ski on behalf of the respondents couple and the law in this particular matter was very clear that with regards to civil contempt sanctions must only be compensatory or coercive they cannot cannot be punitive the district court in this proceeding after three months of its initial order finding that there was a big mess and it was unclear issued a nd order and ultimately decided that attorney c should be awarded without referring to compensatory grounds under the premise that it took too long probably the issue your honor with regards to that is that this was a very complicated matter it dealt with two employers one that had a collective bargaining agreement in a bargaining relationship with the parties and the other that did not and the problem that existed in this matter with how to comply with it the initial proceeding started from an arbitration award and the arbitrator didn't even provide any particular guidance i agree that the district court judge was frustrated but i but i can tell you that we were equally frustrated in terms of trying to comply with the with the requested information and compliance with the order the matter could have and should have been referred back to the arbitrator because the arbitrator is the one that truly had jurisdiction over this matter and in your betray ssion a warrant didn't provide any guidance for us how to comply with employees that work for another employer to be covered under a collective bargaining agreement and in this particular matter and i do believe that the district court did find that we that we acted in good faith that we that we did indeed try to comply and in fact we did comply with it prevented you from complying earlier the issue your honor dealt with these individuals were not were not employed by hamilton park health care center they were played by  and in our brief we make reference to the issue that there were certain obligations that were required on the part of it's standard labor law that in the collective boring agreement says that they have to become union members there was no the question is what prevented you from doing it we didn't believe that we would be complying with the law by doing it so nothing prevented you from doing it you just thought you ought not to do we believe the law the law mandated  obligated to do it yes and that the individuals the individuals that there were certain rights with regard to the individuals as well as judge ragin i can understand your point to comply with the order the issue the issue from and from our perspective the issue is that the judge exceeded his authority with regards that's different and you know that the l contempt after february well i think i would be repeating myself your honor with regards to the judge exceeded his authority with regard to mandating that the tr employees been owned by the terms of the collective again just help me out as to how that squares with precedent saying that you can't flout a court order you have to challenge it which doesn't seem to and there was nothing in citing the cases that they believe that we responded to that appropriately and distinguish those particular cases and even the case that the district court relied on the chamber's case  case is far afield to what happened in this in this particular proceeding and in that in that in the chambers case which the district court relied on the individual lied to the court and engaged in an ethical and fraudulent behavior and that there  attorney fees there's no reference with regard to being coercive it specifically relied on that it took too long and i think that the court also recognized that there was a vagueness here and that in this particular matter tried to find some reason for it but to suggest that it took too long there's nothing in the in the case law on this nothing in the nd circuit that would justify this other than finding that it's punitive in this compensation for what the court described as its the astonishing nine months it had to actively litigate in order to enforce the court's orders it describes the efforts as extraordinary describes the employer's conduct as all in order to secure compliance with a very straightforward order part of the reason that the contempt proceedings took so long because the employer far from arguing that it didn't know what it was supposed to do it  represented time and time again that it had in fact one applied mrs back there months and months and months and months of doing nothing and it undisputed that for many months the employer neither sought a stay nor took a single  comply with the award i'm sorry with the order once the contempt proceedings began and it each hearing the employer represented that now they had complied oftentimes those representation were made on the day of the hearing fees were justified in compensatory for the efforts that the union had to put in and there's no question the district court had the authority to do that it's absolutely the case that the employer's payments a compliant substantial compliance nine months after the fact at the main hearing the witnesses that the court ordered be a ploy is to bring well stated what what is obvious that adjusting employees rates of  pay can be done in a single day it's a key stroke the employer paid these employees and dollars an hour they had to pay them one thousand and sixty one there is nothing complicated there nothing think about that  employer claims that there are two different business entities not only is that not in any way at the center for their failure to comply for nine months it's a fiction that was the party dispute in the underlying arbitration the arbitrator found that they were single employers that the employees that issue are employed directly by the employers that was in force by the district court and that was in th by this court in this court order confirming the award it you know goes through the fact that there are common labor relations that they're listing the lump lawyers centralized integrated operations it's a fiction that has been rejected time and time again and there's no question in employers have the ability to correct these employees rates of pay and make benefit on payments on their behalf and they did so once the court threatened them with escalating fine they finally  grant level yes thank you your honor the five thousand dollars five thousand dollars in fines was imposed in connection with the court september order in connection with the court's august order the court stated that it was imposing fines of pan one thousand dollars a day starting april th by the time the court found that they were in substantial comes client which was in may signs would have amounted to approximately three hundred thousand dollars  and the court in incredible leniency particularly in light of the you know respondents inaccurate representation over months that they had in fact complied rather than impose those  awarded you know a good amount of it needs but not certainly not everything that it had to expend on the litigation and you know part of the reason it was so time consuming was because the union had to constantly collect and monitor payments to the benefit fund pay stub to employees the employer because the employer was so low and often didn't produce payroll records it was very time consuming to monitor whether or not the employer had complied and particularly because the employer kept making representations but they had complied the union had to obviously be very diligent to make sure that it figured out whether that was true or not and you know submit very detailed re january order explicitly said it did not consider its order to be they got all but to avoid any claims you know clarified in january but in the court i'm sorry but  the court in its in its may order stayed the parties just over the raid wage rates for three employees and it's worth noting that that's just you it had nothing to do with the contempt finding because the court found that the employer had substantially complied in a despite the fact that it had not addressed the wage rate for three individuals the employer has not articulated a reason why it disputes the union position on the wage and three employees nor does is there any contract interpretation required to determine the wage rate to which they are entitled the parties both agree and it was repeatedly stated in court employees are o hour if they're hired before a certain date they're owed an additional two percent and before another date an additional two percent it's just math the parties don't agree to disagree on the dates of hire pretty individuals but the court did again i think in see that it would allow the employers a chance to argue why the wage rate stated by the union wasn't accurate the court did not agree that there was any vagueness they just he said let me hear from you in their appeal the employer didn't articulate any basis for why they disagree with the wage rate obes of those three individuals you know it's a manufactured dispute and it does not to lie any ambiguity in the court's order the collective bargaining agreement is very clear on the wage rates owed to employees it's based on their date of hire and in any event the court finding didn't turn on the employer refers to that there was no question for these employers were concerned that there was no issue concerning it and i think that she referred to it as a fiction there indeed are two separate employers in this matter and there is indeed a collective bargaining or the right to contract negotiations with atrium separate and apart from hamilton park so the so the suggestion that there is a sec employees that by itself from our perspective recognized that there was an uncertainty that there was a vagueness that would clearly from our perspective gorin that there be no contempt proceedings this matter and no attorney's fees i can continue to go on if any of the judges in the panel have any questions i'll be glad to answer them those are the two points that i