group of plaintiffs that i'm here on behalf of today are all mexican nationals and they do not reside in the united states but they are fisherman and they have suffered losses due to the spill here today we represented over two thousand clients this is only on one hundred four of those clients and they were dismissed their maritime claims were dismissed by judge harvey a united states  court in louisiana for these from just of louisiana what happened in that case the circumstances are a little bit unusual in that case these comments came to from twenty ten and till two thousand and sixteen there was zero action taken with respect to these these groups of clients on march twenty ninth at twenty fifteen we were sieved an order which provided a essentially a thirty four day statute of limitations in which each of our clients had to sign a sworn statement which could not be signed by the attorney and had to be signed by the client and we had extension but you didn't get the other extension and then they were dismissed do you do you can see that you didn't comply with the order on behalf of your clients yes you you know all of her take and i think it was not intentional contact conduct by our office or by our clients it was a lack of communication and part of it is this group of clients are fisherman and they are located in mexico and unfortunately the mail system does not it doesn't always work the united states it's much less reliable and in mexico and unfortunately our clients are fishermen and don't rely upon electronic means the telephone and e mail and fax is not something that is part of their daily use and so we were able to reach them essentially we had to leave us a forty seven day statue of limitations that was ultimately created with with the one extension that was granted and we did ask that our hands were somewhat tied our you know our clients want to participate but after six years i think to some degree they were not expecting that call or that we would not be able to take action on their behalf which they relied upon us to do in some cases we spoke with as we say you're today that were a centrally the same requiring signatures from our clients and and i guess just for clarification exactly what is that you are asking because they they have called us sometimes you know one of our letters didn't reach reach them with six months and then they contacted us but it was too late so what evidence you know stand the term evidence yes i think what evidence do we have of any of the stuff you just told us well you know and i understand there's no affidavit from the client specifically but once again she's getting all written from a letter that says we tried these twelve ways to get them in there right on the ship or you don't available there's no there was no support for the for the position that these people were unable to be contacted and then there was even an opportunity with the then back in june another chance  says we made these twelve inquiries desperately trying to reach our client through their mother's house the last known address that we have in our five there's nothing in it didn't require the client is that and the record side is one six two six five this is one of the cases where he actually did comply but didn't understand he had to sign the declaration so he returned it and we filed it but it wasn't and then there there was a table so that would not be an example of the guy that was available because he didn't have a cell phone in this contest and i'm asking for his record sides to someone that would provide evidence supporting the generic propositions you made here today people hard to locate and so on yes your honor that was just an example of someone not being rates in time and then responding so you are the problem with him was he didn't understand what he's supposed to do that's a different and it was late ok so and that is one of the issues out during this time just to file the lawsuits it took about eight minutes to file one lawsuit and  ultimately it was hundreds of thousands of dollars to file these lawsuits which we did on behalf of these clients i mean you understand why the court was concerned about making sure there were real people behind these given that there was a criminal prosecution of lawyers for filing claims on behalf of people that didn't exist yes i'm well aware of and granted some people were acquitted but some people were convicted in that and regardless of whether there was intent necessary to to convict people of a crime there were clearly nonexistent clients being reported to be clients whose ever fault that was right yes that is so you understand the background for this and it's a fair one this is not some random thing where the judge is trying to be difficult you're right your honor and the only thing that i would have requested was just additional time in which to reach them understand this you know the minute he the judge entered an order then your law firm was up in the crosshairs ok and at that point i mean it's been a long time since i've been in a law firm unfortunately but at that point had i been in your law firm i've said this is all hands on deck we're going to go and we're going to find every one of these people and we're going to get a wedge in the signature and this document and we're going to do it so that you've got one hundred four people here and i've gotten that number down to some very small amount even on the basis that you've described but you didn't do it and i mean it's a problem isn't it really a problem with the effort that your law firm made well you  record that's not in the record but you had plenty of opportunity an all hands on deck basis to what was required here and your honor respectfully i was on ground zero and i will speak somewhat off the record to this that we've ramped up we added staff we did everything that we could it was around the clock it was reach these people it wasn't just these one hundred there was four hundred in mexico so for this we were able to get three hundred and file the individual lawsuits ok which did take and and i'm sure my math is off and maybe you know eighty or so hours of just a actually you know entering all the information for the client and getting it on file and paying the four hundred dollars and and it was quite a process and i was immediately called to new orleans for overnight discussions during that time but we ramped up and did everything so you had four hundred mostly clients and these are the remaining one hundred with mexico so we had you know a larger group but they were part of this is effort well there were fifteen hundred that were part of this effort but for your next ago no this is this is for your family it was it was over fifteen hundred at this point that we had not resolved to date we had much more with many more clients than that but well on march twenty ninth we were responsible for getting fifteen hundred for fifteen hundred and filing individual lawsuits which you can't even only one way out of that we were able to add a second could access the system and they were crashing so there was a lot of technical difficulties with that but there could also be i mean affidavit filed that's part of why you couldn't do this is quickly technical difficulties travel there's still no have i mean that's the problem as i see it is i understand a judge is pushing you maybe in your view being unreasonable with you that's when you are of your intent to preserve your but you preserve error by put in evidence in the record even if it's six months later you come in with a motion to file affidavit of mr x that you just now found floating in the gulf of mexico that you couldn't find before where he documents that he was at c n n able to you know and all of the things you just said would then be documented then the judge could say i'm sorry i've already denied this but you do have something to show the appellate court i'm still waiting well and your honor and i respect that in an affidavit looking back would have been an affidavit of the efforts taken that were unsuccessful but during that time that would have been an affidavit for me and we just filed motions for existence and basically stating the same thing that we could not reach and that you didn't state that  saying in the so at the moment you're dude you can do everything is crashing you know you're running around but since then nothing more has evolved i mean it's been two years i would assume they're not at sea constantly for two years you've either found him or you haven't they can then give the story of what happened to themselves it's well after the deadline you file it anyway if for no other reason you say you're wrong i'm sorry but we have to appeal this so we're not trying to be rude but we're just trying to the document so i want to i would like to know that document because i would like this is not exactly a short record and i'll just confess i haven't read all three billion pages of the b p record prior to today's hearing nor do i plan to ever read the entirety so i would need a specific record site to look at the sworn statement to see does it explain the delay so during that period you'll have time for a bottle you can look up the record cite to the actual document that was filed not the court order ok and i do believe it's three three two one three three six zero ok the same issue for twenty day april or i'm sorry if i'm saying that within a couple of months of the whole situation yes or no that it's correct and then the court issued two more subsequent preacher order for acquiring the same signature so our attention turned to try to to getting those signatures but those two are uniquely situated as opposed to your other clients that you represent here today yes that's because they do in fact have a proper signed thing in the record although it was not timely received is that correct that it's ok is that proper document shouldn't treat those two differently sure so the first one i think the twenty day abril complaint is easier to deal with so originally on the date the extended date right the date the thirty four days plus the fourteen that was may sixteenth on may sixteenth they filed a mass at mass complaint that was not in compliance with the order so the twentieth to avril individual complaint that they filed was a second complaint and it was a second complaint that there was no leave to file an amended complaint filed so it's not an actual signed thing that was supposed to be filed it's the not the right type of document it's not right it's a legal nullity because they didn't have authorization to file that not only was would it have been the right document if it had been two weeks earlier if it had been two weeks earlier and twenty day or brill was not part of the may sixteenth complaint so they were trying to somehow file two complaints then yes or other ok did that document explain the delay i don't believe someone suggested the document they should have filed earlier i think it's just the documentation of filed earlier but i would i would need to check that i've i've spent a lot more time point on barrow would just be you know judge barbie a he gave boatloads of process in this case right to read the blueprint you would think that you know he just issued something like you know appear in twenty four hours and  me x y z and folks are like oh how could we ever possibly get this done they got thirty four days if you compare that to times in the in the federal rules of civil procedure for instance you only get twenty days to answer a complaint there are all kinds of deadlines that are a lot less than forty eight days so judge barbier then as you noted judge all right give an extension of fourteen days that was you know obviously a lot of time and then not only that as you also noted judge all right he gave a show cause process right he gave a process where he said look here's your last clear chance to come in and explain to me and i think it's obvious that met with actual evidence right at the very least with a lawyer affidavit or declaration and that was never provided you know and preferably with the actual people at some point saying you know that that they couldn't comply on a timely basis and there was really nothing in response to that show cause order except just repeating the request for an extension so even here today we still don't know exactly whether these guys were just you know out there right next to the new orleans riverbank or whether they really were way out it see or where they really were unavailable where they really don't own cell phones or have access to whatever whatever we don't know that i mean i'm not accusing the law firm of intentionally lying neither what what i'm saying is we just don't know exact that you are a poor fisherman really doesn't necessarily mean you don't have a cell phone so a lot of people have cell phones and it's their only possession so i don't i can't assume that simply because somebody is a fisherman that they don't have a cell phone or that they don't have access to modern technology sometime within the last two years right you can tap contact the world but how would you suggest we what would you want us to do here today that would be the proper thing so i think the easiest thing to do is just to affirm on the basis that judge barbier phone system for it because you know some of those proceedings are not really a fair because they're part of the settlement this is not that this is a straight up regular appeal raises straight up regular ok because there there was a final judgment entered dismissing these ok so this would be us just to affirm the final judgment for the reasons given by judge wright ok and and we would we would you know add that you know if we could right the opinion that we'd also like to see you this is not there's a there's an overarching order the judge barbara issued sealing the c s s be appeals from the economic loss element in this court entered its own overarching order doing the same thing by that then  seal and seal letters on the parties respond by the date specified and then you decide how to handle and then if you issue a decision you know you sometimes it you know eliminates identifiers and speaks in generalities ok these records are not c old and so it is it is wide open please do keep in mind that seventy five percent of the clients didn't return the sworn statements from mexico and so they did survive the p t o sixty movement  here there is no evidence that there was any intentional conduct there was no there was there was not there was a two week extension but this was really the only the only one opportunity that they had to respond to the court and it was a very limited time after the case of the pending for over six years and nothing had been done and there have been no settlement discussions and here there was no delay caused by our firm or the client there is no evidence of that and there is no prejudice to to b p as these cases have not moved in the ones that are still pending nothing has been done except two more successive signed statements have been required by the court if you have no further questions for me is all that i have  with respect to these and even if it is they were a partial remain and these two clients would appreciate that because they did compliance in this they received our documentation and were able to timely respond thank you