they please the court of the pro se defendants in this case were prejudice by the failure of a national tender them the required rule fifty six point two notice because both the torts in the case conspiracy and that everyone is presumed to know the law that's really not the case with conspiracy conspiracy it is a tort the requires of specific good intent to violate a known right or to commit a suit committing a legal act the finding of the district court in this case was that these were called strange originated life insurance contracts were void ob initio because the defendants lacked uninsurable interest we don't quarrel with that finding but that does not indicate a conspiracy the determination of whether or not these contracts were void ob initial or not is simply a matter of contract law it's not a matter of tort law at all something additional is required to show that this is a conspiracy the example i would use i think is if a board school board or something hired a teacher and it was the contract extended beyond  the term of the court that is avoid initio contract it's a matter of contract law the contract never existed but it's not a conspiracy the conspiracy requires more than contract law it requires intent under tort law and that intent is to violate a known right or deuce do something illegal manner and in my research i have never seen a void ob initial contract labelled a conspiracy and i don't believe one's ever been cited additionally the fraud claim which was only against the advice from the who was the insurance agent in this case was based upon her admission that she had not actually met these applicants and not taken any of the information and however she wasn't required to she was able to delegate this responsibility to one of per employees who was a registered insurance agent and who had clear this process with ohio national so the fact that she admitted she had not taken these applications are not met the applicants does not indicate fraud on her part fraud once again requires an intent to deceive ohio national and she did not and she submitted an affidavit that she did not intend to deceive them the the insurance agent submitted his own affidavit that said he had taken the applications he had done so with the permission of ohio na this this business of spec you speculated speculative insurance life insurance contracts this this is lawful not an illinois and particularly not since two thousand and ten when illinois passed a statute specifically making an on a loud well it is apparently permissible in the eighth circuit and they i cited a case from the eighth circuit where they said what are we talking about here and somebody gets his own life insurance the objective of selling it to somebody who does that harm now in illinois that and a fantasist said well that gives you an incentive to murder the person right now is the traditional well if you murder somebody how are you going to collect the life insurance nothing you can do to make that contrail illinois and yes in illinois boy i have an issue the contract never existed so you didn't accomplish anything by by your little by your shenanigans but what all i'm saying is that that does not make it a conspiracy you can be wrong and in this case the defendants believe they were operating under an opinion letter that said how they were doing it was appropriate i must say i don't even pretend what's going on or conspiracy means in as legal or not is not important to the definition so what's the problem here twelve everybody in the room reads that these contracts were illegally know and all and it's conceded that well you can't call it a can spend you would call the school board a conspiracy to hire the teacher and they could be sued for conspiracy or just your the object is illegal while it in that case it was because at the end everybody here agrees that the object of this agreement was illegal the object was not allowed by illinois law but the term illegal can connotate a state of mind and in this case conspiracy requires a state of mind and that it's it's clear on that point where it where they say because one must be aware of the harm for ron to conduct at the beginning it of the combination agreement very well why didn't they because they they they they thought they had as was done in new york paranoia california in minnesota a clever way of making money and the money would be people take out life insurance they can take out life insurance and then they were offered to buy it from them but why the agreement what did the agreement add to the end of individuals doing this well that's a that's an excellent point  agreement rather than just these individuals doing it individually well you had three three people who had separate parts in it one of the one of the people provided the financing for the thing the other person provided the customer support and the third person was an insurance agent and so i think you needed you needed all those wheels for ok well that suggests that you have an enterprise and judges to bitch question will you have an enterprise which requires a specific intent and specific intent once i'll give you an example have a specific intent to sell these illegal insurance but policy but judge posner that's not the specific intent required a specific intent is the intent to do something wrongful or or to the heart to commit a high harm instead file it in the law that is wrong or right if the purpose of this organization this agreement was to violate illinois law against this no speculation insurance contract why isn't that the evil intent it wasn't the purpose of the agreement the purpose to acquire insurance contracts which they believe they were doing lawfully turned out they were they were wrong that they were void ob initio that's a contractual matter but it doesn't mean they intended to do something illegal individuals the other contracts had fallen aside lapse the only other one you're going to hear from reprieve involves whether or not the premium should be repaid and so they litigated conspiracy and fraud but that's not an exception to the american  i don't think you're right where you say the conspirators have to know that what they're doing is illegal they're greedy to do something illegal now they didn't bother to do any investigation to find that good morning ma'am please the court my name is jacqueline herring and i represent ohio national life insurance corporation what homer eighty vashem rady and douglas state instead is they entered into an agreement to acquire life insurance policies without an insurable interest and they succeeded in the object of that conspiracy ohio national issued five life insurance policies on five illinois wang says they didn't know they were there were doing anything illegal the evidence refutes that however for conspiracy what the intent that is required for conspiracy is true conspiracy does not require that they understand that the end result is is illegal otherwise there's basically no civil liability for anything because anyone can always say i didn't intend to break the law i intended to punch in the buy the interest in these policies before the policies are ever issued that is a violation of supreme court law as well as illinois law what the lewis risible letter was addressing is after an insured on his own has a policy he's got a life insurance policy for a period of time he decides that he wants to sell it that that is something that the insured could do but that's simply not what occurred here these policies many times before an application was even signed paul moravia owned the beneficial interest in these policies he purchased the interest in the trust and then they named the trusts as the owner and beneficiary of the policy before charles bonaparte ever signed the application in june of two thousand and seven mr marandi had already purchased the interest in the trust he owned the trust and the trust was designated as the owner and beneficiary of that p charles bonaparte never owned up never made a decision to sell that policy and that was the intent of their agreement from the beginning months before these policy applications were signed they had the insured signing off their eyes ations so that a p g love ash maruti palmer eighty douglas davis could shop their information to life settlement providers which are people who buy life insurance policies was advertising marketing policies for sale that had never been applied for or issue so this is not a situation as was addressed in the lewis bris letter instead these three individuals specifically combined and they each had different roles in what was going to happen and the object of their conspiracy was to procure these policies without uninsurable interest and that's what they did and along the way to doing that committed fraud mr lang and says that it's only that she didn't see the people in person that's not the basis of the fraud claim here in the application one of the specific questions is do you have or are you applying for other life insurance that's checked no my vast majority signs this is true and correct she was the agent on other major life insurance policies that had either already been issued to these insured or that were applied for on the same day so that was absolutely incorrect she knew it was incorrect agent's reports that she sending to ohio national in order to get these policies she's asked how well do you know this person she says they are well known to me did you meet this person in person yes i did what is their income it's this dollar amount i know that because i reviewed their financial documents not they're not well known to me but i had major who talked to him on the telephone or i didn't me person but my agent talked to him on the telephone she specifically falsely represented that these people were well known to her that she met with them in person that she knew what their financial situation was because she had reviewed their financial documents not because she had estimated the amount or been told that amount by a proposed the church but because she reviewed the documents all of that information is then relied on in issuing that policy by ohio national that's the fraud here it's not i delegated something which actually her contract does not allow her to do but even if that were the case and she had delegated it somewhere else that's not a license to lie on the application or on the agent's report and that's what she did in this case and she admitted that she lied she had no these people never met these people didn't know anything about them and she applied for additional insurance on their life that she failed to disclose in addition to failing to disclose that the premiums were going to be paid by her husband paul murray and not by the insurers and ohio national business practices specifically prohibit her from submitting any application where she knows or has reason to believe that premiums will be paid by some third party who is unrelated to the insured and she submitted all these applications anyway and when asked is there anything else that's not here in the application that we need to know about she said no that is what the fraud he is in this case and that was all part of the conspiracy that was her role in the conspiracy to submit these applications to ohio national and she then collected pre marked collected commissions as a result of submitting those applications douglas davis to churches and solicit people and what charles bonaparte says is not yeah i was getting this policy on my own and i decided later to sell it to someone you know he had never he had no intention of applying for a policy he was getting a cash payment for in his words letting them use his name to take out the insurance so they could get their own profit from the benefit and what he would get in return is essentially i kick back a portion  be in order for allowing them to use his name in that way and that is also not legal under illinois law and that was the object of the conspiracy they accomplish the object of that conspiracy aspirated committed fraud in the process of that conspiracy the damages that were awarded to ohio national illinois law allows for all damages that are the natural and proximate result of the tortious acts and in this case what they what they did was they got policies that were needed to be declared void an issue if those policies it illinois if ohio national had not sought to have those policies declared void ab initio and one of these insured had died we would then be litigating about is this policy familiar relationships with the insured for example a spouse and there is illinois law where the insured has been murdered and someone tried to collect the insurance benefits and the insurance company was sued along with the individual who had supposedly conspired to commit the murder so action had to be taken when ohio national discovered what was going on action had to be taken and the only action that could be taken i that what they were doing mr davis is an attorney on was an attorney he's now been disbarred in california but mr davis is an attorney he prepared all of the documents the trust documents as well as the sale documents so mr davis was legally trained at georgetown in washington d c my vast majority was an insurance agent for at least ten years i believe fifteen years operated with c e o of her own insurance mrs marie she was insurance agent for approximately fifteen years and again c e o operated her own insurance agency up to twelve employees at her agency at any given time the third individual a checkered history in the financial services industry he's had previously been indicted and convicted for some financial crimes they've had to be extradited from hong kong to answer for so he has in the past ban i don't recall if he was the president but he was an officer of some type in a savings and loan in california so you know these are not unsophisticated people these are people who have means who engage in this type of activity and as mr lang said thought they found a way to circumvent the law here and do it here and in fact what they were doing here was illegal and it was an intentionally illegal and the remedy that ohio national had to seek was to make sure that these policies were declared void so that we would not have to pay out on the policies later or be sued by other people later so the legal action was required conduct and when you what your tortious conduct guys is involve the victim in third party litigation with others which is exactly what occurred here involving mr ebert mr tice who was another one of the trustees as well as christiane bank another trustee in order to get the policies declared void ab initio yes along with that with a geisha and we had a conspiracy claim a fraud claim a breach of contract claim but it wouldn't make sense to have those in separate parallel litigation so they were combined in one lawsuit but the evidence that's required to establish that these policies are void is the same evidence that establishes the conspiracy the fraud and the breach of contract so those damages under illinois law are absolutely recovered simply because your damages take the form of legal fees instead of for example accounting fees or so from some other profession does not preclude recovery of those damages and the district court correctly made that determination and there was no opposition below to the amounts or the reasonable ness of either the fees or the litigation expenses so those were undisputed and the district court properly awarded them  with respect to the premiums for the bone part policy that were awarded to mr egbert however the district court erred in awarding those to mr agger mr ebert at no time asserted charles bonaparte's test what's what's your concern about the bridge should have gone to your yes your honor a judgment was entered against ohio national for ninety thousand dollars to be paid to mr eg and that ninety thousand dollars represented premiums that had been paid by mr and burke on the charles bonaparte policy after mr egbert purchased that policy from mr moderate and those premiums should have been awarded to ohio national they certainly should not have been awarded to mr egbert the law in illinois is when a contract is declared void ab initio courts must leave the parties where they are and leaving the parties where they are puts those premiums in possession of ohio national and ohio national made that claim of right and should have been allowed to keep those premiums what the district court did was manufacture on behalf of aggregate a claim for unjust enrichment that mr ebert had never plaid at any time throughout the litigation and that would be actually a compulsory counter claim that he would have had to have pled in order to use them to collect and he never played the claim but the court created one for him and then decided that the equities went in favor of mr ebert on his on played clay so the first problem again it is the claim was never plaid we never had an opportunity to defend on that claim so it was improper for the court on summary judgment to create that claim in favor of mr adler in addition based on the evidence that was before the district court the equities do not weigh in favor of mr egbert there is there's a number of things that mr egbert did in this case they do not make an equitable award to him appropriate the first is again we've there's information on the applications mr bonaparte was issued two different policies one by ohio national one by x equitable mr ebert purchased both of those policies policy applications again asked are you applying for any other insurance or do you have any other insurance the answers were no mr ebert said he reviewed those applications before he ever purchased the policies so he knew that there was false information on his applications purchased the policies anyway in his transaction documents mr ebert made false representation saying that he was an investment fund and his deposition he said i'm not an investment fund i got nothing to do with any investment funds i'm a private individual so he he made misrepresentations of his own in the purchase documents and also what he was appointed to over the trusteeship of the irrevocable trust that held the policy took over trusteeship from douglas davis and yet his actions directly violated multiple terms of the trust the trust had an anti alienation proprietary i think that's enough for  let me ask you another question charles bonaparte yes or any relative to the famous bonaparte's friends of john show curiosity not to my knowledge and i didn't ask him that it is good morning your honors ma'am please the court my name is greg going out and i represent steve and i bring this matter you would be a travesty of justice for our national to get the relief it requested cancellation of the insurance policy as well as the windfall of retaining the ninety thousand dollars in premiums paid by it was an innocent third party investor who had absolutely no knowledge of the fraud or the scheme regarding th that those applications contain false statements mr ebert did testify at deposition that he did review the applications prior to purchasing the policy i believe his testimony in this regard was that he skimmed then he was presented with a stack of documents and well in conjunction with old warren in contract law that you're responsible for what you sign whether you choose to read it or not yes your honor that is true  the fact that he did not if there were a rule that you weren't responsible for what you saw and that would of course lead people never to read the documents those are that is correct or are but regardless of whether  he despite the fact that he reviewed the application and that there was the fault statement that he may have had realised he still had no knowledge of the fraudulent scheme he had no knowledge that the policy was purchased by mr marandi prior to him purchasing it and in fact the way that they set up their scheme was they had mr bonaparte resigning all of the documents assigning the interest to mr iger so mr thought that he was purchasing the policy directly from mr bonaparte more than five months after the policy had been issued there is it under illinois law once a life insurance policy is validly issued it isn't assignable asset just like any other asset like a stock a bond or anything else and so him purchasing the policy on the secondary market was not illegal under illinois law  back in two thousand and seven and two thousand and ten the legislature did an act legislation which highly regulates the purchasing and selling of life insurance policies on the secondary market  at the time that he purchased this policy that was in the fact the only requirement was that the policy be valid the issued in regard to contentions and nationals amended complaint and their claim for a late specifically of ohio national raised the issue of whether it was active all for it to retain the premiums by asking the district court for a ruling to that effect while disclaiming any right to re therefore the actual distribution of the premiums was put directly at issue a higher national in addition i could rule distribution of the premiums was but i issue by illinois law under illinois law it's a of fundamental maxim of jurisprudence that he who seeks equity must do equity and by requesting an accounting that placed the relief that ohio national was seeking in the realm of equity a defendant the recognition and protection of those rights isn't will be imposed as a condition of granting relief and that's exactly what the district court did here and so based on those principles declaratory relief action as well as the request for accounting and because it was tied to that relating claim it could be agitated with that religion related claim illinois law also provides the court with  discretion in fashioning an act or any accordingly the district court properly recognized and protected legal rights ok thank you mister legal opinion of course there was a legal opinion the louis bruce both thing that said if you do it this way it's perfectly valid now what they said is they didn't do it that way and that's what they told the district court in other words they said they acquired the life insurance policies before they were even  but what they're doing and what they did to the district court is conflate two unrelated policies there is an x the policy that happened before this and then the ohio policy happened later the x a policy was assigned before the high old policy was issued that's a different assignment and then on july seventeenth the ohio policy was assigned so we're talking two different assignments they thought they were complying with the legal the legal opinion they did not set out to to acquire insurance with no insurable interest that would have been stupid that's void oben issue they thought they were doing it the way it was specified it's of no significance to me or any are it actually anybody in this case whether they were correct or not because the question is if i can persuade you that civil conspiracy is an intentional tort that requires a specific intent to violate a known right or create harm then they should be allowed their summary judgment was inappropriate the second thing the second thing is that despite those statements my boss murat it does not admit that she lied she didn't lie she was allowed to delegate this this process to a subagent and the subagent an affidavit saying i know of nothing that's rock the financial information submitted by these individuals was submitted to the subagent ohio even did a home visit they say didn't but it's right in the record they did a home visit the subagent said i believe the information they gave me was correct and and morality did not certify that there were no other life insurance policies she said her agents report said this policy is not to replace any other policy that they did and then she didn't take any of the other applications so she never admitted lying lying and in these applications and so there are material questions of fact the intent really can't be resolved through through summary judgment in the case and