and we'll call the next matter which is seventeen dash one three two eight roselle versus berger and montague thank you your owners may please the core paul de marco on behalf of the apple of the district courts analysis of appellants objection to lead counsel's fee allocation consisted of only one sentence a mere twenty eight words in those twenty eight words the district court observe that appellant's objection quote raises straightforward legal issues not factual disputes unquote but the district court never identified or discussed those legal issues much less its reasons for resolving them which leaves this court to guess on which legal ground it denied appellants objection what we can i i would like you to start with standing because i have concerns about our jurisdiction based on standing ok please address that first and me just tell you i'm having trouble on invasion of a legally protected interest cause ation and redress ninety in which it set up what the allocation test would and you by that you mean because the court used the term class council right and you interpret that counsel not to mean the law firm that was representing the client but rather every attorney that worked for the law well the language that the court actually used was among the various class counsel which have participated in this litigation which unquestionably describes the  and that class counsel or that lead counsel must do so in such manner as the counsel believes reflects each counsel's contribution to the prosecution of this litigation that also includes  as among the participating counsel whose contributions to the prosecution of litigation were at issue in the implement implementation of the feet order and in the in the objection that was raised and are also at issue in this appeal so if there is there is a stake in the in the allocation that lead counsel performed there is a stake in the objection that was raised to that  in for the time that was spent working on this case they were they were paid and we argue in our reply brief that because they were they received a lower multiplier from lead counsel they object to that so i'm i'm also confused about how you you know how you fall into this how i because class counsel then why didn't you say if you are part of the class counsel group why didn't  multiplier leaves room for recognition of our efforts as class council where your clients on salary yes and do they receive this salary yes your honor and when they were they employed by th firm or partners in the firm no they were only employed by the firm not partners ari and they did not file a separate free petition on their own behalf other than the joint fee petition in which on behalf of your new firm that's correct ok i am not getting a lot of help with how you have standing here if if the court below were to go back and say  you've made a good point that more money should have been allocated to ws b c in part because of your efforts wouldn't that money have to go to the receiver that received the allocation from lead council as to what it would be that it would be based on one point six multiplier well below the two point four one that was granted in the field order they did not object to that we had no standing to object on their behalf they chose not to object and not to fight because they lacked the wherewithal to fight lead counsel that does not preclude court order that does not preclude us as dissipating council from raising an objection to the to the allocation and pointing out that for two decades of work we're not being recognized at all for our efforts we don't have any stake we have never made any claim to the law firm's stake we are also we are only asking under washington public power and at the end the other cases say agent orange an equity funding that our contributions be rewarded consistent with the fee order that the judge kane issued well in washington power and i think that's the case where they are the core of warded it mentions individual attorneys but it actually makes the award to their law firms it does because in that in the house and then i support you here well in our unusual situation law for no longer exists as a long line or stand but that law firm has received an award through its receiver based on your time it has been underpaid for our time that you don't have standing to object to their underpayment so we can't be talking about that i think we don't have standing to object to it in a way that would acquire for the law firm that money doesn't preclude us from pointing out to the court the law firm was underpaid but even have that law firm gets paid more somehow you know we could we could get you there it goes to the receiver and you have no claim to those funds apparently if yes if it is and that's in our issue if it is the law firm's claim but the law firm relinquished its claim by not filing an objection to it nothing that the law firm does can create a right in you that didn't already exist and i understand your frustration after all the years you put into the case but as judge kelly points out you are a salaried employee not an owner of the business and then the law firm is the one who if you look at burlington in ray burlington from the seventh circuit they make it pretty clear they reverse the trial court and say this this award you made individual attorneys needs to go to the law firm because the amount that's charge per hour of the amount than an attorney earns isn't the rat to the attorney it goes to the firm in the firm decides under their what the firm actually paid on to its associates for the time that they were that they claimed in a field warden that they that feel word was received but in our situation that firm does not exist there is no firm for us to go to to make that claim our only choice is to make that claim based on what the district court laid out which is what were your contributions over two decades to  the district court order can be fairly read that with respect to every law firm that represented members of this class over its thirty year history every individual attorney had to be assessed by class counsel their performance and the fia ward divided among this class of maybe three thousand attorneys and paralegals that that contributed in some way no i don't think that's if the a fair reading of it but in our situation well what's it done than an attorney in another firm to say you know what i think i did i did the bulk of the work here and you know i wrote the briefs and my senior counsel just came in and took a bath i should get a bigger piece of it and he's getting i think the distinction is your honor that the law firm was underpaid for the contribution we start with the contribution that was made the order requires that contribution to be assessed by lead counsel well lead counsel assessed the contribution at a lower level then was justified while we don't have standing to that we can point that out and in pointing that out i think we can ask for that room that's left to be to be accounted for as part of our contribution there's no question in the district court decision it said there were no factual disputes so evidently the fifth district court does not quarrel factually with the contribution that the appellant's made as lawyers but to say that there is some sort of property interest that precludes the appellant's from making a claim to the to a share of the allocation is is to say something that is not supported by any property law there's no fraudulent conveyance here if if if you on your own behalf i guess get more than a one point six those in that result in a complete re evaluation of everybody else well there's only so many so many points or ok with everyone what everyone else was supposed to be about to be evaluated under was that  contribution to the success of right litigation and somebody decided that your law firm was entitled to a one point six that's right ok now if and some of the law firm might have gotten one point nine it settled right and i guess the money was distributed on applications that's correct well actually the money come from assuming you prevail and get an additional  set aside for you does not come back from the other folks that it would you know to the extent other folks were not paid based on their contributions but they were paid as we demonstrate based on side agreements we don't know for example how much the council paid itself the council claimed a multiplier of two point three that would be one hundred thirteen point three million but if you look at the record in three forty eight three forty nine fourteen eighty nine it suggests that actually lead counsel may have paid itself as much as one hundred sixteen million seven hundred thousand dollars that extra three point three million dollars that is room to cover the the success of awards that we are asking for in this case we do think that this is a strange situation that is unlike any that that you see even in the other three cases that we cited because of the defunct law firm where usual what was happening and what happened why didn't you on either behalf of the law we we were mere former employees as to that law firm so what all that we could do is to point out the discrepancy in where you filed the petition on behalf of you and the other  i think your honour's hit the nail on the head by raising initially standing the objectors do not have standing to object and certainly there are three legs to the loo on  standing discussion of the first leg is there has to be a legally protected interest the objectors have no legally protected interest here they acknowledge that all their time belong to their former law  firm ws b c except for three hundred hours with their subsequent law firm they acknowledge that that time belongs to the law firm they actually mr goring said the receiver or the assignee stated they are entitled to a bonus well your honor for where they are not has to be determined but that it seems to me just demonstrates injury in fact when they sa it they may feel that they may be able to assert that there is injury in fact judge kelly but they don't have a legally protected interest in those hours those four thousand six hundred twenty eight hours over a period of years belongs to the w s p c law firm and now it's receiver and there's no there's no standing if there's no legally protected in protectable interest and that's the first leg of the three legs standing stool in effect that they're worse than strangers to the case they're they are interlopers to the case and the reason is and i handed up this schedule on january twelfth of two thousand and seventeen and law firms joined in a joint fee petition and law firms the but neither of those two firms have a have appealed their allocation and they also received relatively generous allocations the same as other law firms that worked on the case so that no firm with standing having joined in the january twelfth joint the petition and those were the ten firms that we as escrow agents were obliged to allocate fees among has appeal to this court there is no standing before this court because there is no objection before this court whether my brain the cape and they are members of class council well they were they were associated with class council lead class council what's my a firm which devoted seven more than seventy five percent of the time and more than eighty percent of the expenses over a twenty nine year period but they were along with the other eight law firms that filed applications they were included in the class council but only in the sense that they worked for a law firm ws b c which was part of the class council so but you invited anyone any firm essentially that was part of the class council group to file their fee applications right and answer your other i guess i'm trying to figure out how they were even entitled to find file an objection accordance with the district court's deadline of january twelfth two thousand and seventeen which i might add was in a printed notice that was sent to thousands of class members they waived it in their two cases that i think are row one is the ninth circuit and there is a similar case in this circuit against exxon exxon the exxon corporation and in each case in the dennis case and in the  exxon case the application was filed two weeks late in each case the court of appeals dismissed the the appeal and held that hold that the deadline had been missed and those are the deadlines under rule fifty four d and twenty three h for filing a fee applications this these particular objectors individual attorneys who never appeared in the cases individual part of one or another was for never filed location let alone two weeks later what they did was they waited until the entire process is out one and in that point of headed up to your audience january twelfth march thirty first the april twenty eighth waited until the orders were entered and then after all of that was done and without having any legal entitlement or having filed any and they basically showed up at our doorstep and said give us money and we had already awarded what we felt and which we still feel the requisite amount of money for the efforts that these lawyers under took on behalf of their to offer it is frustrating that we don't have anything from the district court he simply denied the objection the district court denied the objection without any statement we've been focusing here today on standing but i didn't have the impression that the district court found  standing perhaps it did and you yourself characterized that the issue that they raised in their objection as being a legal issue you characterized it several times in your pleadings below that way it's problematic a little problematic to me that we don't have anything from the district court indicating why it denied the objection but i'm sorry your honor let me address the second part first you know that the district court has  presided over this case actually for more than twenty four years now do all the law firms was involved knew their contributions reviewed what they submitted it january twelfth so and in terms of the district court findings we laid out before the district court everything on january twelfth and subsequently i don't think i can think of a district judge who would be more better equipped to appraise the contributions of  what they did to a case than the i'm not suggesting that i'm i'm not at all suggesting i'm just saying i didn't i didn't see a single sentence as to the basis for the denial of the objection not in the you not in that particular order but there's a prior order that rejects the idea of a special master that says that this is a pure legal issue in the pure legal issue that we raised income in opposing their objection was is is can individual attorneys from a wall for a claim the late belatedly claim a double bonus effect an additional bonus for the same time that their original law firm has submitted it which belongs to that was firm and has been claimed by an inside me and the judge specifically didn't rule on that and that is the legal issue but it's just there's just no rationale as much is my point verbatim from your submission with no rationale no i wouldn't agree that there was an irrational respect for your i didn't say there wasn't i'm just saying you submitted the order that denied the objection the judge  contained no rationale so i'm a little at a loss as to the basis for for the district court to you order the order that particular order did not contain a rationale the prior order rejecting the court's original suggestion why and i think it was a purely legal issue i don't disagree with the problem is it didn't indicate why that's all i'm asking in their stand judge maria i think there was so much in the record between january twelfth and september when those final orders were issued that it was pretty apparent that everyone below why that was and that the pure legal issue has not been answered you know i mean that the one case that we nobody felt the case where the money was awarded to the was firm that employed the attorney we did find the burlington case where the money were it was reversed and i would like to  move you off of standing firm and in and and look at the court's approval as assume for a minute there is standing and we're looking at  the district it's approval of the field ward i'm a little concerned that there was no close scrutiny here of or this field ward if we were to get to that issue it seems to meet that it's a large extent  suffers from a lot of the same problems as the fia ward and high sulfur lack of transparency let's start with that i mean how can the court did did the court now specifically how much each of the class counsel received at page one four eight nine of the appendix which is the brief that we filed on august eleventh twenty seventeen before the district court the specific allocations to each law firm are laid out there and as in copley pharmaceutical and i would i would commend both the district court decision there and of course it was affirmed in and the published opinion of this court  followed filed the procedure actually more than the procedure in copley pharmaceutical we discussed this with every one of the law firms every one of the law firms agreed upon their allocation none of the law firms has appealed disclose some of that i think by the time by the end by the time fees were going to be distributed they pretty much did and should have known also because for example mr chesley the former or owner one hundred percent owner of bailiffs in chesley he was a party to the agreements among other firms with silver and the bosky of denver so i don't believe there was a lack of transparency i believe it was transparency  specifically both orally and in writing communicated with the person the designated person from each of the and law firms none of them has appealed so there's no argument about transparency because  nobody would standing has appealed the issue of transparency the court essentially i mean as i'm reading the order and i think again i think you draft this that said that lead counsel shall allocate it awarded the hundred fifty million dollars aggregate amount and it said lead counsel shall allocate in distribute such attorney fees among the various class counsel and then said you can object if you want basically but my understanding is it essentially delegated its role to you to decide how those fees would be distributed and allocated among the various class council well and i don't see that there was any individual as judg none of those firms is properly before the court and there was eight months of proceedings that actually nine months of proceedings between january twelfth when the three petitions were filed and september when the procedure thirty eight motion for sanctions and costs also under twenty a u s c section nineteen twenty seven i would just like to submit those on the briefs if it would please the court