transocean agreed to class representatives to compensate these claimants who were clearly within the class definition and then they turned the task over to the claims administrator to make sure that all the class members were fairly compensated got their fair share but not only did these claimants not get their fair share they got nothing at all and this was they were denied for a reason it's nowhere to be found in the settlement agreements and is based on the supposed to a right they claim so your claim is that they get no notice here and you're making that claim to us as a matter of factual accuracy you're claiming to us that they had no notice by e mail to to the attorney as it was sent out by mail i think it was to an represented people who had opted out and stated at the time of the opt out that they were present and it was sent to of i put the following serve express which only went to council so it's that restaurant was  represented at all relevant times and they did not get any of the direct notices so the only notice was the posting of p t o sixty on the court's website and the discourse at that was not effective notice as to them pellets these claimants are exactly the same position they were in represented so got no notice through any of those direct names and not only that but the when they  seven notices went out it directed people not to the courts website to direct people to the settlement website so the posting of p t o sixty on the court's website being their only notice was even less effective for merits but they contend that that we have no right to appeal which of course doesn't apply that only applies to the appeals to appeals from the claims administrator or the magic judges ruling on the unambiguous waiver or right to appeal in this decision in the case law is clear that before a right to appeal can be waived us settlement agreement it has to be clear and unequivocal and clearly with the waiver and that was not the case here if the district court had decided the issue when presented which was this issue of did the claims administered have the authority to make p t o sixty compliance a requirement for coverage under the trying to help trans ocean settlement which had already been agreed to before p t o sixteen was ever entered that was the issue the issue court in considering whether to approve the distribution model the court said i'm not going to decide that issue right now it can be decided at a time when the it says that when claims determinations are concluded which is a little bit ambiguous there so any event if the court had decided it when presented then it clearly would have been appealed the fact that the court whether our clients could follow suit in the m p l or soon vigil lawsuit this rule applies this concern to whether they're covered by the settlement agreement which was entered into before p t o sixty was ever entered so it's apples and still must be compliance with p t o sixty is that correct whether it's one of the other whether it's the pereiras circumstance of the one year is it the court's ruling that p t o sixty apostles and they must be compliance in order to participate there must be compliance in order for suit a claim in the m p l individually against this this is a settlement that they've discussed was settled and there was with some method to help what proof are you going to accept that some claimant is actually in the new class for instance how do you know how do you know that somebody is a property owner within the zone well they have to present a deep how do you know that somebody is a charter boat or speaking to a commercial fisherman boat captain they have to present their license how do you know their boat owner they present that document title documents and show that they're home ported within that who are clearly in there at the time the celebrate is is entered into about our attempt to come into court or pursue litigation in detail it's about our claim to be included in the settlement agreement that was entered into and ninety's people before the deal sixty was ever entered was there ever an attempt to comply clear from the distribution model itself that you had to comply that's true but at that point wasn't an effort made it was impossible to comply because of that the deadline had passed long past but deeply said here's our staff we're late but we you know other people have come in like that and we have cases pending about that about whether or not they didn't know in time and should we excuse their timeliness we've had three or four cases about that including sex restaurant which said that they were excused because they didn't have any notice of sixty in time to comply so the point is that that is not that has nothing to do with the fact that they were covered they were named claimants who would not have pending losses because it said if you either any claims that have been asserted or that could have been asserted the statue of limitations is told so that the seven agreements self contemplated that there would be you show proof or so they were the someone going to the determination of who cobra coverage and settling is defined by the definition of the class the definition of the class said if you are a commercial fisherman who fished in these waters during this relevant period of time you are in the class you're entitle to recover unconditionally no further requirements no exclusions no qualifications you're entitled to recover the claims minister comes  after the fact after it's too late for these people to do anything i don't think you can see inside it's fair to say well you could have come in and asked the court to some extraordinary relate and let you follow this thing months and months later after the deadline i don't think that's a reasonable requirement to place on somebody particularly the where there are under represented up to essentially the time when the when the claims had to be submitted unable was after p t o sixty but before the deadline so in april the court gives approval to the notice it's going to be sent out to all these clients and it says essentially for the far people all you have to do  they courts experts said every important detail record that these coins need to know is included in the notice if a t o sixty requirements have to comply with that or have a pending lawsuit was it was a requirement i think that's pretty important but that the notice and nothing about that what does that say that says that at the time they prepared this notice at the time the court approved and others nobody had in mind o sixty four dollars as they are reasonable under represented person such as themselves would think in like drug himself on the mercy of the court and say look we don't understand how to do this are weak too late there's nothing no place holder thing that they filed if you change the question if you put yourself in the position of the men had fisherman there would be say given the opportunity to come in court it's all individual lawsuit i've got to come into court hire a lawyer fun individual lawsuit when i'm not recover the damages for that was several claims administrator for a fisherman was four thousand dollars so to do that when i'm already covered under a settlement agreement that says i can get that much money would do with do nothing but having to submit a claim it would be reasonable for a person to say i'm not going to deal with the trouble to go to the trouble of filing a lawsuit hiring a lawyer and spending all my four thousand dollars on a lawyer when i've got a guaranteed here in black and white  standing and there were some i think some decisions from maybe the th circuit says subsistence fishermen had had standing commercial fishermen don't have clear standing there's no definitive ruling of the fish circuses commish commercial fishermen have meant to last and no we're bringing every right in the it's not it wasn't just the standing it made class it was the definition that made the class which included people who didn't really have stan i'll be making this morning are on behalf of the however napoli's and the transition at least because the settlement agreements in this case are virtually identical and both trans ocean and halliburton do have a limited interest in this appeal that interest being the inclusion of the waiver of appellate rises including both so many agreements the real issue for us here today is of an issue of getting a benefit of our bargain this court has stated on  the interpretation of a settlement agreement follows the general principles of contract law the contract law would say that each provision of a settlement agreement or contract needs to be interpreted in such a way is to give effect to all of the provisions and in this case we believe that the language that specifically addresses the appellate waiver covers the claims that are being raised before the school today and the application of that provision should result in a dismissal of this appeal as the court is aware from our briefing the somewhat agreement contains specific language that says that the court's decision on any appeal involving the amount of any payment to any individual claimant other than a determination the climate is not entitled to any payment due to the the class definition shall be final and binding and there shall be no appeal to any other court including the u s court of appeals for the th circuit counsel and his argument stated that this was not a clear an expressway were of appellate rights we certainly disagree with that the  language in this settlement agreement was intended specifically to address this type of issue the determination that was made by the claims administrator was that these particular claimants were entitled to zero damages there determined claim determination made by the claims in the street or through the distribution model and in this situation that determination as to the amount that was to be paid or not paid to these claimants is specifically an expressly addressed in some agreement i would point out a couple of other procedural issues in terms of the timeline and judge will rogers king i agree with much of what you've said in terms of the lack of action by these particular claimants but i've been involved in this case from the beginning in a minute try to keep my focus on the issue that is relevant however today but the p t o sixty issues are important in the larger context of the timing here when the distribution model was issued it's important to know that these claimants at that point as judge can pointed out had a notice of the need for p t o sixty compliance despite that fact there was no effort raised to go restaurant issue but zach's restaurant was one in which the district work gave leniency for the allowance of a complaint and there's no evidence in the record the judge r b a my not have considered that same leniency in this issue had the situation been raised but more importantly what else didn't these claimants do these claimants didn't file any specific objections to the distribution model itself they didn't follow any objections to the final settlement agreement at the time and some agreement was approved they didn't raise an appeal from the settlement agreement the settlement agreement having incorporated by reference the distribution model that have been filed on file since june the record is not clear on that your honor these as far as we can tell these were unnamed class represented to our class members they they never had their own individual complaint their allegation is certainly made in appellant's brief that they were unrepresented but at some point they became represented that much is clear because a claim was filed in the has ian trans ocean settlement arguments were made to the magistrate judge who is considering the appeals of claim determinations so  some point they became represented the record is a clear win that was his claims that june th they they conceded that they received a notice and then there were these other rulings authors sixteen and seventeen fundamental due process concern holding them to these standards that we've been applying and the given their situation i think there is your honor and it's a difficult conclusion to come to but i think that it is  in the grand scheme of things this is not a situation for example where where after all the settlement payments have been distributed suddenly someone comes forward and says hey i never received notice of any of this i'm i was i was completely left out of the process these these individual claimants were a part of the process and i would say i would also add that given the history of this case and this something is referenced in the record there should have been a heightened heightened degree they were intended to be overarching universal settlements specifically included in hainan fisherman and as a pragmatic point if i were a claimant who had been excluded from another settlement who suddenly was aware that i was capable of obtaining money from this settlement if i did what i needed to do i would be hypervigilant as opposed to what counsel is saying that why would these people go and spend four thousand dollars to preserve their claim as soon as i received th potentially it is but is it what the parties bargained for it absolutely is and in this situation again you know to to some extent i'm proud to say that the appellate waiver provision in the has in transition someone agreements has been largely successful unlike the b p settlement agreement this court has not been inundated with individual claim that appeals from from the settlement because those individual claimants have recognized the limitation but this is exactly what this clause was intended to prevent was it was intended to make sure that once however and trans ocean executed their settlement agreements paid the money that they were required to pay under those settlement agreements that essentially we were done but the inaction by these particular play minutes and their attempts to subvert the intent of that settlement agreement has brought us to the court today i think there is one point that i do want to specifically address which is the argument that somehow the rule sixty b much like what has happened here the rule sixty motion here attacked the distribution model and the distribution model was the distribution model that ultimately determine these claimants were entitled to know what coverage so simply dressing up their attack guise of oral sixty motion does nothing to change the nature of the attack which is an attack on the fact that they got a claim determination that they were not entitled to recover any damages that matter that the language of the waivers is different it doesn't your own mail your to me the class definition it's not there right in the trans ocean agreement that parent that evil is not there and i think timing explains that more than anything the timing of the however settlement agreement was two days i believe found there would have been a natural incentive for certain parties to try to find ways out of the settlement agreement to try to maximize their recovery that pairing that occurred in the however an agreement was intended as a protection for however so that if there were any rulings that a certain party or group of parties was outside the class definition how important an appeal that this court to try to capture as many claimants as possible in the settlement agreement the trans ocean settlement agreement was issued it was executed after the findings of fact in mr juneau to develop a distribution model for the punitive damages claims and the model was not only to include standards for who could recover and what they needed to prove to recover but the both agreements required maritime law standing to recover punitive damages and i don't think anyone argues the fact that that meant that any claimant that came to the settlement had to have a compensatory element either proven by a settlement or some resolution of their claim or by at least an allegation in a lawsuit so that is what mr juneau face in terms of constructing a distribution model it is true that after the settlement agreements were confected  riding the coattails of those generalized allegations high has to file at this time an individual lawsuit if they want to preserve their claims now that caught in the net if you will these men paid the fisherman who were under named class members who were using i guess american pipe reliance on the b one complaint to be one complaint was no longer going to exist and so therefore p t is sixty would have required them to step forward to file an individual loss of it these people would have and class members for the b one class that's correct ok so then what happens is that suddenly that group is dismissed and we're going to in effect start over and you've got a filing a claim or you've got a litigator your right to compensatory sixty dismissed that allegation with a ruling on the class action and said now you must come forward with an individual a suit for compensatory damages if you want to proceed and so that was the nature of p t s sixty so in the claims administrator on june th issues the distribution model he is balancing the dictates of the settlement agreements which require maritime law standing with p t o sixty which require that you can no longer rely on to be one complaint because it's been dismissed you now have to file an individual suit so he was careful to put into the distribution model warnings and even into the claim form a warning that sixty and that it was a lot of effort to make notice there but in the claim form itself highlighted this issue these folks admit they got that claim form they filed their claim but they filed it without compliance with sixty the distribution model was approved by the district court there was no opt out by these folks busy there was no objection by these folks there was an objection by others seventy four others did object to the o sixty requirement but afterwards they settled got a compensatory amount they got their punitive amount these folks didn't raise a specific objection n the judge all runs point they didn't file a lawsuit they didn't ever wake up and say gosh we need to file a lawsuit i don't know when they became represented so i don't know when they would have been subject to getting counsel who may have said hey we should follow a lawsuit and try to get this done  but as of this moment there has been no lawsuit filed so the claims administrator following the distribution model that he had published in that the court had approved set these claims and zero  next of course was the objections in the appeals and one of the contentions is what we never got a chance to raise this issue but under the referral order judge bar b a said that anyone who disputes the claims  the due process issue and so he rejected all of those for one group and then when the next group came before him he relied on his prior opinion to reject those so in terms of that that's the procedural background that we this is a limited fund settlement in in other words there's there's no reason other than the fact that we are bound judicially to follow the dictates of the district court follow the orders of the district court no one these folks over here at this table don't have to pay any more money or any less money if these people recover or don't recover they've already paid their money so it's really not a financial issue it's just a question of whether or not these claims can proceed under the rules that we set forth in our distribution model and that were approved by the district court and thus far the rulings have been favorable to the folks on the left and so that's where we are as claims administrator and while we take really no position on the merits of their claim it's our job is simply to administer the settlement and get it to a conclusion but this is why we did what we did and how we got to where we are and that's really my purpose for being here that and to answer any other questions that the court may have about the process or please the court let me address very briefly the issue of the appeal ability matter the subtle agreements speak for themselves and what they said was what was not available was a determination of the amount of recovery here the recovery was determined to be zero the amount was zeroed what is clearly a payment will within the agreement itself within the contract the benefit of the bargain was a determination of a zero payment for disqualification from the clients and that is exactly what occurred in this were part of an agreement a settlement agreement and as judge came pointed out until p t o sixty was issued in march of two thousand and sixteen they had a viable claim under a contract that already existed they were vested in that right to a settlement the deadline or p t o sixty was may nd the distribution model was in june the very st reference authorized to make some sort of distribution model in fact he was required to do such but what he was not allowed to do was retrofit some redefinition of the client's no one disputes no one disputes that these clients are part of this class they qualified and they had a best in right to a recovery that was deprived of them by p t owner that never got to them it's not  as you pointed out your honor these both are part of the be one colons they had a claim it was taken from them you know what authorised it was taken from them and they had a claim because they were part of the one class and and and the judge set ok we're not going to do it that way anymore and that was why p t o sixty was critical and they got notice of p t o sixty yes man after the fact after the of my notes they can see that they received notice of the distribution model on june th two thousand and sixteen which expressway stated that they would be to show evidence of compensatory damages and warned that they are to comply with p t o sixty would result in an award and zero what's wrong with that right for consideration i will consider it after a claims administration had occurred so there's an exercise in futility your honor that's what has to recognize who is to say that he would have taken a different position if these men hating fishermen have done the exact same bond race a court case in which the benefit of the bargain was in that case with respect to common law causation and they're attempting to apply that here the issue of could ha potential those are not exclusive terms or under those are inclusive terms because there are a number of claimants receiving punitive damages in this recovery who do not have legal standing under the product is obligated your honor to consider there was an obscure and a big moving target created by the claims administrator here these folks were excluded from the b p settlement and the claims of minutes crater here says in the brief for whatever reason no one knows but these folks the poorest of the claimants are going to take nothing nothing from this and they were directly affected by this environmental disaster and clearly clearly we recognized legitimate  handle its docket and to administer a difficult series of claims that are quite calamitous but that does not substitute for fundamental fairness and due process and that is precisely what's happening