michael letters i have the privilege today of representing suzanne jorgensen the appellate in this case i have ten minutes to try to convince you to reverse what the bankruptcy appellate panel did and i see two hurdles to overcome well the first one is exactly that's what i wanted to talk about so i don't know which way you went and we can talk about that your honor your honor i'm going to confine my comments to what is involved in the record it's one of these things where you have a casino with seven related entities which filed for bankruptcy and then there's a complex plan of reorganization which involves a settlement agreement and this plan is confirmed on twelve twenty one of zero four and that was when the appeal is pending before the bankruptcy appellate panel the final decree in this case was entered on march thirty first two thousand two thousand and five and what's important and what i'd like to talk about is in why it isn't moved is what the plan provides it basically says all out claims shall be paid in full no disputed claim shall be paid until it's allowed then i would like to direct your attention your honor is to exhibit age to the pelleas brief in this case which attaches a copy of the confirmation order and very end of it it basically says if all claims are paid we've got about four hundred thousand dollars in cash here there's a dispute with the i r s of about fifty nine thousand dollars if everything is  fifty nine thousand dollars three hundred fifty nine thousand three hundred ninety and seventy one cents the other interesting thing about exhibit a is that if you look at what the claims are going to be paid the unsecured claims of all all of the assets as i understand it have been distributed stateline is no longer in existence for but there's a reserve there is a reserve there is a reserve and you can find and that's part of the record your honor and this is very important because i spent a lot of time poring over this when you say there's a reserve is there a fund of money sitting in a bank someplace you know it would basically be money that would have been distributed to the equity security holders so here's how it works in a bankruptcy we could all be allowed claims there's administrative claims attorneys fees i r s there's unsecured claims there are secured claims you know the secure claims i don't think was there but all of those been paid out everything's been paid but after everything was paid guess what there's fifty nine thousand three hundred ninety dollars less if all disputed claims are allowed for their full amount now if you look at the ledger it says what about the i r s so if the iris is disputed for fifty six thousand eight hundred forty one dollars and thirty nine cents judge what is that if the i r s wins its dispute fifty nine thousand three hundred ninety dollars is left if the i r s the dispute is disallowed then there's another fifty six grand that goes in the pot for a total of one hundred sixteen thousand page says total all cash for a one seven thirty eight fifty six net cash available after payment of all possible claims paid able upon confirmation that cash left over fifty nine thousand three hundred ninety dollars then if you go back one page to where it talks about i r s you'll see a footnote there's a footnote one there and it says total disputed i r s fifty six thousand forty one thirty nine what this us judge and this is in the record it tells us that three there are some disputed claims because the plan says we're not going to pay the disputed claims until they're allowed but what they did is they valued the disputed claims they basically said look we don't four hundred one thousand then we take all undisputed claims ok then we can't be i arrest dispute and assume that they win if the i r s wins there's still fifty nine thousand three hundred ninety dollars left over if know you don't in other words all claims of all seven entities are paid in full and you can tell this from two ways your honor the first is a line item of the fifty nine thousand left over the second is the fact that the unsecured all spent but if you read dynamic brokers that's the case that says hey if we can fashionable some sort of equitable relief then it's not moot there's money here it would have gone to the debtors equity security holders that can be brought back therefore if this claim for up to that amount we're not asking to take any money from any of the creditors we got paid they got paid that's fine they get it because this is a court of equity and claims allowance is an equitable issue that her claim to be  good afternoon now when borys appearing for state lines are telling and jim's enterprise is the only two remaining debtors unfortunately honor that is a complete misstatement of the facts of this case and has no bearing on the record or what has actually happened know and that's clear from the fact that a plan was confirmed there was a liquidating plan and a final decree was and and in the record in the plan it shows that creditor reserve did not belong to the partnership debtors but first of all is the status of this reserve describe it in terms of what's there to there is a reserve of approximately eight hundred thousand dollars which belongs to the state line hotel and james enterprises in excerpts of record before the back page ninety nine so the partnership debtors have and continue to have no interest in the creditor reserve to the extent the funds in the creditor thousand that we heard about this morning i don't think it ended up being fifty nine thousand there were some but that was contributed back to the state line hotel inc the park so that so the so called fifty nine thousand no longer exist as i would not exist and it was not distribute to the partners what the assets the partners had created this other partnership we're not really sure why it got creative they ran a couple of little things through it but it had no assets order to settle these cases and resolve a lot of intercompany  telling and i don't believe this court has the power to give her a claim against the assets of state land hotel think the only point they could give her that is judge size back of the bankruptcy court left and it's never been asked for really into this reply brief was filed saying i've gone through this i found a balance sheet it's fifty nine thousand we get that but it doesn't exist and it doesn't belong to this debtor this debtor was dissolved more than two years there's nothing there argument we believe it was important to be here out of deference to the court and explain any issues because there has been this continued confusion with related games cause that sometimes but i think if you have a final decree you have a partnership that doesn't exist you have a plan that says explicitly the partnership debtors have no interest in the creditor reserve and none of those orders were appealed and i think that's the distinction i would make in the dynamic some distributions where you can enter into the plan here because no one has appealed it and at this point i don't see how you want to a plan where there is no continuing entity but if you don't to do the play and you can't undo the ninety thousand that was paid out when you want to do that you filed three copies with the court and your opposing counsel perhaps like it stated a different way your honor we filed a claim against state line casino wink that's where she was hurt it turns out that state line hotel inc is one of the seven related get around it he's that has buttons imagine for the sake of argument that that claim had not been just allowed based on the notice reasons that it was imagine that it was allowed and then she discovered oh state like to see no it's the liability there's joint venture liability there's a lot of different theories of liability and the bankruptcy rules as interpreted by the ninth circuit are extremely liberal in allowing debtors to file amended proofs of claim as a matter of fact you can send a letter to the trustee saying i expect you to pay me and that can be deemed an informal proof of claim subject to amendment after the bar date stiffly put this money someplace it's under one of the revolving cups here and it's not moot in the event that one of those