaps judge waters heart find dist judge out here had and maybe misinterpreted the statute at issue in finding my client negligent as a matter of law i raise that as as a cross appeal you know as i was preparing for argument i thought maybe i didn't need to do that because as as the court has already commented this went to a jury and i any harm if that's a problem for your client that you need to get that wiped clean but i don't it doesn't sound like it is as long as like a lot of the jury rulings stays in place it's not a problem you know you're right judge it's not a any anything that affects his business up in northeastern montana where he continues to excavate for a living it was just that looking at the statute for further guidance  i thought if we got that far i'd be asking this court to decide whether or not the court's district court's interpretation of the notification statute made any sense in light of the most significant significant factor in this case which is that mid continent through its insureds failed to comply with the statutory requirement to be a member of the one call notification center but with that to the side my my arguments are you you are going to affirm the jury's verdict then i don't i wouldn't be talking about it but you know the jury went out after three days of listening to testimony and as as the court noted there are there's no appeal of jury instructions that negligence instruction was given to the jury without objection which is the standard one here in montana as well elsewhere it says you know that you have to act as a reasonable person under the circumstances but it really was irrelevant because both parties have been found in determined by judge waters to be negligent as a matter of law so the jury after three days of listening to this and being properly instructed they went out and it is part of my supplemental excerpts i think that it's page one zero wait a minute entry they went out at twelve forty pm during the noon hour didn't even have lunch they came back thirty seven minutes later one  with answering the special verdict st question was allen's negligence because amid continents damages and they said no they did it in thirty seven minutes so mid continent on appeal contending that somehow judge waters should have found as a matter of law that my client's negligence in violating a statutory provision somehow reasonable  minds min and women on this jury should have concluded that that we were in it our negligence was a cause well the fact remains is a fair trial was conducted here in billings and the jury went out and thirty seven minutes after listening to all of the testimony none of which is being raised on appeal as being introduced in there and they concluded unlike mid continent argument that reasonable men and women found the other way so one of the one of the justices made that comment as i see that is that it's a huge huge problem for mid continent in prevailing on their appeal because this was a jury question the way judge waters set it up both parties were determined to be negligent and the causation issue had to be determined by the jury and as we know in real life after this trial was presented and fairly presented on behalf of  test we don't have a trial transcript but this case was tried fairly and the fact remains that my client is out in the middle of northeastern montana it's beautiful i attached a couple of photographs of the area  question or not downtown billings or seattle or anywhere else pages one hundred and eleven and one hundred and twelve he's out doing his work he did everything that he's supposed to do as an excavator in m  that subject if what you're talking about is he didn't stop and call one call well if you called one call there's there's no information and for him to have the part that i raise on appeal is i don't believe the statute  imposes upon an excavator in montana to stop his excavation or her excavation procedures look around try to figure out in the middle of northeastern montana who might own this line that appears to be abandoned and the property owner joe pictured his testimony at trial was very clear and i included it in our brief he said he said something to the extent it was quote shit i just i come from abandoned oil wells in that area so the bottom line is your honour's i i contend that mid continent got a fair trial a jury  would ask this court not to substitute its opinion whatever that might be in place of the journey that had the front row seat to listen to this case i made a decision in an as a very short period of time with proper instructions being given to them and by the way we were right or wrong we were determined to be negligent for not calling one call or trying to locate the owner and  contention on the cross appeal is pretty simple that statute when you read the entire statute in its entirety it only applies if someone is a member of the one call notification center otherwise it's imposing a duty upon an excavator to do that investigation that could last days in days to determine where this line came from and who might own it this this one came from called the n vil well which is about five miles away from where the excavation was taking place so i'm contention was the court should have the district court should have said failure to be a member of the one call is th argue all of this in front of the jury everything that they're alleging on appeal that somehow you should reverse they got to argue that they got to they've got to talk about her negligence they've got to make the argument that we were the last it's not a doctrine in montana anymore the last clear chance to prevent the damages from occurring all of that was argued it was presented to the jury and you know in some your hono was presented gave mid continent its chance to be you know to collect one hundred and fifty thousand dollars from my client who is out there complying with the law as best he could and then he gets trapped at the end by saying he should have called one call and they would have said as there was some testimony what are they going to say we have one called ticket it doesn't show mid continent insured on it so what are they going to do and by the way i would have i argued that the plan of had a duty the burden of proof in this case to prove that some other result would have occurred and that's the standard burden of proof instruction and mid continent provided no testimony or any evidence that would suggest that if alan would have called one call or done something else this these damages when occurred so i think by ten minutes is thank you so much for your time thank you yes it will be very brief this is exactly what i didn't want to happen in terms of bringing in what the jury decided the whole reason for bringing this appeal was well received a large event that the federal district court had ample undisputed facts to make a determination on causation based upon the damages of the release itself and if if we if we're going to look at it we did i did not appeal the procedures that went along in terms of admission of evidence or or jury conduct or anything like that there is no appeal on the on how the trial was procedur