sorting out the cases yes this is the st case for the tort settlement does not refer to a rd party will be making future sound and it's the only party mentioned in the federal tort claims act settlement agreement as making payments is the government which was the settling port defendant in the three previous cases this court has had the settlement agreements of that the government will be purchasing or buying an annuity from insurance company which will make the future payments those cases therefore presented the issue of whether the insurance company referred to in the settlement agreement as making payments would be soley liable for making those payments or would instead be called liable but the government for this and this case does not present that coal liability or so liability issues as the government is the only party mentioned in the settlement agreement as having payment liability it is liable to make the payments the court in massey wrote because the payments are mandatory the government must be responsible for their payment no one else is a party to the superman and that was a for if i remember right messy even and messy the agreement said purchase an case a structured at settlement is just a sequence of payments made over time it doesn't say that it has to be acquired from a commercial entity it's in the business of creating contracts to make that promise yes those are the stein in the kornblum treatises the st was the one on this court cited in shops or the conclusion that guarantee language it's the the plaintiff died young dealt with the errors and not with who was responsible for payment and then they go on to not only to find a structured so many are simply payments over time from whatever source but they further go on to say that the original defendant remains liable unless the plaintiff does something to release the original defendant which could be an agreement by the plaintiff that all the government has to do is purchase an annuity and that completes the government's performance but we don't have that here what about the nd piece of the  about a lack of authority of the assistant u s attorney to enter into what you say the agreement provide the u s mounts that argument as a contract construction arm argument in their brief they specifically disclaim any argument that the settlement agreement is void for lack of a or so we're dealing with contract construction as with all canons of contract construction you have the ability to influence the meaning of words within the permissible boundaries of those words that the construction of the government advocates must be a construction to which the words of the contract are fairly open the words of this contract are not fairly open to the government's construction the united states will pay not by structured so much no mention of insurance company no mention of purchasing in the issue of authority is still where i think the us has withdrawn the issue of whether the settlement agreement is void for lack of authority this is the government's preferred ph forty five no not you were making about the authority question was this that since the present value in one thousand nine hundred and four of this stream of payments was in fact one hundred and sixty four thousand dollars that when the contract in a particular way so of course we respond with no this contract was within the authority of the governments to turn on this is a federal tort claims act so in that the federal courts claims act has limits the attorney's fees contingent attorney fees up the plaintiff's attorney to twenty five percent of the sum and then you have general principle support law that if a plaintiff suffers future injuries the aggregate value of those injuries  discount to present value and that is i had and the offering on the market by executive life of this deal for a one hundred and sixty four thousand dollars establishes conclusively that that was the present value of this set of problems yes no one introduced any evidence to suggest it was not  present similarly with a twenty five percent cap on attorney's fees and this is why a case you do not give the point of to turning twenty five percent of the raw value raw sums of all those future payments instead you discount them to present value and its twenty five percent of the discounted present by here we're dealing with a rd issue which is this the specific settlement of the word of the particular government attorney there was an internal memo within the government which was not seen by the plaintiffs till thirty five years later which limited the assistant u s attorney to using four hundred thousand of the granting attorneys seven hundred and fifty government as the pair she acted within her court are construction of the settlement agreement in authority fits with the words of the contract and frankly the government's construction doesn't because it requires you to change the word pay a structure settlement to buy an annuity from an insurance company which simply what about the provisions of the contract that perhaps don't make this clear and maybe that's your answer but convey a sense that this contract ended just the government's future responsibility which in your view would as a practical matter  true if the government is now liable for making the payments right and to answer your honor's question you consider both the the so many print which is this called a stipulation for compromise settlement which is that paragraph to says that the settlement is not in exchange for satisfaction of any and all claims plaintive now or may have to have on account of the incident or some in full sack to satisfaction of claims regarding the incident or circumstances giving rise to the suit then to get to your honor's question paragraph six is where the u s hangs attack agreement in paragraph twenty three dollars and four dollars creates rights and then in the next breath paragraph six takes away those rights that's not an accurate interpretation because paragraph two the fines claim as claims paragraphs to win the war in three which is claims arising from the court so what's being released to the tort and not the obligation to make the future payments on pleading the two thousand we need payment and all the other  you walk through the release if the proper interpretation of the deal was that by purchasing the annuity the government completed its performance to try to lean out we would have a release that sad the government has completed its performance the government's payment is sufficient the government is done instead we don't have that what we do have is a statement in the release that the government has paid the linkups parents the two hundred and already at this time purchased a new it did the government then say in an exchange for the purchase of a new body which has now been made and completing our obligations to link ups give a release no we did there is no mention in the release of the purchase the new it is not at all instead the release restates the future payments the two thousand and twenty eight payment the two thousand and eighteen payment the payments for life and then what is being released at the end of the should find as well that the plain and unambiguous language of the settlement agreement did not obligate the united states government to any continuing liability it simply obligated the us to at settlement make a cash upfront payment and  purchase structured settlement annuities which it did perform well i think this is as you know because you've been here the last fifteen minutes to me of quite large problem with that contention is that this contract this and when the agreement does not say purchase a six structured settlement it says ok it's structured settlement in contrast to i think all three of the earlier cases but certainly the two that went in the government's favor yes why isn't that paragraph three that provides in that passive voice that the future payment shall be made chaltain paid in the prior cases that come up to this court that robot has a preference that the operative commitment to pay is in the active the government lil pay the structured settlement the next paragraph is a matter of timing so you wouldn't expect any significance to be attributed to the choice of active for pat or passive voice says when are these amounts going to be paid but the operative commitment is an active voice the government shall pay shall pay a structured settlement which i could but even even even the two dollars treatises that the court of federal claims structured with a done a lump sum payment and then a certain amount per month per year that is the structure yes your honor but in the context of the whole agreement we have paragraphs x that settlement in this case an annuity contract those future payments are really at this it seems to me unless there is a reference to purchasing an annuity then the delivery of the structured settlement doesn't end until two thousand and twenty eight if that were the case your honor then it's the last of the dollar payments i guess it maybe even well known so that is very could could go on even longer right the monthly right it doesn't end until all the money promised is delivered but then if that if that were a continuing obligation of the united states why would parent crack paragraph six presuppose that the land camps will release liability for paragraph three but it just means that they can't claim any more relief from the united states for the torque that this probe has and well that would be a release of the tort claims but it doesn't it releases paragraph three it releases the paragraph in which the future payments are scheduled and to the council bill well argued and this is a quote from their brief defendant converted its periodic payment obligation into a sum certain by purchasing an annuity from elan why further into the sentence and the periodic payment provisions of the settlement agreement to fruition with the expenditure of approved funds and within the limits of the authority extend by the acting assistant attorney general to the extent this matter was before the trial court below that standard for summary judgment as here is whether or not there's any genuine disputed material fact with regret with respect to the settlement agreement the parties intent to the extent this court or the court below looks beyond those four corners you  to a structured settlement but other aspects of the settlement agreement are similar to the settlement agreement in this case all of us or all of us on an agreement are structured in the same way with an opening paragraph about the government won't pay in the  i'm saying and similar in other respects right they all provided a future payment stream and shall be paid you know all of the provisions and not shot five or hendrix and are not all equally present america that is correct or you distinguish the language massey's distinguishable because the massacre in finding liability had honed in on the fact that the massey settlement agreement included the phrase that the future payments shall be made quote on behalf of the united states that phrase in the ma settlement agreement the massey court found your honor found that it was dispositive of a continuing obligation right a delegation of responsibility but not a not a release or transfer of responsibility that phrase on there was no evidence or argument in that context about authority we don't know what the military claims secretary's authority was with respect to continuing liability we do know in all of the clarify that yes mr lincoln's attorney has argued that we have dropped a waiver or otherwise abandon our argument that there was no authority to contract with respect to the settlement agreement he misconstrues our position our position before the trial court in all of the briefing and in all of the briefing for this work has been that authority is essential threshold issue for contract interpretation right that's what  contract with the government from a contract with other parties a contract with the government requires offer acceptance consideration and evidence that the government representative to a settlement and to the settlement or to  not all that we understood he was asking for right we we have margin surely surely but it must be assessed at the time of the entry the present value obviously the present value is going to be of a promise to do something over the course of forty or fifty years is going to be a much smaller than with contingencies a much smaller number than the sum total of payments that are made over the course of the period covered particularly if the contingencies pan interpretation of the agreement presupposes that the united states was not on the hook for just expanding the four hundred thousand dollars that it didn't expand settlement but instead that it was a direct paying our liability for the future settlements in paragraph three of the settlement agreement to date this is thirty years later that's already well in excess of a one million dollars if mr land captioned live another couple decades it will be another several one million dollars have entered into a settlement that could result in millions of dollars of additional liability and that's simply not there's just no evidence of that at all mr lang camp on on post judgement reconsideration has tried to  neglect but even if he did he has not pointed to any evidence that anyone had any actual authority actual no actual constructive knowledge that this agreement was for millions liability or had actual of authority to have entered to ratify that kind of agreement if that is the interpretation that this court should adopt or if on remain and after a fact finding on an ambiguity the trial court should adopt that would render this agreement void and i'm forcible the supreme court has been clear that when the when a court is faced with interpretating interpreting a settlement agreement and there is one reasonable interpretation that reasonable interpretation is entitled to mean it right if there are more than one interpretation and one interpretation should render the agreement legal and enforceable in the other interpretation should render it illegal an unenforceable well they could have about what willard authorized there are so so we don't actually know what the land camps knew or didn't know because there is no evidence in the record at all to substantiate that this was their contemporaneous interpretation of the agreement and notably in that regard the only contemporaneously only extrinsic evidence of contemporary intent is that set forth in the declaration of mr lang camps attorney declare under penalty of perjury that his client's intent and his untie intent was that the government remain libelous direct pay or for however long mr ayling camp should live or that they didn't know that the value of the settlement was four hundred thousand dollars or that they didn't know that the government was intending to purchase an annuity and satisfy its obligations none of that is and mr ford's declaration and that's the only evidence in the record of contemporaneous intent what mr langham proffers now is interpretation thirty years after the settlement agreement to the extent that this court should find that structured settlement that that missing word a new woody create some kind of ambiguity with respect to what destructive but this is the only word that's missing  purchases yes were purchased as missing but your honor to the extent that creates some heartburn or pause for the for the court right that the next step would be to look beyond those four corners to the rest of the record to extrinsic evidence to what the parties intended we would submit that in this instance the undisputed record evidence is at a minimum that the united states accounting office at the time in which only four hundred thousand dollars was appropriated for settlement right we have a letter written on behalf of an assistant you're dead this isn't any of that evidence actually for two let's call it unreasonable assumption to say that people are just counting on the fact that this insurance company was going to be around and therefore to say we can buy this on the market we're done is in fact an assumption that we really are done without specifically addressing the possibility that goodness this particular insurance company's going to go under well you know i don't i don't know what the party is assumed with i there's a reference to any of that right now there's there was a mention of no one higher up in the government knowing what the terms of the settlement really are maybe that maybe i misheard but that's what i heard appendix one hundred and sixty two where the assistant attorney general the head of the soul of the civil division said send me the text of the agreement  he wanted the stipulation of dismissal to which the settlement agreement was the attachment and he wanted the really so he had all that language with him all the documents the government refers to are documents from the governments will file they pulled them out of their own file they do not go to mutual intent which is the question of contract formation unless your honor so for the questions we ask that the court reverse the summary judgment granted united states and will as a matter of law that united