right our fourth case for this morning is liberty against city of chicago we were in multiple discussions with opposing counsel was discussing documentation that we wanted pursuant to subpoena but also trying to get the names of the police officers that we could file one amended complaint with all of the proper officers name and in the interest of judicial economy now that might have been nice if it could have happened but i have two issues about that first as the city stresses in its brief you didn't know about politics olo in general before the deadline came up so you could've filed a first amendment complaint amended complaint with their names on it and at the same time you could have added could have done a couple of things you could have moved to compel disclosure of the other names which i can't find maybe you can correct me if i'm wrong but i didn't see that you actually asked the courts assistance in that and there was a lot that would have suggested let's say for rule fifteen purposes that had you added the other names later after the deadline it wouldn't have been a news bulletin to these new people and so there are substantive rights would not have been impaired by being named after the statute of limitations ran other words the amendment would have related back so so i don't see why you didn't take more aggressive use of the tools that were available to you even if they weren't perfect and even if you're right you know that one single amendment might have been a nicer cleaner way to do it and while you're correct your honor the reason why we did not pursue those options at the time was because we were in good faith discussions with opposing counsel trying to get the documents and correct names so we get it so that sounds like you're setting up almost an equitable stoppel argument as opposed to tolling if are you alleging that the city made any promises not to invoke the statute of limitations they implied lead us to believe that they were could invoke the statute of limitations other counsel for ms liberty which appears in the record and pages thirty seven thirty eight but was this a reasonable inference on your part i mean it seems at such an important point sure that you know just having a  impression well you're not going to do this again are you know i don't see those also if you look in the record and pages forty through forty eight and you see the emails being exchanged between counsel for ms liberty and counsel for the specifically had conversations in particular between mr mulroney and mr daniel next on may twenty first where those those questions cannot that mountain completely recognize that the statue of limitations was approaching we we did file the initial complaint within the statute of limitations whole issue is that we requested a series of documents from the city and those documents even to this day were not provided this liberty does not know the name the shooting death and aftermath of her son are you saying that the city pulled the wool over your eyes what are you said i'm saying that city let us down this path to believe that they were going to supply the documentation that it would be forthcoming years or multiple many multiple months in this case the delay was a mere three weeks and on top of that that delay was induced by opposing counsel leading us to believe that they would be forthcoming with the information and with the documentation  again you understand that when we're dealing with a statute of limitations and our candy it or is it i understand your honor and i think that goes more to the argument then or equitable stoppel which is that it's undisputed that in this case because it was a shooting death that there would have been hundreds and hundreds of pages worth of documents in reports that would be  created so that they could be reviewed by supervisors independent police or be board it cetera this case did get press coverage there were blogs on line posting about this case the city was aware that this lawsuit was going forward that they were going to be sued and despite that they refused to comply with our spino refused to turn over the names of the officers lead us to believe that we were going to be able to file a single amended complaint where we would have all of the information available to us and that simply all we ever received on me twenty six twenty fifteen were the four scanned pages of to check the response reports with two of the officers names buried in the records without any other information available you know we know because  essentially arguing just that the city was engaging in a strategy of strategic delay you notice too that one day before the statue of limitations had passed the city filed a motion for extension of time to enter otherwise plead now let's i certainly don't know and there's nothing in the record to indicate whether there were any other officers involved in it but certainly no officers involved in the shooting itself the only two officers were the officers who remained t r ours that were submitted to the other side there's no indication that there were any other officers involved in that aspect of the case obviously later investigation office during the later investigation other officers may have shown up but there's no indication there was any other officer do you know at what point in time the city fully complied with all requests for the identities of potential defendants or if it ever did but let me let me mention one thing that a week after the complaint was filed the other side file subpoena with the caption of this case there obviously there was no not yet a rule twenty six f a a conference under rule twenty six up and wouldn't be required for you know many weeks nevertheless we ended up submitting ritualistically the two tiaras to the other side for one reason or another when i have no idea why they waited until the limitations period passed we submitted we gave them those two t r s within the limitations period the limitations period then passed and then they filed the amended complaint naming only those two officers in the city as defendants seems to be though that even though perhaps the two officers were the most directly involved there were other officers standing around who would have been potentially responsible whether because they were in some supervisory position and in a position to intervene or you know i mean they're very serious in seeing these cases soandso not just mere witnesses actually other responsible but the so how would you even know if you haven't even looked in the city's records to this day whether that's true or not they've asked you to turn things over the city didn't say when it sent the two t r r's over that this is everything you know we are here by certifying that we've done a careful search of the records and this is if you know the kinds of things you might say if you've really done that since it's a one gets a feeling the city is stonewalling the when the amended complaint was filed they added to or substituted for the unknown officers bright yellow and joe but they significantly dropped any reference to the unknown officers at that point well they probably thought they were too late at that point you know i mean obviously statutes of limitations protect individuals and so they might have thought you know john smith you know whoever is going to have an ironclad you sued me to lay defense i'm not sure if that's true know we have to you know how to do two fifteen relation back i'm sure as well as anybody but maybe that's what they thought well we don't know what they thought what we do know is that they drop whatever claims they had against those officers at the time and of course at that point there was no reason for us to go looking through documents to find out whether there might be other other officers because their complaint they chose to fight against the defendants they chose to file the action against the officers palates all of itself and the city were the only ones in that document had they had they mentioned the unknown officers then of course once the rule twenty six conference would have was held and it never was held in misc then the obligation for us to comply with discovery in the case including coming up with other officers names if there were any would have then been triggered at that point if there were other officers then they could have amended yet again to add those officers as defendants and then argued against our motion for to dismiss based on limitations period asked of those officers that somehow or another they could write were saved by the the to the unknown officers we said there was no reason for us to go on a goose chase looking for documents that were no longer necessary we were focused solely at that point on dismissing the case as to the defendants who were in the case there were no other defendants in the case  so what's your response quickly to their argument that in the course of the settlement discussions or whatever discussions were you know that were going on the city conveyed the message that it wasn't there's no authorization for attorneys for the city to say we're going to waive the limitations period in the case and we would have no reason to do so certainly in a case like this we would insist upon pursuing any rights that any defenses that we had  implication much less what what is certain it would certainly be required here which would be some specific statement that we could wave it in in order to get past the eck the document document the doctrine of equitable stop officers that were involved with the shooting but we have witness and we didn't subsequent investigation found out that there were a total of at least six police officers and we were never witnesses or parties because for purposes of amending the complaint you don't need the names witnesses that's for later down the road they were parties they were police officers that were involved with the actions of the police after the shooting there are allegations that the police officers then dragged the bodies several blocks away to conceal what they had done as a crowd of outside observers were were approaching closing in on police officers those allegations would have been fleshed out if we were able to go through discovery and go through an actual trial on the merits which is essentially what we're asking for in this case merely for this case to be able to go forward on a trial so that ms liberty story of her son shooting by police can be told on top of that to be basing the princip the reality is that this study was indeed stonewalling cherry picked in what reports they gave to us never truly made any real effort to discover the documents in turn that information over to make counsel from his liberty and really it is for those reasons they were asking for this court to reverse the district court and remand case with instructions that it affirmatively apply agreeable tolling or equitable stoppel all right thank you very much ink in thanks to the city's well we will take the case