may place the credit my name is don of a blind and i represent the plaintiff insurers in this case the traverse companies the entire premise of roger's cartridges argument in this case is based on conjecture that because traders issued a policy to rogers in one year it must have issued the same policy to rogers in the years before or the years after every them privately reversed subsequent policies there are no documents that provide evidence of the terms and conditions of the missing policy mistake discovery done across the board and the parties together put in what they were agreed were the minimal pieces of potentially secondary evidence they could support any sort of finding ok the parties agreed there was no factual dispute it was it was a reading an interpretation of those particular items it's not a bare the things that a mistake ok so here i think you have to also consider that you obviously can't prove a negative the way you can prove a positive so certainly i soon disclosed documents that they had some other insurance employees period that period you did there is nothing like that we did all kinds of just every in that respect of them and their advice they didn't find policies they didn't find out policies and they didn't find any you know with respect to that let's talk about the jay allison i understand that it assumes there reza one time i would say in all likelihood it piracy issues before that if you better renewal depending on the rez a previous policy but just because it's a renewal doesn't mean that the terms and conditions are the same things can change you can have a renewal but upon renewal you make some modifications to the extra coverage so i think it speaks to the existence but it doesn't speak to the terms and conditions and since additional information about what the terms and conditions  that the existence existence and the policy that is referenced by that would rule in the space of the missing policies we can see that the existence but that doesn't speak to the average years for which there is no indication that that was a renewal there's nothing there's only the book in this appeal rogers is claiming that there's enough secondary evidence in the record to prove that the existence and the terms and conditions of a series of commercial general liability policies and adam would be a policies that travers allegedly issued to riders in the  rogers in those years tracing back the genesis of mr copland maybe but now it is uncontested that the basis of his statement was certain records maintained by travelers known as travelers commercial accountant claims records because they got claims and they got claims to pay to defend and when they got those use of the environmental claims when they got their environmental claims they had caught the book and policies they did not have policies that were missing would question the beat responded by that measure that they would defend because the do the defense a bright one in illinois under any potential policies whenever they get a claim they need some way to put it into the system and the testimony of the deposition was that they put an entry into the system at some play memphis is testimony that you know fifty sixty years later but they put it there not that many years later they putting in tree into the system only basis for his statement the travelers may have to cease in the sixty one to sixty three period was that very commercial account claims rhetoric that the trial court rejected evidence that itself is not competent to prove the existence of piracies standing around can it be transformed into evidence of the existence of piracy simply because mr copland made note of it in a letter to a writer writes would undermine sort of the principals have got the jintao the jackal there's just no foundation to that letter that stated that travis would provide writers of offense to the environmental claims and i don't i was reserved travelers rights mr cochrane was not making any determinations at the time regarding the existing of any missing policies and whether th existence it's just by virtue of the fact that a company has a policy in one year then there's a gap and then there's a policy in another direction possibly get you to the these meet the standard the burden of proof or the spelling now because there's many many many certainly no evidence that you know x percentage of the time if a company issues one passingly asked so and this one they also issued what's in between that's just purely conjecture and speculation on either side and conjecture can't be the basis of the proof then from point a to point b i can't train my insurance policy but i think i hear them and then from point b for many many years forward i hear the insurance policies with the same company and i  staff that's necessary to be read to the book and two to prove that the policies existed it's things like contemporaneous a payment information with respect to premiums paid in the one nine hundred sixty is that i'm speculating a little bit but certainly there was no discovery on that right and there's nothing in the record on it i don't think we can create things in their record that nothing contemporaneous we have never lists that were captured you know someone's roger resonates with you at the time of the policies kept the list we have nothing like that even if we had the book and we have never had indication about what the limits would of coverage we don't have access policies here that that have been proven in any way so when you cut it off i mean it's a it's entirely conjecture and that's that's what i want to point out with respect to the policies where we have admitted the existence  me at but it but it's not based on the rack that's my position that you have to prove the policies you can't just assume that you can't just without evidence and the terms and conditions set because the terms and conditions for this and this are the must have been the same before that yes and judge for in addition to that nine hundred sixty one policy there were travelers memorandums regarding the terms and conditions of those years between sixty one and seventy and those terms and conditions i'm going to have to carry when i go back to the bell to the point i'm trying to make with you all imagine this you're the guy who's in charge of environmental claims and environmental claims coming in two years and shuts company or cancer they test and there was no test here that i'm aware and i think you're right the judge did it like that stipulated bench trial you know and i don't think anybody either your quest is right to do that both agreed that first district case that was decided by i mentioned cross versus pekin life insurance which is again another first district one thousand nine hundred case that says exactly what i'm saying to you today of information back yes but the testimony was considered to be now and i mean to the extent the testimony resumes challenge he had to take it on its face it's as if the witness that testified in front of them and i ended up in the class examine the cited in crass versus pekin life insurance which is part of a footnote to section today two days eleven ten and hours cases i mean cocaine is throughout some of the cases judge that there that you're really just decided who was he situation and the sort of stipulated type trial and in fact it does turn on things like whether or not there's there were credibility determinations in live testimony versus documents that's that's the the size of the pointer not disputing that this was the essence of the wanted to to correct something that might have been sort of confused with respect to the presentation that travelers did not get numbers the policy numbers for the missing c h l policies from roger there were some that were previously missing and when we found numbers that was read allowed us to actually locate them for a subset of which are now not the policies that are in front of you that was a different incident in the course of the