it the fundamental principle of law the trial court overlooked is that a party's honest belief can't override its duty to investigate the facts and the law of course the meaning of file the fundamental fact the trough were overlooked is that before filing a single motion in this case the compass knew the agreement on which to practice its right to say discovery to seek arbitration to obtain a protective order  had been terminated and couldn't possibly apply to a dispute for a suit on a check for this particular patient it had been terminated before the vision was treated it had been terminated before the check was issue thousand eight hundred treatment those charges were approved by workers compensation claims administrator by the name of tristar risk management and compass is a payment agent for tristar tristar is the claims administrator for the defense without a basis in fact or law across different agency relationships across different patient relationships now all encompass had to do to determine whether or not a contractual right of set off a here instead it asserted that set off the fence and it was premised on illinois common law but having compass research illinois law it would have realized it wasn't tied to a set off because it's only appropriate they were all terminated before the dates of treatment before payment was issued you know we received no response that two weeks later because we hadn't received any responses to discovery we follow  post over a month after surgery a month after surgery kind of that encompassed knew that these agreements have a terminated if they claim to have found a different agreement this time with the right into that also it would have been day and compass argue this is still belongs in this court knowing they were relying on a time agreement search here actually filed a response with an affidavit attached that included thank you know a copy of that agree then on the eve of the parties hearing maybe ten days later so remember fourteen and companies claim to have reevaluated the circumstances  submitting a filing with the court according to the trial court it was enough that encompass had to reconsider its position but under illinois law party can't hide behind ignorance in letting them claim ignorance the truck would actually fail to object that we reviewed the record and it missed the key fact and it also didn't put this ruling in context which is as explaining that agreement can apply and presumably at that time and compass had the opportunity to investigate the facts assemble the relevant documents before  if it hadn't yet investigated the facts in the law while i was praying it's answered yet again had an opportunity while preparing discovery responses again we granted three different extensions of  eighteen it should've known that it couldn't use a terminator agreement to see garbage ration for this dispute over the station and yet that's precisely what it did and it had all those opportunities before a single so in this instance an objective review of the record shows that every step of the way encompass failed to properly investigate its own records it even ignored surge of fear of police and had every opportunity to do so for one encompasses give an alternate explanation of what it found out on the one hand during a search for responsive documents on the other hand during briefing on a motion to compel arbitration motion to bogus coverage motion to states coverage of everything took place over three months but frankly it's not a mistake to find a contract you already knew existed but you would already use a brief suit correspondence it's not a mistake to later find a nd contract there's also equally this and in any event they knew you had been terminated and they persisted anyway the point here is that had a proper investigation been taken time it has to enforce the check that's properly it's rightfully it's you know that makes a mockery of the system especially if it has to expend seventy percent of the cost of the total it seeks to do briefs and in his opening remarks today the appellant did not once confront the discretionary issues that are at the heart of this appeal and we have two levels of discretion involved in reviewing what the trial court did here the st level of discretion is inherent and express and we're one hundred and thirty seven itself as this court well knows rule one hundred and thirty seven grants a trial court broad discretion in reviewing matters brought to its attention under rule one hundred and thirty seven and can even find that even a technical violation of the rule ensued but still decline to award any kind of sanction let alone a sixty thousand dollar reward like that sought here from from the appellant's presentation this morning we never once heard any discussion about about that discretionary aspect that's fundamental that the trial court has and scores of cases by the illinois appellate courts and the illinois supreme court recognize the broad discretion the trial court has after all the trial court is the person that referee the fight that led to the same sions issue and has the best sense of what parties conduct was intentional what parties conduct fell below the pail and whether an award of sanctions even for based even where is what happened here based on a series of mistakes is warrant it as i mentioned that discretionary concept that i was just describing in rule one hundred and thirty seven dollars is then expanded on as the case becomes before this court and this court in a in a range of circumstances court is reviewing on an abuse of discretion standard has discretion laded in the procedural rule itself and for that reason that we have basically  two discretionary levels of review involved illinois appellate courts by my research have only reversed denials of sanctions four times and in cases that we could discern again out of out of scores of rule won thirty seven dollars decisions in total and the reason for that again goes to the broad discretion afforded to the trial court to decide whether the conduct was so over the line in most cases involve some sort of intention and misrepresentation to the reaching its decision to take a look at the couple of cases that have been decided that reverse denials of sanctions and compare the conduct there with what is a eged here all of those cases involved extreme egregious conduct that lead to expansive expensive proceedings for instance the for americ case which is the primary case upon which the appellant here relies on the filing of a bad faith motion coupled with an affirmative representation made by the plaintiff's lawyer to the trial judge in that case resulted in a five years subsequent period of litigation where the trial court was called upon to issue twenty one separate orders as you know your honor from the from the briefing here my client realized within four or five months that it had mistakenly asserted a right to set off based on the one of the two contracts that were entered into between my client and the two entities cohen by this dr kobi and what my client did is upon recognizing that that contract was no longer in force my client quickly and quickly corrected the prior filing that made it tender one hundred percent of the relief that the plaintive sought in the case and it unwound the two billing situations that had been intertwined such that the one involving that you've read about involving patient d a s where my client mistakenly paid nearly one hundred thousand dollars to prairie search care and asked for the money back and was told it would not be returned that dispute was unwound from this one and proceeded off to arbitration and in this matter having removed that issue from this case the the trial to make sure that prairie surge of care received one hundred percent of the relief it was entitle to in the case and that the other dispute would not impair this one from being  resolved alcohol i'm sorry to interrupt but you said that within four months your client realized there was the best state how are you measuring that four month period i'm measuring it your honor from the client and counsel as alluded to it informed opposing counsel that that there was a contractual basis for set off it turns out that they were at that time focusing on the wrong prairie contract but they shortly after that realized that they had enough they had the agreement with prairie search of care however that agreement had been terminated and i'd like to hear anything to back you up a little bit because i really want to follow your argument you're saying your answer was filed in march in by august's it was filed and i'm sorry your honor it was filed in may sorry ok may serve the defense and in august my client and its counsel really believe they had a contractual right to set off and they communicated that to opposing counsel who informed them that they were relying on the wrong agreement prairie the two entities prairie spine versus prairie surger care but did not inform us at that time that there was exact duplicate agreement with prairie surger care nor that that agreement had been terminated ok so they realized the mistake mixing up contracts but they went on to make other be in november so we're now less than six months out from the answer they re a they they discovered the terminations notice which and i would commend the court's review of it's in the common law record it to fourteen and and in terms of the basis for the confusion about that is when you review that notice you'll see the notice was only sent on behalf of prairie spine  references and it's re align that it's it's terminating the relationship that the contract with perry spine and in buried in the text of the notice it also mentions prairie surjit care so it wasn't we didn't have what i'll call pardon my common language we you never claimed terminations notice for per surge of care that compounded the misunderstanding of the facts about the dates of the contracts in the dates that they were terminated all of that was fought was figured out by november and at that point my client tender full relief to the plaintiff and took steps to separate the arbitration claim so and they sought to stop arbitration of the d s matter and the briefing an argument that proceeded after that in november and it's the hearing from february two thousand and twenty is very  what what what appears to us happened is that perry search of care decided to try to take advantage of these prior mistakes and to try to prevent the d a s arbitration issue from going ahead well was arbitration allowable under the contracts that you think apply because my understanding was arbitration with not even on the table in any of the country no your honor it was it was there was an arbitration provision  effect with so we have tight timing here let me explain so both contracts were signed prarie spine and perry surge of care in december of two thousand sixteen in february early february of two thousand and eighteen while the perry surge or care contract was still in effect my client made the payments on on patient d s by mistake of about one hundred thousand dollars to purchase surgical care that contract that was still in effect at that time had an arbitration provision and in section three thirteen of that agreement had a provision that allowed my client to recover mistaken payments and other was based on as i mentioned the circumstances of the terminations notice from february of two thousand and eighteen only specifically reference prairie spine is the entity giving the terminations notice but at the conclusion of that notice said also please remember purdy surjit care and doctor could be the owner of the two facilities who didn't sign any contract individually with my client how long did it take your  client to realize that arbitration was not an option on the t m matter your honor yes it took my it took my client in till november of after the lawsuit had been filed and then it promptly rectify that mistake here is that there were reasonable reasons for confusion about the interplay of these two agreements how and when they had been terminated and what was in effect at the time happened here and unlike the other cases the very few cases where sanction denials have been reversed on appeal what my client did is when it realized that confusion it did the right thing it tendered full only the matter that truly belonged in arbitration could proceed there that way i thank you for your time and invite any further questions you have when you say they tendered full payment were their interests provisions in that as well yet yes your honor might my client tendered full payment which included statutory interest under the owner interest act prarie surge of care complained and opposed the amount of interest but when you look at the final transcript in this case pre surgery cares counsel concedes that the interests that we tendered from the very beginning were the appropriate amount thank you thank you very abuse of discretion by definition where no court could reasonably find as illinois law holds that a mistake in a right of duty to investigate that's an abuse of discretion that's what berger do that way too often so yeah it's your request for damages broken down in terms of damages for the litigation up to the point of compelling arbitration and then after arbitration yes and your honor we actually just because we would have had to file a petition and all that we started i believe from a once we got your answer went through discovery because obviously thank you very much the arguments are concluded will be taking the manner under advisement hopefully rendering a decision without undue delay thank you very much for your arguments