wrongs having been committed which end up being held to be right what happened here is as we all know there was st an execution lien and then a levy the levy produced proceeds which paid off the execution lane and  transfer to the bank there was a student there was a complaint filed which made two claims essentially st was to avoid as a preference the transfer of cash to the bank and then to avoid as  held that there was no preference is sustainable don't go head of that mr elliot could not state a proper claim to set aside a preference on essentially two grounds st was that there was no ultimate betterment of the banks position and the theory underlying that was that the bank had a lien and therefore paying off the lien because it was the preference action that attacked not the imposition of the for holding that there was no chance to state a claim for a preference is that the payment of the the using of the cash payout the execution betterment and there is no climb but even look at the statute and it requires that the betterment be calculated this regarding the payment that was made so that the circularity in the reasoning here is to say that the bank did not have any betterment because the cash was used to pay off its lien that the five thousand five hundred and forty seven dollars b five b which holds that which which requires that the trial judge ignore the payment for determining whether the bank's position had been bettered if the payment were ignored then the lien is not satisfied and the bank would lose that lien under section five hundred and twenty two dollars f based upon mr  california law there was an execution lien yes you agree with that and it was paid and it with there was a claim of exemption filed in the supreme court yes why that mother sure held the money yes it's proper procedures under california law yes you claimed an exemption there was a hearing on it and the superior court denied the exemption that's correct and that gave the marshal or the sheriff the authority to release the funds to the bank terminate the execution lien which is what was implied because under bankruptcy law when mr elliott follows bankruptcy case the preference statute if mr elliott does validly state a claim for a preference made and we contend that he does then the object of the gift then i guess i don't know it means that the satisfaction of the lane is set aside if the preference action prevails because then that payment effectively never was made so the theory of the bankruptcy code is to protect the creditor who received the preference by restoring that creditor to what it had before the preferential payment was received so it would be entirely unfair to the bank and it's contrary to to the preference law to hold that the ban have its lien resurrected if the payment were reversed as a preference chapter thirteen and section five hundred and forty seven dollars the preference statute which would have allowed the trustee or the trustee declining then under section five hundred and twenty to age mr elliott can bring a preference action to set aside the payment and then under bankruptcy law your honor is completely correct under state law the lane is paid and it should have been discharged under bankruptcy law because that there is no preference somewhat preference statute  california law under bankruptcy law the if the payment were determined to be a preference then that execution only would be resurrected for the benefit of the bank that is why we also included claim to the five hundred and twenty two dollars f exemption over the excess of over the assets because we realize that if the preference action prevail which we think it should that the mean would still exist and we'd have to deal with that some way otherwise you know why go to court if you want to say yes i think that's i think you court my name is alexander ram i represent the police which is pacific western bank your honor i have a similar confusion about this case i think there's some circular y and also it seems to me that really the crux of what is going on is that the debtor is trying to undo what the state court had authorized us to do that you and that result is not permitted here i don't believe that there is some sort of intervening bankruptcy that should change the result the key facts here are that nobody disputes that the bank had an execution lien which was perfected prior to the ninety day preference period judgment tali found that correctly no interest pizza as a result money was released and the bank levied seized on that cash and applied it to the debt so the levy and all of those necessary actions had occurred it satisfied that valid execution lien so contrary to how the debtor characterizes it there was no double wrong here the debtor had a chance there was unnoticed hearing before the superior court with the debtor attempted to challenge the the cash why should say try to exert the exemption claim th set and the execution was satisfied then the debtor had filed bankruptcy and now the debtor again there's a lot of retroactive relief that the  is seeking to step into the shoes of the chapter seven trustee and again that we're dealing with a chapter seven case i think counts on this focus not just with the debtor is trying to step into the shoes of the chapter seven trustee in did the creditor receive better treatment then it wouldn't a chapter seven liquidation that was not the case here because judgement holly found that we already held a perfected unavoidable execution execution that nobody disputes so because of that judgement tally found well you're no better off because as the word preference connotes we did not get any kind of preferential treatment and this c arises in preference litigation where if you are secure creditor we often say well that's not a preference issue because you have the lien right so you got payments on account of your lien rights and that is what happened here  so again what it boils down to is the prime official elements preference are not satisfied here also and we've sort of addressed this before and i think the debtor again is trying to  the debtor also then tries to bootstrap it by asserting five hundred and twenty two f and that is a different provision whereby a debtor can avoid a judicial lean to the extent it impairs a has a judgment lien against his home and the debtor says this is impairing my homestead exemption in all these cases the lien presently exists at the time the bankruptcy case is spiled and again we've established that is not met here and also the nd problem is that the debtor has no entitle mint to an exemption he's already lost that fight so five hundred and twenty two dollars f cannot be met in order to those are the two statutory claims to try to claw back the cash from the bank we also raise the argument that we believe that there is a stash of limitations issue here this is a case where i believe a big impetus for filing bankruptcy was to try to deal with the the levy and the debtor had ample opportunity to bring the action timely the debtor did not the bankruptcy code section has i'm sorry the make up c code has a section that that imposes a statute of limitation to file this sort of action and it talks about the earlier and i'm talking about section five hundred and fifty dollars f talks about the earlier of a one year period or before the case is closed the case is closed case was reopened and cases reopened but also so does the period start to run again and that's the question obviously we say that that that seems highly odd that you can simply keep reopening a case that seems again i want to say that not only does the debtor have problems in terms of the merits of the case the the cases it's simply time barred the debtor reopen the case after we raised the issue in our twelve the six motion there was time barked and if you look at the timing there's no surprise there's no delay discovery there's no justification for it  and april two thousand and seventeen filed amended schedules where the debtor indicated that this that the cash were discussing was seized and then may twenty five of the same year a month later nearly the trustee files a report and no asset report usually that signifies that the case is going to be closed the said the debtors aware of the issue then proximately a month to close a case and then later on reopen it the debtor says that the debtor should have the chance for the case to be administered that again a circular because i think everyone could raise that argument so your hon the fundamental issue here is to what extent does the bankruptcy code effectively trumps state law and allow certain events which happened up to ninety days pre filing of the bankruptcy case to be reversed to be completely regardless of the impact of state law and the impact here is is twofold number one of al of bankruptcy preference action was stated because the two reasons for throwing it out for the reasons that i mentioned just don't wash and if that payment then is reversed if the if it is determined that the bank does not have the benefit of that payment then what becomes of the lien that the lane has to be resurrected for the benefit of the bank is essentially a rest judicata issue because a lien claim or excuse me an exemption claim was made in state court and was rejected was rejected on procedural grounds but aside from that this is a different set of exemptions that are being claimed your honour's are  then in regard to the statue of limitation argument as counsel on the kid there are two bankruptcy court decisions that have held that the reopening of the case does not really institute the running of the statue of limitations there are three panel decisions in the th circuit which have rejected that approach and have help with the preeminent when it's petty they're all cited in our brief which have held that in a case such as this where th the closing of the case is inadvertent and that the case truly has not been fully administered that it should be reopened and that all the right should be reinstated thank you thank you thank you counsel both  for your arguments very much interesting case matter submitted at this time that ends our session for the morning