i must say i haven't a clue what the district court's judgment might mean the document called judgment says that safety must be a quote a ten percent contribution and it doesn't elaborate i have no idea what that means how much is that and who gets it shared what ten percent would be one the total drawer certainly that was that was not our intent not our ip i guess i believe that it would be seen by your honor it's based on the docket and what would have been sent to you guys by the district court what is the answer to that question the amended judgment and judgment in favor of you know in favor of the alex party and and the amount of one hundred and ninety thousand dollars i'm trying to pull it up here real quick so i can look at it specifically so it's not an escrow but i know that there in that regard obviously there was a motion to allow the i think the insurance policies or things of that nature to waive any type of bond or prior to the settlement between the alex parties in the plaintiff so that's how you get to a common fund of one million nine hundred thousand and basically argument before the district court was that the the liability determined as against edwards common duty as determined by the jury which was seventy five percent had to be re allocated between the alex parties and safety based on me  a big us language of the illinois contribution to the fitness section three in that regard that act says that no person shall be required to contribute to one seeking contribution an amount greater than his program a share unless the obligation of one or more of the joint tortfeasor is on collectible and that event the remaining port fees are shall share the unpaid portions of the uncle at the ball obligation in accordance with their pro rata liability and in this case your honour's under the contribution act one the other rd party defendant edwards caml do ski settled with the plaintiff the the court the district court granted a good faith finding in by virtue of section two of the eleanor contribution act when that good faith finding was granted that in that statutorily precluded anybody from seeking contribution again edwards comedy is so our contribution complaint against them the rd party complaint was dismissed and statutorily nobody could see contribution against them and  safety admits this in their response that when the we decided to continue with our contribution cloning we would know that not a single bower could ever be recovered against edwards common decency that is true case and we did you did we did should it matter at all to the determination that you were aware when you settled with the plaintiff here you were aware of the good fa determination with respect to the case settlement and you knew they wouldn't have to pay any more given that good faith finding i believe that should not matter the honor and the reason why is this is the whole point of the contribution act of the public policy behind it is to encourage settlement so we want people to settle cases but we don't want to disincentive down to settle cases because for some reason  there might be an on collectible starred party defendant so that shouldn't matter at all in addition when we settled with them we very well knew that the contribution act under section one hundred dollars provided that when there is an uncle equable tortfeasor that that tort features liability has to be re allocated to the remaining twenty years so that the fact that we knew that shouldn't make a difference at all and certainly the should certainly shouldn't be any situation where a defendant a disincentive to settle with the plaintiff because of a a settling defendant that later is going to be put on the verdict form in resulted here was a very low settlement by one of the parties and a very high settlement with regard to another and then individuals go to trial the allocation with regard to percentage liability is made by the jury on the verdict form if things had been different with regard to that allocation would you still be making the same argument you're making now if the jury had reallocate we would be making the same argument to the extent that eks liability has to be redistributed i mean that's under that's a sickly provided by the contribution so that same argument would be made regardless of what the what the percentages would be so i mean the bottom line here is and i think it's important to remember that edwards council did ski was never sued by the plaintiffs the only defendant sued by the plaintiff accepted fifty thousand dollars from edwards come to d c had no effect on the plaintiff whatsoever because the plaintiff didn't have a lawsuit against edwards coming so we objected to that settlement in that good faith finding on our position that that didn't represent their pro rata share of liability but the court granted a good faith finding as is often the case and by virtue of that dismiss the claim on our claim we are the only ones who had a claim against edwards coming tuesday dismissed claim against edwards coming tuesday but the illinois contribution act says that we can still pursue our contribution claim and that that that now that edwards comedy skee became an collectible by virtue of that settlement even if it's is concerned obviously the court is well aware of the standards but there's under all of the facts and the evidence that was submitted to the jury it is clear that safety had duties in this case as it related would he have been personally liable certainly he would be personally liable even though he had absolutely nothing to do with this accident he would be personally liable he would be personally liable if one of his duties involved an employee was to perform since the issue and my question i asked if you had any state basis for the proposition that sicking or say the head of safety at any firm would be personally liable for an accident contractor rather than as an employee manner of speaking as an independent contractor in order into a contract and by virtue of the obligation under that contract contractor would not be personally liable for a flag man's error why would it make a difference that that same person was engaged as an independent contractor you can't say well the difference is the independent contractors in charge of safety because my question assumes that the employee is the head of safety and the safety contractor would be vicariously liable for the negligence of  k but you can you would be vicariously liable for his negligence i mean as the president himself you know you i mean i stole money and considering that i you know i can only tell you i've handled numerous cases where the employee in the employers sued and there's a judgment against the employee and against the employer but the employer obviously vicariously liable and here is the flagman no are there going to want to own obligations and it's very hard we had to go with this telephone book up but are there any illinois cases for the proposition that if there is say a truck owned by company x is speeding whether you can sue directly the head of the company's safety operations and say well that person should have made sure there was no speeding any state cases for that proposition i do not believe so how aren't there are you thinking that say however there are cases that operations personally because a driver exceeded the speed limit why would it make any difference under illinois law that instead of there being a head of safety operations as an employee there's a head of safety operations as an independent contractor why would that make a legal difference my point would be for the same reasons that a safety town tractor on a concern that the general contractor on a construction site can be sued for the sale yard to provide safety even though they subcontracted it to a safety upon tractor and that c p subcontractor then can also be good for that they are there to provide safety even if it now start out responding to the appeal made by the alex parties and i'll just refer to them as the alex parties so we all know alex spends a lot of their time in their briefs discussing facts that really don't have anything to do with the issue in this case as far as their appeal is concerned the facts that matter with regard to whether or not edwards can but also was collectible party are fairly he wasn't any sort of they weren't under any sort of statutory or legal cap they didn't have a defined percentage by which they could only be held liable when they were negotiating their settlement their liability was was wide open the only thing that would contribution act provides a remedy for a joint tortfeasor to seek contribution against fellow joint tortfeasor zz we have not paid their pro rated share of the common liability would that type of a statement from the illinois supreme court either be heavily persuasive or dispositive honor that i'm not familiar with that case but based on the statement that you just gave to me there i think that it could at least without knowing the facts of the be instructive the program to share  is that an escrow purely just a figure in an amended judgment or has there been some promise to pay what i'm thinking of is oftentimes a party in safety's position is going to make a  filed a motion to let live military policy international act as a bond on that judgment and i don't believe there was any objection to that so i would say that it's in escrow but it's it's there's a quotes but you can't say that over the phone is an uncle at the party is there trying to raise the percentage of fault that the jury found against international ten percent to thirty nine percent a huge increase an increase in terms of dollars that amounts to about five hundred and fifty thousand dollars now they suggest that edwards kind of the is an collectible because they settled out of the case i would suggest a different label could be applied to average but the abdicate why wouldn't the obligation here be the percentage of fault on a pro rata share read just riveted as the statute provides obligation your honor could be would be wide open until there was some sort of either i guess judgment or settlement entered into here in my mind of the obligation is the amount that they agreed to pay edwards can also get when they agree to pay and exchange for release directly with the plaintiff's it manager question points out and that is an exception here to the general rule in the contribution act in the general rule being no party should be forced to pay its own  settlement amount as opposed to what the jury determined each respective tortfeasor program but by this time your honor when the settlement was entered into  seventy five percent at fault their liability was assessed seventy five percent by the jury with that verdict they could still pay less than seventy five percent in fact it happens often in order to forego an appeal think they would agree to pay maybe fifty percent of the number as opposed to the seventy five the jury found you know the liability fixes on them an obligation to pay something what the party that is alex parties and the ellen only two words case you know under the ellen only two works case is completely distinguishable for one major fact the party that was found to be uncollectable in that instance party was capped at ten percent liability however at a bench trial the employer was found to be thirty five percent so the remaining twenty five percent subject to a statutory cap uncollectable and that was a matter of st impression if you read into the case your honor you'll see that it was a matter of st impression and it relies heavily on minnesota law and  collectable by means of any sort of a statutory cap or some sort of statutory immunity now our client think international is more like that party in the gregor case from minnesota ci illinois tool works and i think that would be the proper line of reasoning to follow we also cited to the trees in this case which i've mentioned previously and there this is another contribution claim case with three parties this case came up a lot when we were arguing about who should be on the verdict form at trial in this case the district court ultimately sided with us and decided to put edward chemicals on the verdict form the reasoning why the true this  of a jury determination about who was responsible and to what degree what alex is attempting to do is essentially what the what the parties interest in ski were told they couldn't  and the statute as you pointed out in your question your honor is in a few parts in the exception to the statute is this wording about being an collectable party that's the we don't believe that there can be a contribution can't claim based on the breach of the contract now the question may be why didn't you raise a motion to dismiss well the answer to that is because the really wasn't what they pled to coming into the case alex parties originally planned t hat we failed to supervise our own employees in other words we failed to supervise seek the international employees by the time the case was submitted to the jury they had shifted their theory of liability to say that we have failed to supervise and words c employees that's strictly basing their contribution client on a breach of contract between edwards came out of the intake international and i believe under the jackson national life insurance company case that is not a good basis for a contribution claim beyond that there's no duty here judge under spewed out at the trial court level judge gilbert found that there was a question of fact about the terms of the contract well that the time we had three days of testimony much of it from mr edwards  on the terms of it those terms are ambiguous in respect of those two items and they should have been treated by the district court as a matter of law to find that there was no duty here in other words alex is relying on a breach of