address i don't know that it's necessary for me if you wish to make a short argument and otherwise you think proceed to what you think is that which has the greatest priority as far as you're concerned ok thank you for her i will be very very brief on that issue just to say that there is to really be unfair argument that the aug th two thousand nine hundred orders are leaves nothing further to be done in order to execute on that as a judgment particularly paragraph four in that order explicitly authorize the trustee to make distributions from the trust following the the trustee submitted plan of distribution and following the terms of that order itself so there's the post judgment determinations of the trial judge st to include seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of interview those transfers from the eyelet trust as as distributions that had to be equalized by giving equal amounts to the other two beneficiaries to have an intimate the shack now the court did this and the significance there is that they were intervals they were transfers that were made to  nd issue on appeal was the award of two hundred and fifty six thousand four hundred and eighty two dollars sixty seven cents and attorney's fees to kevin intimacy which was required to be taken or to be order from point of share of the proceeds of the  these two decisions left plaintiff with nothing with zero distributions from an island holding approximately six million dollars that was supposed to be shared among the beneficiaries and their respective families this is the nd appeal  arising from this matter and it seems like you have heard many of these arguments before you have we should not be before you re arguing the merits of the judgment that this court has already reviewed having declared it a final unappeal judgment back on february th two thousand and nineteen when the original peel was decided is no reason and the nd sentence and given the court none for the court to deviate from the policy against piecemeal appeals which is reflected in both statutory and extensive case law that required the defendants to timely file their petition for attorney's fees what this timely meantime leaning so that it could be heard in a singular appeal merits further as well i'll talk about a little further plaintiff's case was indeed groundless that satiates or brought for an improper purpose and therefore warranted the imposition of attorney's fees the full extent of that asserted groundless groundless as was known to the defendants at that time make no mistake about it the vast majority of the fees claim to defendants petition arise from the trial and appeal of the declaratory judgment action as we set forth in our briefs all but twenty two thousand one hundred thirty two dollars of the two hundred and fifty six thousand four hundred and eighty two dollars sixty seven cents relate to the alleged groundless ness of the declaratory judgment case including the appeal that twenty two thousand one hundred and thirty two relates to the  was decided to file their petition the mere fact that unbeknown to them at the time they would be asserting further claims for attorney's fees based on discovery sanction in the post doesn't proceeding is obviously not a justification either legally or they make several arguments that attempt to tie the attempt to bootstrap their attorneys fees to the post judgement the seedings and these just they don't they have no logic or merit to them at all the fact that any attorney fees if they are awarded were to be assessed against a portion of the trust that's no barrier for them making the claim for those fees in the st instance and that their claim that it be that their attorney's fees claim require the existence of a trust fund from  critically unable to establish any affirmative basis for the trial court's jurisdiction over their very late fee petition the nd sentence attempt to distinguish the cases that we use that make clear that whether the fee petition is assessed against trust to proceed or directly against a party it must be made in a timely matter and here's the key what is timely as the illinois supreme court stated in illinois department of finance and professional content we explain the facts of rodriguez but he was the key holding citing the hurly burly case which the defendants by the way tried to distinguish by saying in hurley he the party  was dismissed out of the case which is why that was untimely and in our case because you know the sec defendants are still in the case hurley doesn't apply incorrect the supreme court in rodriguez said hurley stands for the general proposition theory ques must be may well the court maintains jurisdiction in some we hold the retained authority to award is only while it maintain jurisdiction over the underlying issue couldn't be clearer what we're talking about here is why in fact this is not not america's groundless groundless case in fact many of the issues were were were heavily contested and there were more issues where lingering after trial summarize and say that we should not be here we arguing the merits of whether this the declaratory judgment action and the appeal there from where merito supreme the illinois policies that limit the time for attorneys fees to be asserted are clearly based on policy so that they can be heard with the merits of that we're not in the very position we're in now and the supreme court has also made clear that jurisdiction has clearly that window is clearly passed because the issue is is over the issue ended on january nd and even if you want to argument that the appellant failed to preserve the issue and the calculation because you failed to i am really object to the calculation the crowd from the court specifically when the order was entered and was given until july th the bottom month later to file a response in the case was continued until august for hearing and never filed a written response and then it wasn't until the matter was argued that you raised the issue of the  proper calculations until after the trial court made the ruling how is it that she did not arguably forfeit that issue well we're at the august th hearing i was  asserting reasons why i was not in a position to file a written response yet we had been asking for a deposition of the trustee we had been hoping to to get more more facts to discuss the accounting issues and to form a basis for me to respond so i it wasn't that i waived the issue we asked for further time we ask that the discovery be extended and i so that that's one point it was clear that i wasn't just saying we have no response and we you know we make no we make no objection i my argument and clear from the transcript was that we're not the position yet we haven't done discovery i even cited some deficiencies that were outstanding i hadn't had a certification of completeness from the trustee yet so  i was looking for more time in addition i did put on the record because i saw what was happening i saw that we were being foreclosed much to my chagrin and surprise that we were proceeding right to a final judgment at that point a final ruling i did put in the record for the very purpose of preserving this issue so that i don't think there's merit to to the trustees claim that the fact that the judge rule until july th to file a response according to the record the case was continued until august th for hearing at that point there was no response is that correct that is correct or so you raised the issue of requesting addition discovery after the matter came back you waited until the court was in the process of ruling when you made that request correct it's true there was no written response and that is when i made the request that is true let me ask you questions about the finality of the judgement you are claiming or at least contending that judgment was not final or was finally after the motion for directed finding was granted his  well we're going back to the original judgment of the choir tory judgment action which was two thousand and eighteen on january nd the issue did you not that the petition the petition had to be brought within thirty days of the entry of the final judgment correct that is that is correct and you're saying that the directive finding was the was the triggering date correct correct however was that the triggering date wasn't the final order wasn't the matter continued by the court specifically for other matters to be resolved how do you respond to the fact that that the just the granting of the motion was not was that the final order an order is final an appealable it is whether or not it leaves anything further to be done before execution of the judgment that's articulated and page two of my reply read paragraph the order says quote the trustee and this is based on this order august th order the trustee is authorized to make distributions from the patricia shapiro nickel trust pursuant to the trustees final plan of distribution and this order that is the green light for them to be given executing the judgment because making distributions is the execution of the judgment so and there's no question in my mind i mean final for we also argue a number ministration of an estate or guardianship and there's case law that says rulings like this with regard to a trust administration are final and appealable and must be a field in fact must be the field in thirty days so as as i stated  was groundless as early as january two thousand and eighteen before the trial began because patricia's attorney had testified that she had presented a signed and notarized beginning absolutely not your honor for several reasons the the the actual and this is for all the reasons by the way  doing the for the valid it's because there are these many unexplained differences between what we know to be based on the evidence at trial we know to be the document that was in fact created by hawke oma is very different and we go through all the differences and there are you know typeface differences there are there are differences in had an idea that the only trust she would have had an idea of was the actual one on the trust and that's not the trust that defendants have presented they have presented as valid this rd version which has draft stamped on it which is different in exists does of this day so we make very clear that there's no way that the plaintiff could have known and she still contend it's not valid there's no way that she would have known it was valid at the time and she ok one other question going back to the issue of timely filing of the petition for a fee you explained that you believe that it had to be they had to be filed well the track court still had jurisdiction but is that jurisdiction just limited to the declaratory judgment action i mean there were as we know there was a petition filed for approval of the final accounting because they could have and should have been filed with insufficient time so that they could be appealed with the merits and that is the law in illinois and that's why there are these cases that make clear that there's thirty days from the state of the entry of the final judgment to which those attorneys fees relate in other words and that's what the supreme court is saying  rodriguez jurisdiction over the issues raised in the declaratory judgment action as opposed to the accounting which is a separate seating those are the issues that was are the issues to which these attorneys fees that we are contesting as late apply they don't apply to the extent they are seeking attorneys fees that relate to the post judgment proceeding and accounting we don't contest them there's about twenty two thousand dollars of those we don't conte for the reason i stated the very important policy reason of avoiding piecemeal appeals yes it while the trial court had jurisdiction over the issue of the declaratory judgment and which trust was valid thirty days from the date of that final judgment is when the fee petition had to be solved not the fact that they that we went on to do an accounting did not resurrect her of the chin over that the petition thank you mislabeling or a misconception about what is final unappealable and what is actually a final judgment which i have in my own strange way called a final final judgment and a final an appealable judgment is a judgment that is final as to a party or several parties but not as to all parties and as to all issues however because of which is embodied in the border that was center when be a state was closed and your arguments are arguing about final an appealable such as under three or four a which i believe the clara court judgments are included somewhere in three or four a or b and a final final judgment and so could you tell me how i am misunderstanding your position because it seems to me that you are conflating the two i think i need to sort out based on your question the two different judgments that we're talking about here could issue and supplementary receiving could issue well clearly supplementary the supplementary proceedings were going to issue which was to determine how to distribute the assets in the funds that were held in the trust so it was final in the sense that once that was entered we knew which of the trust was the governing document and once you know that it's all everything that needs to be done is a matter of of you know mostly a matter of just executing the formula and distributing the assets so you're telling me that once there was a declaratory judgment indicating which trust to adopt or to certify that there would be no further issues and if there were no further issues then why are you appealing the apportionment that you claim was in error and you claimed you needed more discovery in order to determine whether or not this should be interpreted in a different way priority or had legal effect that everything else just fell into place and that when one time a new domino fell all the other dominoes would fall in procession and that is what happened here according to the record because the domino relative to what the apportionment was didn't call it stood up and there was a hearing and you didn't file a reply and you made arguments that it's not just t civil yet it's not right yet because i haven't had discovery well why do you need discovery if the dominant response the fall based upon your claim that this just is it follows  their claim to to know the the nature of their claim that we brought a groundless declaratory judgment lawsuit and and as far as i understand that is what the courts are saying that that  i i don't dispute that there was a nd phase two b to be nd phase of the proceedings that still had to happen in order to have the details of of how the distribution was going to look i don't dispute that and yes there were that is a distinct nd phase and my understanding is that is because the declaratory judgment is final and is appealable that is the test for when the time clock runs to avoid a piecemeal appeal because again one of the reasons for this time clock is so we don't have a court itself so my position is that was sufficient to start a thirty day time clock for not only under the case law in the statutes but asst policy that those those case that those cases articulate and  will yield the remainder of the term to mature when it only raises one argument this morning that the approval of the proposed calculation was inconsistent with the comment the trial court had made during an earlier phase of this litigation plaintiff did not raise that issue at all people the trial court and plaintiff the poetry provide no legal support for that position therefore i believe our community wait regardless of waiver though plaintiffs argument fails the trial court's earlier comment came after rules on the issue of which are to trust a life insurance policy at the time of this comment no evidence argument or analysis has been presented regarding the appropriate calculation of distribution of trust terms of the islet this argument is also weighed again plaintiff fails to cite any controlling authority or case thought and plaintiff argument was not properly raised that the trial court as discuss this morning plaintiff did not file a written response to the trustee petition where did she raise this argument during her time for oral argument it was only after the trial court had ruled on the trustees petition that the plaintiff raised this particular argument for the st time again regardless of waiver this argument also failed in approving the trustees proposed calculation the trial court properly looked to article three of the isl article three instructs the trustee as to when and how to distribute the assets of the islet the introductory language of article three directs the one which is asked of patricia shack staff article three goes on to instruct how to calculate that distribution and the trustee is required to equalize the ballot which is distributed to her children from nine hundred and ninety six dollars trip trust there is no language in articles about ireland that restrict calculation to distributions from the one thousand nine hundred and six trust that occur only after patricia that further it's clear from the terms of the islet and it's specific to use of the equalization language that over the issue of how the trust proceeds should be distributed and nd the circuit courts the award was supported by the record including this court affirm and so the declaratory judgment and does not rise to the high level of an abuse of discretion petition was filed the circuit court had jurisdiction over all the parties had jurisdiction over issues related to how the trust proceeds should be distributed or had jurisdiction over the issue attorney fees titian's generally now cletus contest even though she admits that the circuit court had jurisdiction over a portion of the fia word claims that the circuit court lacked authority to work he's related to the declaratory judgment trial an appeal because he had to file a petition within thirty days of a declared tory judgment or appeal as supplemental proceedings those weren't supplemental proceedings this case involved multiple coined and when the case was ready for trial the greens and the parties agreed they stipulated d to bifurcate the case into two phases the st phase would only revolve the declaratory judgment playing and resolve the issue of which islet controlled the nd phase but addressed the remaining issues that were raised in the original pleadings and with and although this is would be reserved for  the nd phase of the trial the fee petition was properly filed during the nd phase of the trial because the talks either patterson and an award of season or patterson is contingent on the existence of plaintiff having an a and substantial undisputed evidence disprove fact claim that circuit court presided over this case for ten years that is fact finder during the bench trial with intimately familiar with the issues involved the evidence the quote unquote evidence famous for lied on to support  claims and personally witnessed plaintiff and or counsel throughout this litigation it was in the best position to determine which whether c should be assessed if the record supports the circuit court's decision including this court's order affirming the declar incidental to the judgment of august th order and for that reason we believe that there's no jurisdiction to rule three on one all right and wouldn't there couldn't there also be jurisdiction found under three o four b one an order determining the see order entered in a case involving a trust to be appealable under that rule to requirements have to be met st there must be significant court involvement with respect to the administration of the trust such the proceeding is similar to the comprehensive proceedings of the state and ministration and nd the attorney fees requested might must have been and must have benefited the trust and neither of those requirements is met here this case the crux of this litigation dealt with the clear choice judgment action not the administration but trust the trust of the privately administered trust administered by a trustee that was appointed by the settlers not the court and there was very little involvement respect the court as to administration additionally the attorney fees that were a question that we're talking about right now didn't relate to administration of the trust and that they wanted to see the benefit of the trust their fees that benefited the beneficiaries because they were the beneficiaries of personal attorneys not the trust  benefited the trust and usually that's looking at were the fee they incurred because the attorney was representing the trust and that's not the case here so although yes it seems related to distribution of the trust proceeds they didn't benefit the trust because we're speaking fees for the said this goes contrary to your own your own statement or your own determination that's relevant or distributions the relevant timeframe is the date of death  and i should clarify that it's not my contention that phase two are simply a supplemental proceedings as one would ordinarily see light as as execution where certain issues relating to you know issues of accounting not the issues as to which trust would would be the operative going to be somehow the fact that that wasn't fully determined yet precluded them from filing a petition for attorney's fees that's just not the case that's an after the fact justification for for a late filing turned out that the plaintiffs got zero was that mean that they had no filed or they don't file i mean it's not relevant i think it's hard for me to conduct is the basis for all of these fees two hundred and fifty dollars some odd one thousand dollars and that's just that's a that's a made up argument that has absolutely no support in case law or anywhere else that's just an attempt again and after the fact attempts to resurrect what they know to be a defeated late morning there's no uninvented discretion on the part of the court to simply say i've counsel on plaintiff and i think we're going to we're going to stick it to him because we don't like the way they conducted themselves absolutely not fees are clearly based on groundless is to say that well it's all good because the judge thought we deserved to be punished anyway so that just should not be permitted to be advanced as a meritorious argument  accounting ministry a lawyer which by the way has self serving lee defendants themselves inserted the language you know this is a final appealable order which again doesn't really mean anything it's it's just is the supreme court has spoken on this issue and it's not an unlimited amount of time even if there is a nd phase relating to different issues with the same parties there is not an unlimited amount amount of time as long as a party is in the case as sec defendants would have it for them to assert a claim for attorney's fees that may have happened i mean if this is the rule we could have a proceeding years ago apologize the point is that the supreme court has spoken that the issue once the court loses jurisdiction over the issue which occurs thirty days after a final judgment there are no more petitions to be heard hearing and you had never filed any written response or requests additional time and till the date for the hearing is that correct i do acknowledge your own thinking  render a decision in due course and i declare the proceedings closed thank you thank you