honor this case represents a questionable application of a federal human trafficking statute and the application of colorado wage and hour laws to an extended family operates a farm and our small time landlords and rocky ford colorado families in general and farming families in particular are not  operate as do unrelated individuals in employer employee relationships as i said your honor to speak up a bit the sackets are small time landlords and farmers who operate a seasonal farm stand and walk he ford and they do not make their living as human traffickers they are not involved in smuggling or prostitution or there's no violence involved in this case whatsoever it's a family and extended family who had quarrels over time that caused the plaintiffs to leave in return on a couple of occasions and if you look at the  filed they took everything that they wanted to with them apparently they found you move closer yes we speak sure apparently they found work earning above one hundred and twenty five percent medi living situation the only people that my clients ever helped to gain entry into the united states were three members of mrs sackets extended family her brother her sister in law and their son and they did not do this for their own benefit they did it for the benefit of their relatives to help them get here or to have an opportunity to live in the united states and work here and that's what has happened so so all that accepting all of that that's that's testified that she took them out for lunch they were trying to get them driver's licenses when her brother was ill they took him to the doctor for treatment of his kidney stones and probably saved his life so that in many many respects they just are operating like a family and they have their fuse and their brother and sister too not a parent and child here this is a brother and a sister who are trying to live together in the same community after being apart for decades and so the argument that they were starved even though these plaintiffs gained weight when they were here  fat the argument that they had all of their things help from them and they couldn't go anywhere is belied by the facts of their coming and going as they pleased so well so so let's i mean still assuming that everything you've said is true even if that is true and basically even if it's undisputed if they send your client discovery requests and say and look i'm unsympathetic to the situation here where you've got a team of lawyers paper and up pro se defendants but they send your client discovery requests asking for certain information and  responses to questions i mean even assuming everything you say is true if your client basically willfully refuses to answer and there is some evidence of this record that the failure to provide information was because he thought it would help the plaintiff's case i mean the district court as a sanction  make facts found for purposes of trial cannon well i think that the court has discretion to fashion a discovery sanction but i think that when we look at what these in iraq are tories were and how they were worded in the context of this case so for example if you look at the st in iraq a tory where they ask mr and mrs sackett to identify every individual who had worked for them since two thousand and eleven and their names are still security number their date of birth the data terminations these kinds of questions i mean they might work well isn't that stuff that employers are supposed to keep well even if they are small time farmers well you know what mr sacket responded i mean it has his written responses that no one right they did he didn't feel that the people that his family members who were living in one of his houses and who help out as they from had their perspective as they so chose keep in mind that the son just in the teenager was in school they took him to school each day right so he wasn't doing a lot of work around the farm right he's going to school and they're helping with what he had other people who worked out there though didn't he didn't the record ultimately bear that out well he did have some mr sacket did hire a gentleman to help him plant and it's true that the other family members did help around the family operation ok well i'm not talking about the found i'm going to give you the family members because i make my kids go out and do work and i don't list them as employees but how about how about the guy who comes and helps him plant i mean he's post he supposed to know who that is well i believe that that at least one of those gentlemen was identified and i necessarily know what i mean for example the judge the dates of work the job title right the dates held in each position i mean the question itself is so so in answer to judge parsons question can you give an illustration of the question that was actually underlying this sanctions you would i mean this per the example that you're going through  had in the day to day operations and decision making relating to the armenian leasing operation from january th through the present ok mister sacket responded i anita dunn all the work no employees ok that's what mr sacket wrote in his response and then as you'll recall your honor that but that wasn't even true well i mean maybe  time he did right i'm right so the question though is remember that both mr and mrs sackett were extensively deposed by the plaintiffs in this case and these questions this particular question in iraq are torie number three which frankly is a better question to direct to an individual in a deposition as opposed to in iraq torie because it's so broad they were queried about this very thing and answered those questions in their depositions but nevertheless the plaintiffs then filed a motion to compel to say that the answer given to iraq atory number three was inadequate did not attach the deposition exhibit so that the court could actually see if there are already asked and answered and then there were sanctions that were imposed as a factual finding to say that mr sacket knew about whatever it was that mrs sackett in her arrangements with her sister that he knew that she wasn't paying her sister for the work that she was doing and that to me is a stretch i mean how do you get from that question to that conclusion which makes its way into a jury instruction and that's what's troubling about the fact that these these defendants got steamrolled do you have do you have any cases that that say that if somebody answers a question in a deposition you know fully and presumably truthfully that it doesn't matter that they stone well probably not that specific hold in your honor no well i'm sure nobody would ever say it that right and i think that i mean obviously the general rule and i think that ma weighing discuss this and some of her orders is that discovery is essentially complimentary that a party is entitle to use the different tools in the tool box which include iraq or tories and depositions but i guess it's just more of an issue of here in this case where you have parties who are so far from sophisticated in terms of their command of the english language their understanding really of what is going on and then who do answer orally which is the best means for these folks to communicate  rules just like any other political i don't think that there is any license legally whether it's right or wrong to say that we are to apply the federals of supersede or differently for look at what happened here and you see that the plaintiffs did have an opportunity through the discovery tools that they employed to fully work up their case that they had everything that they needed they were out resourced these defendants by a mile more than a mile and so when you see that they're basically employing the discovery of these in iraq and they've taken twelve hours of depositions as a sensually a lever or a tool to get it essentially a default judgment against a pro se party you know the question is when is that too much right and i mean it's obviously a balancing act but here when you take the summary judgment recommendation and you couple it with a couple of motions in limine a say and by the way they can't say anything that even contradicts these findings they don't even get to they don't even get offered defense they cannot contradict it at trial so that when when mr sacket goes to trial or must talk about all the assistance that he provided for his relatives over decades he's not even allowed to speak so that starts to become problematic in terms of due process is it correct that they did not appeal the saying or do not object to the sanction order with the district court judge right you talk about the rule yeah yeah they they didn't object to the recommendations on the summary judgment which i think included the sanctions so they didn't but i still think that this good morning your honors may please the court my name is paul swanson and i represent the police the shown family before turning to the two specific issues on appeal i want to dispel any misconception that this is simply a quarrel between family members sackets were victims here these notions are false the jury below was presented with a claim for human trafficking and the jury found that the sackets trafficked in abused seans and despite the sack it's tories that the as shown served in the court narrowed and limited those in iraq a tory sue a spontaneous iraq a tory number one that opposing counsel mentioned the court narrowed that so that it was properly tailored to the case and it struck either in iraq or tories that said we're going to be necessary the sec it's also chose to make misleading an incomplete document productions in response to the show ends twelve requests judge carson you suggested that counsel for the plaintiffs papered this case heavily but i would i would take issue with that because we are looking at pretty narrow discovery requests that were not difficult to respond to and in any event the court was not told why the sackets couldn't respond to them th agates simply out of a strategy a strategy of intransigence decided not to as mr sackett put it he said if i thought i gave them any information at all it would be detrimental to my case so i didn't give them anything do you agree don't you that it could be you know i the record would show in this case that you guys have at times had five lawyers involved in this case and you would agree that for mr sackett over there that that could seem a bit overwhelming i think it could seem overwhelming to face five lawyers but those five lawyers were each issuing separate sets of iraq to tory's on behalf of the a seans all of that would ring with you wouldn't you want to do that though because that would would comport with the rules right certainly further the magistrate judge took time at its st conference and in person with the parties to explain what these in iraq the tories meant in plain english to make sure that these sackets were not being inundated by something that they couldn't handle and the magistrate judge said oh you need to do is give a narrative response and if you can't respond explain why but the sacks didn't do that so i don't think that any appearance of  imposing lawyers on the other side would have put them at a disadvantage when they had the court being especially solicitous of their pro se status and i think all of this is important because if the lower court here was not adequately solicitous of the sack s after and after giving warnings guidance multiple orders and giving them over a year to comply with its orders if that's not enough then i think we'll set it crippling precedent for district courts that are handling pro se cases and we would also give strong incentive to proceed parties to play rope a dope and to you know see if they can get away with noncompliance and if that fails then hire counsel and three post trial briefing or appeals try to get another bite at the apple so this is all background to say we we would urge the court to affirm in order to vindicate the authority of district courts and the enforceability of their orders which were disregarded here let me turn to the specific issues on appeal let's can we can we start with the nd issue yes about the the use of the financial information sure so i want to start by specify what this is about what was objected to here we had objections to an isolated set of questions about real estate holdings properties owned by the sackets the seconds do not object to other testimony about their assets or about their financial position it was only about this line of questions about their real estate holdings so do you think with the sec it's being pro se at trial that they had a duty to lodge a specific objections as  counsel party would no i don't think that a pro se party has to articulate objections in the same way that a lawyer would i do think it proceed party still needs to let the district court know what is being objected to what are the grounds i mean they have generated on the grounds of relevance right that's right but they didn't raise the issue that is now being raised which is prejudiced based on some you know suppose it while they just said relevance and this testimony was relevant to the merits of the trafficking statute requires that the shown prove that the sec it's knowingly benefited from that shown as labor and so whether the sackets owned the properties where the shows were forced to work is relevant because it was their discussion as to the values the values may may have been discussed for some of the properties i don't i don't believe that that was the main thrust the initial question was do you own the property where the issuance worked and there were some objections and eventually the question was how many properties do you own in that response of testimony was oh a few enough to get by this wasn't true and so counsel for the issuance went through and impeached the witness and said do you own this property in this property and at the end of it wasn't a few properties it was thirteen and so this was both a merits issue and an impeachment issue but if we get past that this is relevant to punitive damages and under circuit case law  there is no bar on presenting that evidence of wealth evidence of financial assets in support of a punitive damages claim this is the trafficking statute to permit punitive damages not on its own terms it is  be applied and under this circuit's other precedent evidence of financial assets not only are admissible but really are necessary so that the fact finder is going to be able to properly impos punishment and a punishment that will fit the particular circumstances are you aware of a case that would require us to defer to a colorado statute on the admissibility of this wealth  information well so the sackets have argued that under the federal statute forty two u s c section one thousand nine hundred and eighty eight when federal statutes are deficient in providing suitable remedies a court can look to state law to fill in that blank but the colorado supreme court has said that that statute doesn't apply as long as there is adequate federal authority on the question the th circuit has followed the same principle and said as long as there adequate federal authority that's going to be enough and when we talk about adequate federal federal authority we don't just mean does the statute say whether damages are awarded will or whether evidence of assets can be introduced in support of punitive damages we include case law in that as well this was what the court's holding was in kearns verse colorado funeral services inc that circuit said we've got enough guidance from the supreme court from our own jurisprudence to be able to answer this question so we don't need to invoke section one thousand nine hundred and eight and go and look at go and look at state law for that you know and it strikes me that this colorado statute that they discuss is more of an evidentiary rule of reconstruction era civil rights claims and there's dispute around the circuits about whether that applies outside of those core eight hundred and sixty dollars s provisions and then if so i would also add that even if this issue was adequately raised by the pro se parties at trial even if it is not sufficiently relevant to the merits or if there's a question about punitive damages this would be harmless error and under the abuse of discretion standard that the court is applying here we can't show harm or the i should say the sack it's can't show harm there was overwhelming evidence to support of a finding of punitive damages  by the jury the jury heard other evidence about assets and wealth aside from what's been objected to here and they didn't object and it was in fact in many instances testimony was prompted by the sackets but the jury also heard that the and the jury heard that mr a shown was so ashamed of the situation that he had found that his family fallen prey to that he committed suicide the jury wanted punitive damages here to address what this court has called the contemporary manifestation of slavery in the form of human trafficking and so for that reason and the other independent reasons i've mentioned i think that the punitive damages ward can be and should be affirmed by the court so i want to turn to the st issue on appeal unless you're owners have other questions on the punitive damages issue you alluded to this in the opening arguments the issue of the summary judgment recommendation and the order that adopted it this was waived it is barred by the firm waiver rule under federal rule seventy two seconds had fourteen days to object to the magistrate judge's summary judgment recommendation and that was made clear for them in the recommendation itself the recommendation said failure to make timely objections made bargain over a review by the district judge of the magistrate judges proposed findings and recommendations and will result in the waiver of the right to appeal what about the interest of justices sure so overreaching and now it's true that on appeal their own counsel but that that is seems very much like the sub sum and substance of an entire justice exception should we construe those notions of reaching unfair and unfairness and the like to be the equivalent of an argument based on the interest of just as exceptions i don't think so your honor you for two reasons st as you pointed out we no longer extend solicitous reading to sackets filings because they are represented and secondly much like the plain error standard that this court applies that needs to be argued and specifically argued you can't just conjure up from a number of other points you make you need to explain to the circuit what the standard is how it applies in the seconds didn't do that here and even the facts that they do put forth in their brief they're not going to satisfy that standard they need to show that there was some effort to object and they haven't shown that there was no effort whatsoever even though the sackets had previously received the same admonition from the magistrate judge about other recommendations and even though they had objected to other recommendations they simply chose not to do so here so they can't satisfy that st prong of the interest of justice test they also would need to show some excuse for their failure what's the reasonable explanation for why they didn't object and they didn't try to and it would be hard for them to proffer some reasonable excuse when they they not only fail to object but down the road when these findings from the summary judgment order get adopted in the pretrial order they don't object then it get they get adopted in the jury instructions and they don't object then they don't build any record where there is some clear set of objections they are concerned about it in response to the motions in limine me but they really don't brief that issue properly with the district judge either so i don't think they can satisfy that nd requirement that they would show some excuse for their failure is it does it make any difference at all in this case what the educational levels of mr missa sakit are and you know whether mrs sackett was whether english is her st language does that make any difference i think that the relevant consideration is that we have pro se parties here and every district judge needs to be given some discretion to tailor instructions and guidance to make sure that the parties before him or her are not caught unawares th understand more or less what is going on in the in the magistrate judge in the district judge did at the magistrate judge as i mentioned giving extensive guidance i mean pages of the st hearing transcript dedicated to explaining in plain english what was going on in the district judge address this in response to the motions in limine where the nd said hey we didn't understand what a motion in limine has we don't speak latin and the judge said well but you can read you've made filings in the motion in limine e explains exactly what it's requesting and what the consequences of that request would be if granted so the process status has to be considered but i don't think we can expect a district court to you know conduct some sort of law dear and then find out exactly what the abilities of the pro parties are in a case like this the sackets chose to proceed pro se and disregarded the court's suggestion that they might get pro bono counsel through the courts pro bono panel a close by saying even if we undisputed thank you your own house will leave the time's expired so counselor excuse we appreciate your arguments this morning the case will be submitted the court will be in recess for a short period