my name is molly steele and i'm here on behalf of i d s leading us on leg room whom i will call allegro airlines for all our benefit i think i would like to speak for fifteen minutes and reserve five minutes f rebuttal and please do feel free to ask me questions because i well imagine that you know that you have a number of them ok i'd like to cover three points in the course of your the contemptuous waters that he did because he did not fully consider mexican law and it does seem to me that this has pretty much conceded that there should be a full and fair hearing on mexican law if that is the case of course we will be able to get into the record without question the fact that the federal labor board has in fact total total magro they cannot return the planes but on this record i believe that in order to send it back to the well actually we would prefer that you find that next that mexican law is clear and that you can it's a pure question of law as i'm sure this court knows under will forty four point one foreign a pure question of law to be considered a no vote by this court and you can consider mexican law from any source and it's not limited to even do what the parties provide you can go out and do your own research and of course judge march own has ruled you do send this back to the district court for a full new hearing on mexican law we would hope that that i think it's clear from the record that that is not raised due to prada and were not blocked from bringing a motion to purge in the district cour did have jurisdiction i would deny it that's prejudging the issues that are not yet before him and we respect fully request that some indication of mexican law be given to him so that if the issues are presented with this record and properly appeal then we can consider them but the fact that it's of the normal issue doesn't mean we can grab it on that basis alone oh all right but mexican excuse me you're right you have to do it on the record but you can also interesting way enough on the question of foreign law you are not limited to what was before the district court it's a very unusual situation this appellate court actually do its own research into foreign law and make its own determination if it wishes counsel not normally it isn't for law developed in the district court by the use of experts in that law yes your honor and of course those expert opinions are before the district court in this case and they are part of the record so that's what you're asking us to look at the relative expert opinions that were before the district court i'm also asking the court to look at the statutes the mexican law statutes because those are acts of state yes your honor and those before the district court on the motion to vacate now pegasus will say that they were not part of the record on appeal but in cases involving contempt this court is not necessarily limited by what was before the district court if i may pull my p enrich mark reparation versus timber falling consultants even though i knew even though the issues were not raised before the district court this court said that the propriety and of contempt can be attacked on appeal and it's not weighed even though it's raised for the first time on appeal and of it that's a little different issue than asking us to go outside the record of what  in the district court to determine a question of appeal yes your honor that that is a different question but the cases do say that you can perform your own independent research into foreign law because  also we have filed affidavits of mexican lawyers mexican labor lawyers and pegasus has filed a declaration of carlos sierra that in the second appeal they have made it a part of the record and we have made the decision of the mexican labor board part of the record that's part of the record allowed in the second appeal yes your honor it was not stricken from our brief and it is when you say it's part of the record it it was filed it's part of the record it's it's part of the record excerpts on the second appeal at what point in the also in addition if you choose not to remain and to that to the district court for a full and fair hearing on mexican law you can also determine if you think that mexican law is just too complicated and the interplay between the mexican labor board and the mexican bankruptcy court boccia both of which are federal entities you can sue us fontenay grant comedy to the mexican legal system and i would i urge that that be done in this case because whether section nine twenty one applies to lease assets is a question for the mexican legal system to determine more appropriately than the united states court separate occasions that it be made the recipient of the fines and on each occasion judge march ruled that that money would go to the clerk of the court that was a very clear decision that he made on more than one occasion then in january they filed their motion for quote clarification scuse me back up on january the sixteenth when pegasus filed its motion to amend the order to make the fines directly payable to pegasus he ruled that he lacked jurisdiction to amend the order and that he could not decide it but five days later on their motion clarify he says i don't lecture stiction i'm just giving my intent from the earlier one but this last sentence is a clear change he says it's further ordered that the clerk of the court shall disburse to pegasus the funds being held on its behalf in this action that clearly changed what happened to this money more than a million dollars went to pegasus they've been earning interest on it for two years that january twenty first order is void because he didn't have jurisdiction endurance and pegasus should be ordered to return the money and pay it back with interest going back to the october three and not tobar ten orders the contempt order was voided because pegasus never put on any actual evidence of its daily losses of what its at my actual evidence i mean real testimony and true evidence they said we have a witness here but they never put a witness on and so they never made a proper offer of proof they said oh but the planes are worth one hundred fifty million that doesn't show what the actual losses were per day no where in there in this record is their testimony of the actual losses per day they are going to say but the judge said i don't think you've controverted that two hundred fifty thousand dollars a day have you and at first geoffrey kirk's mark did say no your honor but then you went on to say we would suggest we did provide evidence in the september nineteenth brief that it was not nearly that controvert i think he really did your honor because he referred to the evidence at the last hearing and that evidence did show that the speech acts actually added to the value of the amount by saying it shouldn't be calculated on a daily basis because it wasn't yet liquidated and on both those scores i think the evidence does show that he continued and maintained his objections to the two hundred fifty thousand dollars per day but in addition if these were coercive contempt fines the judge did not consider any of the factors undermined workers that he was required to consider he never considered a legros financial resources he never considered the serious of the financial burden on allegro and he never considered whether the fines of two hundred fifty thousand dollars a day would be affect discuss the foreign state compulsion to fans this is that the under the restatement third in general i state may not require a person to do an act in another state that is prohibited by the laws of that state point oh it was raised seven times in september nineteenth hearing it was raised seven times scuse me i've got all the different ways that it was raised and i can give your honor the page numbers if you would like it was raised in this response to the rule seventy motion it please the court i'm susan freeman and i'm if you're in here on behalf of pegasus let me go first to the specific questions of the court what does the court have to decide now i believe that the court needs to decide that on the record before the district court at that point in time that the district court discontent orders in october of two thousand and three if it did not abuse its discretion those contempt orders were proper and appropriate if in determine what the mexican law is both as a matter of fact and law this is and at different points in time and can determine whether in fact allegro did all that it could to return the planes to p have an opportunity to present the facts and the law at the district court level the appeal really needs to be dismissed if you're going to be trying to decide the merits of mexican law this is very much an issue of fact and law we to comply with the judgment of the district court but that's all to be decided in when they bring your world sixty motion or motion approach content at the district court after this court we man's and then we can deal with the issue of what happened at the labor board and what the union did and what happened in bankruptcy court and what could have been done and what was done and why they didn't try to register the planes this the court order and so forth that's not good evidence supports the two hundred fifty thousand dollars we have a brief that says it's two hundred fifty thousand dollars a day we have an offer of proof saying my witnesses are here in court and willing to testify and able to testify as to the amount of damages that are set forth in our brief it did not come to the point of actually burdening the court with the time of introducing testimony because the court said to the lawyer therefore like broke do you contest you don't contest the two hundred fifty thousand dollars a monthly rent of not having the planes turned over and about the deter you are a shin in the value of the aircraft it didn't deal with any of that and it didn't really contest the two hundred fifty thousand dollars in damages what mexican law years and what the mexican supreme court has said about the particular statutes that they've relied on but second this is very much a question of the application of statutes and court rulings to the fact to controvert that and it was not really an issue for the district court to decide this report wasn't asked to and did not go back and reconsider what was mexican law instead it just decided whether it had clay or whether it had jurisdiction to clarify its order and say that in can issue orders in aid of execution even if it modifies the original order so you have the right to go forward and even if you need to modify it you can issue orders in aid of execution when there's been a statement if you so that's one basis for doing it and the second basis is that there's no change at all in the original order it's just clarifying the ultimate beneficiary will be and even saying that you know this was some of the money is now sitting there so i'm going to allow it to go ahead and be transferred over to pegasus and out of the courts registry additional money that comes in still has to come into the registry it's still for the ultimate benefit effect is that it can be transferred to  the final judgement is blocked by enforcement of another country's laws all i'm asking is that the court interpret commercially reasonable in terms of how long it would take to return it's to be an indefinite period of time aircraft begin doing it immediately do not use the aircraft for any commercial gain of revenue for the commercial use and do it as quickly as commercially reasonable or commercially feasible  that's in an open ended indefinite period of time because of a pre strike notice that has been in place or that has been given in mexico so it's march owns that whatever whatever might happen in mexico and i'm not ruling now on the you stipulated to this judgment you have to abide by this judgment and at least with respect to assets that are in the united states i said report can rule on the effect of my judgment and require you to comply with the judgment why you're in the united states and why you assets in the united states and he said i'm not ruling on the effect down in mexico but you do have assets here and you can turn them over you have bank accounts there you have you have aircraft that are here and the meaning of a federal court order role as the judge and that is to rule on the facts and the evidence that are presented to him and when you're presented with evidence when he is presented with evidence as to what happened in mexico and mexico and foreign law experts on each side i'm sure he will rule open mindedly on the facts and the law that is presented to him he doesn't have that yet what use has is somebody that comes in stipulates to a judgment before him then comes in on emotion and says i want i can return it i stipulate that i can return it and i have begun returning these planes and here's my schedule for when i want to return it and no you know i'm not saying that mexico is preventing me from returning it but that doesn't doesn't do anything but this report says you know you say that you want to return it over the course of september through december under your schedule i think commercially feasible it might order means you know don't turn the planes around in there but don't continue using them to generate revenue that's my orders as and return them now and i'll give you a week to return them and that that were in the u s and we haven't done anything more to turn it over you know it's not surprising that on that he had discretion and yes or five to six russian to say you're in contempt of court now when you come back again and give him the evidence and give him the ok question of foreign law is that a question of fact or law when i started practicing what was unquestionably a question of fact and we always asked the court to take judicial notice it's turned into a question of law i believe it was ten clearly did raise mexican law and i can give you the page numbers in our personal seventy response but we was raised over and over and over that next consul opposing counsel the argument is not that it wasn't discussed it was that it was seventy motion pages eighty five through eighty nine it was also raised separately by mr tell us here on in his declaration he said the mexican labor law will not allow us to give up the planes and i believe there was also a question about why allegro kept on operating that's also required by mexican labor law mexican labor law really is truly different from american labor law and that's that's why  it's so difficult i think that's why it was so difficult for the judge to really believe that that could possibly be the law because once a strike takes effect of course the union takes over the entire premises matter of the under rule six will leave oh i think there's some war about filing permission isn't there some law about filing permission to proceed with the rule sixty b motion or something like that but i am not sufficiently knowledgeable i know that we thought about it and could not and also my client could not afford to file the sixty motion that we had prepared because it's in bankruptcy and there's no way they could afford to bring i were raised before the district court and all that is explained in our brief and you'll see the page numbers and you really will see that but this is claims that federal statutes in mexico and in mexico are not state federal statutes are clearly and unquestionably acts of state and here the and also the decree of the highest labor tribunal in mexico is an act of state non government official yes indeed yes u s courts should not interfere with the official acts of a foreign sovereign within its own territory and there's something else i need to make very clear and this is very important we are not appealing from the september nineteenth order after which three planes in the united states were seized we are complaining about that remain in mexico how on your time has expired if you could wrap up in the next thirty seconds or so yes your honor we think that there was abuse of discretion in granting these contempt orders and that they should be s your honors the morning i mean it please the court my name is stand gibson and it's my privilege to represent the appellant farmers insurance company of newark in this matter i would like to reserve five minutes f