we actually get started to housekeeping questions we got the court's order yeah allotting one hour total thirty minutes per side as we counted them there were actually four sat four different appeals going on if we if the court would indulge us for five extra minutes an hour and five we have that divided that thank you i will we will take twenty  basically said that you look at the nature of the claim this is the claim of basically roughly six hundred dollars per person for people who were wrongly induced to have to buy a new dishwasher it is not supported it does not support diversity by no matter what route is sought to be done recognizing that they abandon the original plaintiff in the original claims and they substituted in the end for a settlement new plates asserting a civil rico  able to appeal are those who are a student of to figure out that they need to formally intervene which doesn't give you anything you haven't done anything else if you have objected below if you have actively challenge the settlement of your view only ones that before her as a right what if there was misinformation given to her before beforehand ok but you have to rely on some source of real information and the source i gather you're relying on is the actual order of the new the lawsuit was met with a motion to dismiss that hearing before united states magistrate we agreed that the enterprise theory allegation was the fact if so rather than have the recommendation go to the u s district judge that a claim of rico be dismissed we asked for it were given the right three plead our complaint which we did and changed the enterprise theory which happened to coincide with a decision by the united states supreme court in the don king case weiss a law firm who is also one of the california counsel contacted us to see our cooperation and litigating with them the very same claims i provided to them the complaint which they filed in california which was eventually consolidated with the case that mr donaldson was lead counsel and within that trigger at least some sort of co counsel relationship or at least you know you may be counsel to the other counsel which might suggest that you could build them directly for appropriate fees i've never thought about that i will tell you why i think we were you know back to class counsel in this case and what stopped learning from what i'm trying to help you out the trouble is you never made an appearance in this case so i did your honor some in this case well i made an appearance in front of judge patel yes your honor for the for the attorney named counsel look at the time this case was filed you had plenty of opportunity to make an appearance prior to the settlement and it never happened i may never have filed a notice but i appeared on behalf of the plaintiffs in california at a deposition in kentucky as a result of the coordinated efforts to advance discovery against feet and i was the only one there for the plaintiffs here in california and i took the deposition  we continued to work on the settlement agreement and i put input into the drafting of a final product we gave them that is counsel here in california our complaint and two of my clients filed with my clients mr chalmers and this is for a lot of concern at the last minute from one of my partners that we might not get paid for our time i did call g e s counsel and he made it known that i would not that they were going to pay and said he thinks my clients wanted us to get paid the same lawyer presented the position to me was i willing to blow up the subtle but agreement based upon my in addition to that i understand the way it played out that's the best that i can give to this court and if i get something wrong in judgment the rest of my career you know i'll remember that but i thought what i did was right and the fact of matter is general electric knew i was there general electric encouraged my support of us and at the end of the day it's found to be wanting we may well have a claim against general honor let me start first with the the issue of standing since the one the first issue that was raised and while it is laid out in our briefing i'm not going to spend much time on it but i think the notion that somehow this court has already resolve  years ago and marshal the holiday magic really overstates the holding of the case i think the question is fairly joined by the supreme court's decision in devil and they were very careful to limit that decision to be one class actions and for good reason those are class actions where one has no right to opt out exclude themselves pursue their own remedies if in fact the class settlement is approved over their objections here in contrast the court gave  objectors the opportunity to opt out that they had their own actions pending they had every right to pursue them and continue them they chose not to and in those circumstances i think there's a very fair question as to whether or not they have standing and i submit in the unique and that's the reason for the class action you have to put it in the context of a class action so the only way they're going to better themselves is to get a better class so that we have no plan practical remedies that group well i think in the case of certain people that is true and i would agree with that i would rights with respect to a settlement even of the one case are limited to objecting if the district court just regards your objection and they use that term several times just regard your objections that's not what happened here judge patel entertain all their objections now it's stead by mr levy that judge patel didn't say anything they didn't consider anything other than the conclude that the lawyers were jealous and green that's just not fair and it's not true and if you read the transcript  supposed to the argument you heard today you will see that judge patel went carefully through all the factors relevant to the startlement she queried the lawyers for the objectors on several occasions as to what they thought was a fair settlement if they're coming here claiming that this one is unfair what do they think is fair and they couldn't answer the question they were asked several times and in fact with respect to the new york decision which again they claim judge patel w disregarded and didn't didn't have information about that's not true either judge patel analyzed the new york decision and asked them at at the hearing pointedly what their position was counsel would you respond to believe it was  mr levy's point that was misinformation communicated about the new york settle yes that's not true what was communicated first of all the opinions by the new york judge were tendered to judge patel so in the first instance we talk about what is a matter of record and that's put before and that's clearly not mis informed of what you have a you must have some sense about what he's talking about when he talks specifically makes the allegation that was there was misinformation communicated but the number of settling plaintiffs and the amount and so forth g e made certain representation i was not in a position to do that i had no information to make any sort of representations what i was able to do was simply read the decision and see what the court said as to what one would have to prove in order to be a participant in the new york action and it was a far more difficult burden of proof and a far more limited class of people that are in place by the class some of the class that woman gets released everybody no matter what their circumstances are if they fit within the group in new york you have to go further you have to prove that you in fact would not have bought a dishwasher unless you had we had these disclosures these allegedly false disclosures and disclosures that we believe are false as well and acted in reliance on them now g e gave a quantification to the court as to how many people they thought at that point in time would be entitled to recover as i understand the matters that have been submitted subsequently the number is larger it's still far smaller than the one in the case here but i don't call that misinformation i call that people reading the decision and telling the judge what they think ma subsequent procedure that had not yet then occurred in new york that subsequently did occur and it involves submission of declarations under oath challenges to those and there's no way one would know those numbers until the actual process occurred now lastly i want to point out about new york i mean what we have in this case is we had a claim that people who bought a dishwasher for two hundred twenty nine dollars that's what the bas dishwasher cost what did they pay for it after the rebate they paid one hundred fifty four dollars for it and they gave up an old machine on top of that they got twenty dollars or fifty depending on whether you look at it from the cash standpoint or the becomes under restitution theory are they entitled to more i look carefully at the law i frankly disagree with what the new york court did i think it's great if you can get that but i don't think it's something that could have been a change in this litigation i don't think lawyers should be making settlements based upon a scenario that just regards what i believe the applicable law of restitution be which is the difference between what you receive and what you part with here they receive tw enty nine dollars in value and you parted with one hundred twenty five dollars now you have you also parted with all machines it only cost twenty dollars to buy new is it worth one hundred dollars or seventy five dollars after it's been there for twelve years this is a compromise is a perfect settlement there is no such thing as a perfect settlement we tried to craft what we thought was the fairest settlement in the circumstances taking into account the risk of litigation plus we've done before judge patel for some time we motion she laid out in clear detail what she thought the problems with the case work we took that into account i think that's what responsible lawyers are supposed to do and that's what i think we did in this case and lastly on the subject of jurisdiction are subject to the type of aggregation rules that apply to class actions and in fact there were two cases down in the northern district of california where this was brought in which the same issue was framed in the courts held there was jurisdiction you could look i believe clearly applies to the party and the party is not this undifferentiated group of people in the general public and keep in mind this case i never thought of this case when it was brought as being a case it's limited to the economic was to the particular owner of the dishwasher when we first brought this case the issue really at the forefront then was the fact that these dishwashers were still in the stream of commerce and they were a safety hazard and as such the people that are affected are truly the general public i mean if an apartment has one of these things and it catches on fire it's certainly possible that the image can spread to people other than those people that simply own the believe it is when you explain why i think it is your honor after churchill villages brought after the rico claim in this case it was started the supreme court issued its decision in secret what the decision enterprise claim and i think at the end of the day you know your honor may well be right we may lose that claim i understand that but the real test is whether it's frivolous and i must admit i don't believe that it's in any way for non class action seventeen two hundred case we will look at it from the defendant's perspective that then goes up to this support this court this court affirmed the ruling in that case now the judge work rejected the argument came up here and this court ultimately affirmed the ultimate decision in march so yes there was no case either way on this question although  just seems to me that if you if you have a a single party case and you can bring a seventeen few hundred cases a single party case and you can see all the way to trial as a single party case then i don't see why issue of what the cost of the injunction was to the defendant at the time the case was first brought that was the first argument but the defendant's view approach is not mine well it is nice circuit law if you're in  so i think taken together the court had adequate jurisdiction both diversity and we go i believe the rico claim clearly states the cause of action and  and i just want to point out the other thing keep in mind here is the other parties brought these cases subsequent to churchill village sensually duplicated what we did in church of those but they were pending for a fair period of time they knew what about the california case same cannot appear in some of these things not a hint was ever graves that there wasn't jurisdiction until the moment we come into court with some and all of a sudden there's a big jurisdictional issue raised and i think that it really goes to the question of what the cases are all  of the stuff that's a different issue but that's you know when we're talking about the fees and sharing and reopening it i'm presuming a contrary circumstance and the extent that the fees issue is disturbed it general electric has potentially exposed your main we want to hear from from their council on that point because obviously you mister are on opposite sides of the room but you're both in agreement on this point i think that's correct have start off in response to some of these questions about the new york case it was a summary proceeding before the trial court in new york it was brought by the attorney general in new york as a summary proceeding there was no right across examination there were no discovery there was no evidence you're hearing and the cause fit had gone a fair a fair distance in the proceeding and because we already had the adverse ruling we decided to exclude new york from the from th we expected to get that case turned around we expected went on the argument or on on appeal we did what we thought we did and we didn't want to appear as though we were running away from it judge patel had that case in front of her she  was heard about it at the fairness hearing she heard she saw writings about it from the objectors papers she was she was fully aware of it and nothing has changed since the fairness hearing except for the fact that we didn't win that we argument and we didn't win that appeal that opinion is the same one that the same one that she reviewed at the time she made her fairness determination is that is the one that's in effect today now we know from the from her as expressed in the pulmonary injunction hearing and interfere order how she felt about the merits of the case and we also know that another judge in new york felt differently but just because another just felt differently doesn't mean judge patel's wrong about how she felt that it was a very different case at the fairness hearing and at the legendary hearing we did not say anything about what exactly we thought the arrest the arrest to ssion amount would be it was all set out in the opinion there was nothing for us to elaborate on there one thing we did say was that we hoped that the amount would be limited to about two hundred new yorkers and the basis for that was that there was a letter sent out to about fifty five hundred people nationally two hundred of them from new york and it's said that repair was not an option under the recall program in the context of the letter it was clear to us we thought that that meant just what it said it was not and some of the program the court found that that with that could have been interpreted by consumers as meaning you couldn't repair the dishwashers at all so the attorney general of your contacted us and with the assistance of the c p s see we sent out correction letter we thought that that would affect only two hundred the court had subsequently determined that even people who got word of mouth of that communication would have a right to participate and that's what jumped that the number up from two hundred to two thousand but we didn't make any representation that that was the only group of people that could be affected point of the new york case was that it was a very limited group of people people had to file individual eyes proofs applying they had to swear under oath that they had relied specifically and but for the representations they would have not purchased another dishwasher and as a result only about ten percent of those people that were eligible even participated as fair to this class where one hundred percent of the ninety thousand people not only didn't have to file any papers that they got something of value so we think there's a there's a very different very significant difference and in any event the trial court clearly considered two cases this attorney's fees issue what is your response to  statute in terms of rights of legal legal parties under the part of kearney general staff you don't think they have spending more than that we simply say the judge patel or go pinion will pass almost any standard of review and multiple florida cases most of them were dismissed we were aware that he invited himself to a deposition although he was never a counsel of record and we objected to his protests a patient in that deposition we went on the deposition but i'm confident your are that he said that he was he was taking the deposition on behalf of the california plaintiffs i don't know what else he could have said but i have to assume that but as far as this for to space and in the settlement negotiations he did participate his conversations related were one single telephone call where he called and said i understand that you're not going to pay me and the answer was that's absolutely correct we did not know we were very clear about that we didn't know who was going to come out of the woodwork and asked to participate in terms of the current species we were not just thinking about this reinsurance for we were thinking about all the other all your suit filed these these lawsuits none of them deserve any compensation and had contributed anything and they have a couple of minutes from it has some spare cushion or it was decided june sixth june eleventh of two thousand and one of the settlement wasn't propose until july thirty one two thousand and one so it was quite clear by the time the settlement was proposed the plaintiffs like common property or something like that the called the old true class cases before the the unification under rule twenty three macaulay leaves no doubt in that respect granted and finally the issue period just like in macaulay which had gone away far distance before it was found that there was no federal jurisdiction and just remember it here mr donaldson's case was grokked solely as a federal case there's no place to reman what is important here is the cause of the connection between the florida litigation and the results achieved in this case so that all the half of a group of consumers nationwide the way the litigation has a causal connection is the lawyers who advance that claim on behalf of the consumers who are members of a future class case was filed a motion for classification was filed and we did everything we could to advance the ball on behalf of the consumers the fact that we don't have a notice of appearance on record should not under ten twenty one point five so this from a fear ward i want to when i was growing up in trying to have to decide what i wanted to be i remember watching freemason religiously mason was rather unique in that there was always somebody who stood up in that one hour program who admitted to guilt i did not expect g e in their briefs or before just even today to admit that our firm or our law firms in our lawsuit was had a cause of connection and in fact they continued to deny it but asked the court to look at the record and i have all the respect in the world for governor so i think she made a mistake and i believe there is that evidence i think sh