my name is mark ayres for the appellate u s banks the issue in this case is whether under the establish standards that intervention should be liberally allowed us banks should have been allowed to intervene at the stage in the litigation where the district court was actually actively looking for parties which might have a claim to fire insurance policy proceeds that had been paid into court although u s banks sought to intervene to make its claim within the time set forth under the district court rather unusual procedure which will talk about for interested parties to make claims of the proceeds and all the u s bank had been named by mrs motto do as a party that may have a claim to the proceeds of u s banks motion to intervene to make a claim was ruled to be untimely as a ton of questions permit i'd like to focus on this issue of timeliness and then move on to mrs mottos erroneous position that the district court would not have had jurisdiction to actually rule on u s banks  now but just one point about the standard of review while this court's review of the denial of the motion to intervene is generally de novo it is true that the timeliness question is subject to an abuse of discretion standard but that standard serve as a very low hurdle in this case at this very unusual case considering the circumstances it is crucial to get the context of exactly what happened in this case that led up to that motion to intervene in this claim this odd claims process essentially what the what the district court did is set up a two stage process the first phase was going to be state farm and this is motto in other words is state farm liable to pay any fire insurance proceeds and what amount and that gets litigated it gets resolved and it leads up to a settlement between state farm and mrs moto the second part of that then commences and i think it's crucial that we see what exactly the court says in its order this is the first order this is after settlement is reached state farm agrees to pay over four hundred sixty seven thousand dollars into into  important later moto mrs moto agrees to provide notice to those parties climbing in interest in the proceeds of the insurance policy issued by state farm tomatoes so that those parties may file claims and be heard and then later on  says there will be no funds distributed except until the ultimate disposition of this case then the case moves up moves forward there's a little bit of a back and forth between the court miss mata miss martha actually filed three different motions trying to get disbursement of the funds without following this procedure and i just want to emphasize this procedure is the procedure that was agreed upon by state farm otto and and put in place by the district court i mean it was in the and state farm had agreed to the procedure that that appears to be what you just basing it on that sentence right i mean state farms agreements obviously took that to make the payment or i mean they don't have any other obligations beyond that but this is this is they serve you say this is unusual how wouldn't this normally work that parties like the bank would just intervene at the beginning of the case and then they would already be in the case and then they would have a claim on the money that has to be resolved as part of the lawsuit well that that may be true in some instances although one point about that your honor is they really wouldn't do much until that first phase are there going to be any proceeds at all is determined all right here then what do you mean when you say this is unusual the unusual part comes in where if you have later on and and just was this first part on usual or in your experience is this normal i would say that this claims procedure is unusual because nobody knows what this is it's not the typical case how would it work normally normally you would either have an inner pleader action go on where people would all be parties they would have their legal rights adjudicated they would have a right of appeal here we have the disposition between state farm this motto and now there's a sense there's a there's a it's like a claims procedure and the court was very clear it did not want to be called in or pleader which was a little odd but there's it's a claims procedure who would typically initiate the inner pleader action well the inner pleader action typically is a situation where state farm would have agreed to i'm just going to pay this money and  they call a claim and then later filed a second what turned out to be their second notice or second motion to intervene but what was it that that was under very different circumstances from what us banks motion to intervene when interest may have a claim on these proceedings and the district court's order was that she give them notice he finally had to say you given those fifteen days of this order she did that in june this happened june the sixth is when she f this with the court notice was given on us bank on july on june the fifth july third within the thirty days right within the procedure set forth by the district court us bank shows up files its motion to intervene and i think and whereas in the thirty days specify that is specified in the final order in this on may the twenty fourth it's in the appendix a ninety five in the record of the document one thirty thirty days that's the procedure and that's precisely what occurred here motion to intervene in the complaint intervention stating u s banks claim to the proceeds were filed that and i think it's easy to sum up this way let's assume for a second the u s bank had not called it a motion to intervene a complaint in advance but had just called it claim there would be no question about timeliness it may be that the district court didn't agree alternately with the u s banks legal positions but timeliness would not have been an issue because it would have been were we were on the list provided by m motto we filed a claim within thirty days it's timely instead the district court ruled it didn't give much of a basis for the ruling other than to say well u s banks motion is untimely because it would somehow prejudice state farm or mrs mata that's hard to understand given that this is the procedure set forth and agreed to by mrs mata say farm is gone they're out of it by this point they've already paid their money in the court has discharge them on its motto is agreed to this procedure and has agreed to the thirty days we filed that within thirty days so if if a claim would not have been on timely it is impossible to understand how a motion to intervene would not be on time and here is i think the crucial difference because you could say well then why not just  got you've got your procedure because we don't know what this procedure is are we a party it we're going to be asserting legal rights legal claims under recognized arkansas law contrary to what miss martha said to these  for a party to protect all their rights and make a claim would be to follow a motion to intervene what about the judge's statement that any claims against mano may be pursued by filing suit against her separately well that runs directly into court's curtis decision where this court made very clear that does not protect those in this modest position as are you that is the same as a district court you're not harmed by not being in the case because you can go see you separately now we've done that just a prick just to cover all the bases but the current the curtis decision involving sears is directly on point with this court said that is not sufficient for the exact same reason here here we're concerned that if that money is dispersed it is long gone  especially given mrs mottos reluctance to want to name parties in this we have a serious concern that that money will be long gone long before any any action is is is  separate action that you file did you seek some kind of order to protect funds i believe that a a what once that action was filed an order was sought again in this case and i i believe in the other case to address the timeliness issue i would say iran or the remaining back to allow the core of it i guess i what i would say is i don't see how because there's no difference in substance between filing a claim and filing a motion intervene except a claim doesn't protect you in in in your appeal rights or anything else i think what i would do with it what we would seek is every man to say you know you've set up this procedure they followed your procedure you should let them in the case now to adjudicate their rights with the with their in a way in a manner that they are protected in case you were due to take their legal rights against them they should be able to to a that's in the record the rest is pretty much as a matter of law we the facts here undisputed i would make one point though in response to that is the court did address this the consolidated underwriters case although any claim related to the mortgage because it could only it could be couldn't hear any equitable liens for example the case does not say that that there is that is not a case that's not what that case means bark further analysis at all it can hear any legally legal positions both legal and ethical but that doesn't really matter we clearly have recognized arguments under clearly established arkansas law to those fire insurance proceeds and there's nothing precluding certainly nothing in that case that precludes the court from addressing thank you think we then learned that the mortgage had been released at the courthouse we then learned that there was the existence of fourth place insurance so i filed a motion to dismiss g without prejudice no objection from these lawyers none not one then we start a shell game various entities start falling motions to intervene before trial the like the appellant's here and these like the appellant here should be hailed to a time on this issue but what about the fact that the judge sets up this procedure and says file a claim within thirty days said fall a claim not a motion intervene is involved here applying as a right to payment it's a legal right to payment and what they filed was a motion intervene seeking to reform that release that they followed of record before trial that mock client and i relied upon and settled this case now i understand now no matter how many lawyers tell you this my client is not liable on that note because she did not sign the note basic a mortgage is nothing more than  security interest the claim is against my client we never agreed that they could file anything seeking anything at all it was a legal claim at all judge and there is a claim as a right to payment nothing more nothing less every first year law student understands that the wife should in the judds let them intervene to make that claim they didn't follow klein they follow motion intervene and the judge didn't lawyer for them he took their claim they did not do that and at some point it's not as simple as saying well the judge gave them thirty days yes we did agree to do that because at this point i thought there was nobody with the legal they had filed a release over record it's lame county and they have now filed a separate action against me my clients and everybody else seeking to reform that release so in answer to that earlier question your view is that us bank knew about this process all along when we ask opposing counsel when did they know about the settlement well opposing counsel was representing jim dma see from the very day not this gentleman but his trial counsel and g m a c was the person on the check when i found out that there was a release fall out of record and that i found out that there was force placed insurance you can't get a double recovery judge and they didn't object to the nonstate motion how much noticed as a person made and just because u s bank is the actual note holder is of no moment because we were told that that that g m a c was the person and thought would receive the funds it turns out that's not true but at the end of the day your honour's shouldn't people what miss moto who don't even sign the note she's not liable own this note they can't point to a single obligation miss motto has been that a mortgage is just simply a security interest that released her down our interest there is not a single arkansas case on point holding a person liable at wall when you have not signed the note and you know at the end of the day equity aids the diligence it doesn't aid anybody hills and i can't i cannot comprehend of a situation where a national bank represented by the same lawyers sued then a motion to dismiss was filed i didn't have a right to that under rule forty one all they had to do was found objection your honor and then they filed another motion enervating they could have taken that appeal he said they didn't do that no they wait until i settle not only the personal property claim which was in excess of half a million dollars but also the real property client which was about four hundred thousand dollars they wait until i go out in a time a settlement on behalf of my client and then they file a motion intervene when the judge said to follow a claim now why was it that i was having all this trouble i did get crossways with judge miller because you know what this is a shell game i gave notice to everybody on news and at the end of the day it turned out to be these people u s bank that actually held the note but their predecessors had been they had filed motions they had not objected to the motion to dismiss and they had a notice of this an equity no matter what they do equity aids only the and so at the end of the day your honour's they have no legal claim as a matter of law because they released it did did the dismissal and g m a steve violate the automatic bankruptcy stay no ma'am because the stay only applies to actions against the state and here g m a c and i've cited you some alone that was an agent for us bank all time and all the time at all times g m a see this record reflects never own that no they were a service or there were a collection agent that's that's it but bear in mind that knowledge of the agent is  the principle especially when the same warriors are involved your honour's now how in the world can any person come into this court and argue that their motion intervene was was was timely when their predecessor was a party to defend it they didn't object all they had to do was object and say hey don't dismiss us and they would win a trial if that were wrong then their predecessors filed a motion intervene before trial they didn't appeal it at some point this court has to be to set up you know you've got to hold banks t same standards as you as everybody else is hale and and if they had every opportunity to appeal to the district courts to now their intervention motions granted it was their agents their predecessor they had every right they file these motions saying hey we don't we're the ones with the right payment but the district court said bam you're on time like why not appeal it then at the end of the day the district court was release we tried this case was settled in the middle of trial and they waited until after this and what judge miller was concerned about was is miss motto liable to anybody and only  facts she's not liable at law to anybody and in fact in equity she probably isn't either but that's pending before the u s district court maysters of arkansas or ought now they've sued to reform the mortgage and your honor i just think at the end of the day i ask you this mr souter if a party had filed a claim in response to that order would they have been a party to the case then no they would just be a claim and some kind i think what judge miller was trying out of the rules of civil procedure would be their status well i think i think they would be they would be a movie they would be  climate i think what judge miller was trying to do but calls and remember he had the record was that they had released this client they had  sue somebody i wasn't asking just about the bank i was asking about the procedure in the case when he said anybody can file a claim with thirty days i'm just wondering what would the status be of any party who filed such a claim or any person you're saying they would be a claimant a move it or a moving i mean they they they but quite frankly they can't that would be their status but it wasn't judge miller's intent to hold many litigation here it was hey do you have a right to payment and they do not have a at low right that's the merits so i'm trying i'm right in the procedure what status anybody should have seek and i certainly understand that but but if you go to the merits under rule twenty four which judge miller didn't do i mean timelessness is an issue here they had they had every opportunity to come in before court and if they didn't like mr miller's judge miller's decision then they could have appealed it up here they didn't do it thank you thank you but the last the next morning