and we move to the third case this morning foster versus prince a life insurance company early nobody cares about your case or you're not religious enough as judge but should we care all that's good s think what i thought i would do is start with you know just a ensor is not really a legal question but you might be curious is why does pace have all these plants why is the pace of urban bust a vision have all these plans and it's somewhat rooted in history that you know the r t a created the per a suburban bus to vision and in some cases there was a fuss operation and might even been run privately oaklawn there might have been a bus operation in rural which is i think pace river and so forth and it was a calm it wasn't raining either all these bus companies exactly these these are all acquired by pace and now pace runs them all but whatever union in place at the time is retained you know they were sold that takes care of that could kind of start you out because you don't have all that much time and i really have since questions that because to stop payment could only have come from the plant committee the complaint the plant committee are the trustees of the trust and they are the only ones that could have ordered principal to stop paying me r s t what principle actually because princes principals called like of a limited trustee to do to do duties such as record keeping him you know allocate funds i'm amongst participants those kinds of duties and the planned committee hired principal just like the plant committee hired me to plant committee pays principle out of out of the trust funds which are actually the employees money and just like that's that's unique to of as long as you're there let me just talk about that that this case is really governed by the internal revenue code section four you've had a lot of these kind of cases today it's surprising but the you know we're to talk about for a one k plans that's for a one k of the internal revenue code and it's covered by all the provisions for qualified plans under section four a one now the very first section of of four a one says how do you you know it defines what a qualified plan is and a qualified plan includes a four a one k plan very first sentence says requirements for of the employer's employees or the beneficiaries that's what constitutes a qualified trust in this case if it just seems like the nobody followed my that pace had no powers to terminate me i legit on and on and on and unfortunately to court she she understood my allegations she vote it would have to be unanimous if that's the nature of jointly administered plans you have representatives from pace and you have representatives from the union during client relationship or members or personal gain as i brought up out of all the suburban bus companies what's what's the corporate structure they serve peace is a municipal corporation it's sort of like our you could almost describe it as like  unless i guess there would be some additional harm caused by principle for which she weren't compensated in the pay settlement i was not fully compensated  trustees of completely lost control of the situation that they had no way of paying me i tried to represent it for seventeen months i represented them but eventually you know that they couldn't do it anymore and the only the only committee well the plant is a trust and the plant committee are the trustees and so you know you could say i'm your i'm put ploy by the trust or you could say i'm employed by the trustees it's the same thing but if you have a contract paying you which destroys your relationship with the playing committee why why not just go to the playing committee and say your agent has stopped paying me pay me some other way see i don't they have no other way principle controls all the fine print i mean they you're right in a way i think i mean i could've went to these these plans don't have any money to get and very little legal dispute but i could  gone to the plants or the what's called plants their trust with their plan i could say look you're breach in your contract with me you know you've got to pay me or i'm going to sue you and then what  because of what the judge noticed you know because they need unanimous consent to do everything you know nothing's going to happen as long as as laws as long as the pace plant committee member ministry yeah right it's sort of like a checking account in a bank you know the you know the plant committee tells principal you know to pay me it's like writing a check to me and they requested it be just like if i were to your bank you told your bank to stop making monthly payments to the utility company the bank has no right to listen to me about your account and i mean i'm just saying it's it's the same idea that neither principle nor pace had authority to stop paying my fees  if i directed my bank to pay and my bank stops paying without my permission i have a cut of my vin they ship with the bank not with you well that's what the plant committee should have done but unfortunately the plant committee is composed of one pace play a committee member and a union plant committee member so the pace plant committee member wouldn't do anything about it principals the middle man right middle person we now say right but i didn't give any advice to the plant committees i tried to collect a debt under the illinois pension code from pace that's what i tried to do and when they wouldn't pay it i went to the paste board of directors and told them that they were in violation of the illinois pension code for not paying and then eventually you know they didn't hate but then pace attacked me by telling principal to stop paid my fees pace did not have the authority to terminate me that's why they went to princip shouldn't have and plant committee should have taken action against them but the problem is they don't have an end a lot of money for you know legal fees etc they it's employees retirement money they can't get our principles understanding was at the time that issued the instructions to stop paying him that the terminations has been a factual data that is how the complaint plays out in that prince mr foster and pace have yes and my understanding is they hold funds for page they hold funds my understanding based on the complaint is that they're fine you know they hold the funds of all the retirement plans which are paid judge outside the record regarding you know who directs the principal the payer not me there are minutes in the record where on certain occasions the the boards of these pay of these plans authorized the payment of certain fees to you mr foster or anybody else and my understanding is is based on the allegations in the complaint those funds came from principal whether that is actually the case i don't think we have the board of the plan is to keep right that's  for people it's equally split between union and union and employment and the employer which means a stalemate situation can happen based on the allegations in the complaint the attached documents when it happens it's supposed to go to arbitration to be resolved that did not happen here my understanding is you know what are our take on it is that mr foster is correct in one thing and that is that the wrongdoer is pace pace came the principal and said stop paying principal followed that instruction the key is that mr foster sued pace for exactly this same thing for firing him for issuing instructions to principal to stop paying  him for principals stopping paying him in response at the soup pace he sued members of the different committees who were peace employees and he sued piece members of case management he settled that claim he's been paid for he he had he's been paid for this under illinois law the common law if you sue or tortfeasor and you settle with them and you release them which he he did that's the end of it you've been paid for your injury you don't get the come back later and sue another party who you potentially could suit earlier on of the same claims a while want to collect from you too he's been paid for his injury now he says this contribution will how could he collect diff apart from what pace assume it to judge and i don't mind i don't know where the fine is came from i think the important part for our purposes he released those claims he has been paid for his injury under the the only common law that's the end of it he's it's a single one i mean what are we to do here well judge i think to two issues first of all we did not argue below that is correct we did raise the fact that this the same exact claims were made against peace earlier the district courts no he didn't argue with the love how can you argue it up here just first of all we're defending the district court's ruling but also mr foster raised this in his brief he raised that his his settlement of which you know we agree do not apply here what was there was a district court a lawsuit by mr foster against french correct this case yes the experts are saying right what were the allegations that you failed to do in this case yeah the allegations are that they've essentially principle implemented pieces instructions to stop paying him and that is in his suit very right and then you know the other issue is which is the issue that i think the court can affirm are you an indispensable party in the original or original you know he could have chosen to join princip basically saying is that we should not have listened to pacing by listening to pace that led to your principal question and so you know we there's simply no allegations and this was you know the thrust of principals argument at the district court there are no allegations that principal did anything active here to break up this relationship it did not reach out to the plans and say you want to fire this guy it did not reach out to the principal and say you  terminate this guy the terminations completely as he says your lateral instructions by pace were issued unilaterally to principal that unilateral action this is not the stuff of a claim for intentional interference with prospective economic advantage and that is the claim that was raised with the district court it's also not the stuff to say that principal acted with any sort of wrongful intent here which is another aspect of the tort basically all he says is that principal listened to tapes there's no allegation the principal intended to harm mr foster or took any at any action that intended to harm him it simply implemented instructions that it was given after page had already terminated the relationship it was over now i know he says he did not have authority to do that but  by based on the allegations of his complaints because pace had already terminated him and told us not told us that and told us not told principle not to pay him ok and that is the head trust saying that your act of not paying him disclosure not not the right not who hired him he says the plane committee's hired him so we have to treat that as true there's no indication of principle participated in that but the firing is something that principal also didn't participate in i mean you look at the letters know the ones that didn't pay and you're the ones with the money you know under the allegation the complaint that's true is that you know but that that was done after he was already terminated so they're really you know what somebody comes here it says we terminate this guy's a lawyer claim which has specific requirements that that principle in this case took action towards the plans or pace even to cause them to break up the relationship by the time principal implemented the instructions the relationship was over principal pace had terminated it and so you know the principal did nothing didn't try to influence the plans they didn't say you should go with somebody else which is the common i know but case here do you know who last to tell you not to pay someone in other words is it pace or is it the planning committee that has to tell you principal you know treating his allegations is fire someone that i have no right to fire so but that doesn't mean the claim against you is for interference with that perspective economic advantage that person had well in the court's order and it says that principle maintain this decision even after june two thousand and three when foster produced signed statements from the union representative on the face plant committee confirming that they did not authorize a decision to stop payments to foster on a fixed fee contract for foster in two thousand and one there was approximately twenty one thousand dollars in fees but two thousand and two was slightly over fifteen thousand trustee jobs we made a motion for a fixed fee of fifteen thousand dollars for two thousand and three plus any hardship charges which are going to charge the push the motion was second did by trustee than the current motion carried the plant committee hired me the plant committee hired principal the only one who has  authority to stop my fees is the plant committed you get paid i did not get paid because principal wouldn't paid and for principal to stay up just to say that that is a tortious interference with an attorney client relation to put to stop you from being paid for seventeen months that's just absurd and what i would also like to do is you know they talked about the settlement issue well the judge raised the settlement agreement as as a resolving this and i raised in my brief the illinois statute what a release or covered not to sue or not to enforce or to given in good faith one or more persons libel and tort arising out of the same injury or said it does not discharge any of the other tortfeasor from liability for the injury or wrongful death unless its terms proper saw provide but a reduces the recovery on any claim against others to the extent of any amount stated in the research the co and he raised the argument that the common law group rule still applies to intentional tort features and that that's absolutely false i have i have the supreme court case versus garcia forth elsewhere here in the plan a bit straighter shell employer retain agents attorneys actuaries accountants or other persons administrative committed a committee to be known as the administrative committee shall be established  action by the committee shall require the signature of each member or his alternate that's exactly how it works thank you very much and he thanks to both counsel i think