morning good morning yours my name is mark griffin i represent the plaintiffs appellants in this case one issue in this case seems to be very very clear and very easy and that is the fact that a defendant who did not apply for attorney fees was awarded attorney fees complicated and also for time after the c p o stopped actively but they continue to represent an individual right what about the individuals i don't understand what about the individual ok i guess you start the question might be better phrased as which attorney fees if any are they entitled to leave because we have a we have a we have the court part and parcel of the same analysis at least to meet the well that they're there currently exist a judgment against my client where the judgment creditor is the c p o that is a problem for my clients on any number of what do you suppose the district court would do i suspect that the district court would have to do two things if you remembered it number one they would have to make clear that the who is being awarded the but again the issue i think that the the to answer your question these individuals are not the c p o this assuming that there's no other defects why i don't understand why it really makes a whole heck of a lot of difference that this is the funk and it wouldn't sell my clients problems for the other reasons that i stated including the failure to segregate these done for th record can we confirm that there was a legal work done for the c p o that was not for the benefit of the individuals for example five thousand seven hundred dollars an expert witness fees they did not  applying for the fees to segregate perhaps there was no segregation required because the work was for the joint benefit of all represented in that case the party applying should have said this work applies to everyone don't have to say that but why would why would they have to say this work aplastic everyone that's implicit in the billing it's not it's not implicit when a billing shows that some of the time and trees only apply to one claim as opposed to another want to claim one part where i know my focus is one where there were buildings that apply to the and not any of the individuals not not the claims but whether or not it applied to a party that year saying should not have been awarded fees if that was global if the building was a global been there was no probably it was just i'm ministerial just an era in the district court naming c p o when it shouldn't have if the buildings apply to all of the parties volunteers and who admittedly are part of the c p o and the c p o when you talk about volunteers who give information to the county it's done in a town hall basis this is part of unfortunately to pop there were two problems is that the c p o threaten to sue my clients that's one problem the other problem is that there's no case law unless we have been trying to figure out this is this is this is all new law this is all very interesting law but it's very interesting law in the context of a history of participatory democracy town hall meetings and and responsibility of people in terms of what they are doing and they have moved by the way the c p o has more than just advisory power the c p o has the authority to object to a finding by the planning commission here but no no the c p o has the authority on on the basis for that on behalf of the community to to appear  and make an appeals of decisions an individual does not have that the only individuals who have the only other individuals who have that right is are individuals who live within a very close area proximity to where the land use is going to occur but these individuals did not have the right to appeal and they could have complained but they didn't complain on their own act well then why weren't those why were the individual sued because they were they had violated the they have violated the bylaws of do you can see then think district court could properly award fees to the individuals yes i concede that they could properly award fees to the individuals under certain circumstances and that would be that he would have to follow that dork would have to follow the factors that i laid out and including just this one issue which is very problematic and that is  we have a group of people who theoretically and are representing a public body who are attacking through their request for attorney fees  citizen who is complaining about the conduct of the public body and unfortunately i said in the appeal here a couple of years ago we had an issue of whether or not thirty one point two five zero would defending against a lawsuit that was brought down because thirty one point two five zero does not that is by lates the policy of the slap action and that was established unfortunately after the first appeal and i raised that issue in the first appeal and again one of the factors that the court would have to decide that they refused to decide that he did they did not decide the court did not decide whether what is the effect of imposing this kind of monetary damage against my client on the ability and other citizens to the c p o that is problematic because he is representing a public body he tells the court that he's doing it on a pro bono basis no the c p o as a as a body is never told he represented them he's making he's rejecting a settlement offers made to this e p o without without  on a complaint that you would have that would be a complaint that the c p o would happen against his purported counsel under your version the facts why would your client care whether or not the c p l consented or whether or not there was an agreement why would your client care about that because my client tried to settle with the c p o and this and these individuals violated his ability to do so they treated the c p o as a personal may please the court my name is daniel rolfe and i have the honor of representing the individuals that were initially sued by mr o'connor and his co point obligations under the oregon land use rules to encourage probably involvement so when we talk about the c p o and i sort of put air quotes around that entity it is literally the c p o in an itself other than its officers and its committee chairs which are the volunteers that get things done the only thing the c p s does the rest of the c p o is literally whoever shows up at a meeting who lives or has a business in a defined geographic area so that is the c p o aside from the volunteers but as a technical matter there is an error in the judgment  moved on behalf of only the individuals because the c p o was defunct at that point and judge simon's few orders simply used a shorthand of c p o defendants which based on an earlier footnote included  the claims against the individual defendants and how those had to be differentiated i want to be very clear here that the only fees for which anyone has fees from a court are the state tort claims that are covered by the state anti slavery staff that state tort claim intentional interference with business relations was pressed in the complaint by the defendants against the c p o as well as the five named individuals completely undifferentiated in all of the arguments on dismissal of that claim and all of the evidence presented the plaintiffs never presented different evidence against the c p vs the individuals we never brief that that was never an issue and so when judge simon just missed that case me dismissed that claim based on the state's anti slapp statute he did so based on arguments against involving individuals as well as the c p o that were completely undifferentiated that's how judge simon defined that time in the c order you work the fear order is what is on appeal ye that is part of the record that's the initial document in the record i thought he could find he defined in the opinion in order is where he defined yes that is correct but not in the role not in the fee judgment itself that is correct there was one claim that was remaining that we litigated and judge simon dismissed on summary judgment and that was a civil rights claim against one individual don mensch and judge simon continued to see just coverage of that fee agreement however our clinic lewis and clark law school does not really it's fee agreements and judge simon decided that we lease of that fee agreement is not relevant to the issues in this case and so when mr griffin argues that there is no fee agreement he's not seen the few agreement quite frankly although he has sought that and judge simon ruled that that was irrelevant to  is literally whomever shows up at regularly scheduled meetings so when the plaintiffs send a settlement a proposed settlement that spot that by its own terms explicitly specified that it would expire within two or four days it literally was impossible even if the officers wanted to wait for a meeting of  p o and see who showed up and say that there's been a settlement offer on the table that offer would have long expired so soon it was completely state tort claim all five individuals had the said no to those settlement offers and so even if we can wave a magic wand we're not conceding anything the c o had a meeting and said oh yeah we'll settle for that that would have been essentially meaningless because the individuals who had the same attorney fees claim rejected those settlement offers with regard to the reject that settlement offers was it brought to the board with the memberships attention because the bylaw seemed to contemplate the membership being notified of all significant actions on ratification if the offer expires prior to the next meeting for those settlement offers i am not aware of what if any discussion there was at a general  meeting later after those settlement offers expired so i'm not aware and there's nothing in the record that indicates to my knowledge whether or not those issues were discussed here with whoever showed up your what people who showed up at a meeting would have said about that i really don't know i suppose it depends on who shows up but with that sort of an offer it was eminently reasonable reasonable for me as their attorney to rely on the officers and board members of the c p o to direct me as to whether or not to accept that someone an offer that we don't have that's not in the record whether or not there were some after the fact judge simon took a very careful look at the billing that we submitted and as you can see from his feet order he rejected some entries hume posed a ten percent  things my clients have been dealing with these sorts of arguments for the better part of it decade one of my clients couldn't even come to the oregon oral argument today because she said she just had to sit by the river and chill and not subject yourself to reliving these sorts of issues again this sort of behavior in the sort of use by the judicial process by the plaintiffs and not and now  precisely what the oregon's what oregon's anti slapp statute was meant to deal with we submit the judge simon recognize that and that judge simon appropriately issued an order of attorneys fees in my client's favor based on oregon law that says such fees are mandatory in cases where there is a the lawsuit is determined to violate the terms of oregon's you know tie slap statute judge simon considered all of the factors he had to explain why some were not relevant and we encourage this court to uphold judge simon's award of fees as reasonable and we also encourage this court to allow us to submit to this court rather than having to go back to the district court which just provides another opportunity of appeal i really don't want to be back here in three more years about issues and by deciding in the town hall meeting what to do there has never been notice that mr ruff represented them there has never been notice that there were fee offers in made or rejected on behalf of the c p o regardless of what the field officers were or or this settlement offers were never and we know that because the c p o is a public body that is subject to two l in oregon the public meetings law which requires notice and other procedures and the public records law by its own bylaws so if there if mr roth represents the cvo we know that under the public records law there should be a record of it the record is very clear in this case distressing from the standpoint of citizen involvement participatory democracy and any number of and basically our history in oregon all right counsel thank you thank you to both counts