was church versus church mutual insurance thank you to the panel it may please the court my name is scott hymns i call representative stuart church of chicago all of it baptist church the fact that is an order of historic church is frankly of no moment in this matter it's their role as a policyholder this matter before the court this issue before the court singularly defined by the order of the grant of summary judgment is that it's a causation case this is a first party dispute between the policyholder and its insurance company the security company the security firms our insurance company in this case is church mutual insurance company that had a policy issued to the historic church to cover it for certain quote for certain items of damage the question in this case is whether there was evidence that would give rise to a material ist to a fact in regard to whether that causational it causation link was there and whether there were damages the result in the present case the matter before you has a date of loss of march first two thousand and eleven that date has been of serious analysis in this entire matter and there is both expert in fact witness testimony that shows why this was a covered loss specifically at the summary judgment standard the argument that was made by opposing counsel was that there was not a link between any of the damage that occurred at the church and between evidence that would show it was from something the policy covered now frankly the law has been very well settled that anything very little fee to hang your hat on the issue of your corrected sikes it was an issue of fact we feel that despite the language of the court order that based on the law that relates to the rule fifty six applying of the facts at issue that it was in fact complied with for just a number of reasons number one the law is longstanding under the wall that was cited within the court order under the case of stepped over says fraser whimpers the city of belvidere that there is discretion of for the court to consider matters such as this where there have been additional facts included as long as it's done to clarify summary judgment findings essentially cut to the heart of the matter and while the order does in fact address the the contested issue of facts it also begins the discussion by by correctly reflecting the rule fifty six understands that there still has to be by the movement the burden to show why summary judgment should be granted those those considerations are in favor of the nonmoving which is all over this case and if i may in this regard the case law in regard to what the judge had stricken shows that it should have been included because it is intended not to allow for global generalisations it's intended not to allow somebody to essentially not be  be concise regarding what the evidence is and how it relates to the issue at hand the issue at hand is well defined the causal relationship everything that was supplied that showed why these contested issues existed were broken up into fact witnesses vs expert witness es the fact that some of the expert information was not considered by the court we also feel was an error judge sikes and that is because under the daubert standards which again has been has been understood by the public adjuster it's somebody where it's not going to be as precise that it is more of what the court had called a flexible standard in this case the testimony that came from tom our mentor who was the engineer i'm sorry the causation expert for the plaintiff in this case and shannon cook showed that there had been an evaluation done that met the four standards of belford number one you had somebody who had a background expertise in the area from years within the industry number two they had data that they were relying on and did research in regard to the case number three they had a methodology that they used to interpret that data and number four there was nothing offensive about the conclusions they drew when you took that data in light of that methodology so what they did in this case was very simple the issue came down to the maybe i'm sorry march first two thousand and eleven store what what mr miller had said was that because the cause of the loss if you look at what's covered in the policy is you can have the infiltration by water snow hail that causes damage for instance to an interior this was pointed out by the court their order the question is did it happen from something else that was due to say a hail or wind storm there was evidence in this case of hail or wind storm from those facts from both fact and the expert witnesses who had testified regarding this being consistent with hail so that is one of the key distinctions to make it's not about did the windstorm actually happen on march first two thousand and eleven the loss happened on that day because the proper position of the roof and the before and after effect of what existed as damage before and then after march first when there was water infiltration into the roof now how was it that that was actually the certain individuals that are there deacons who were actually present deacon arnold romeo and deacon eugene king had both testified and by the way we will absolutely concede neither one of these gentlemen is our engineers neither one of them are meteorologists who are on me i was excluded as a discovery sanction romeo was excluded to the extent that anything afterwards didn't come in he had tested he'd already given two depositions in the case at that time but judge sykes i would i would submit that even if you wanted to take a judge  even if you want to take deacon arnold romeo out of it you still have the testimony of the experts which on page five of the order was conceded are still in the case because it had reached that deadline in the discovery yes and when those individuals are looked at they provided two different things number one they provided an analysis of what the damage would be for the sanctuary and number two they provided a link between those damages and what cost that was for mr herman what happened was he was able to show that because prior to march first two thousand and eleven there had not been even though there had been storm conditions there had not been judge sykes the infiltration of water until afterwards then the damage the last occurred when that infiltration began and it was conspicuous if you want to just look at the testimony of for instance deacon eugene then that was someone who said yes even though he is agreeing with mr deacon romeo he also said that this is a different situation in the sanctuary on the pews he saw them with his own eyes and the law also states i think this is a key distinction that was in error when the courts opinion at the district level judge sykes was you can have a expert that might be able to opine on something that they didn't perceive or they didn't additionally view you can't have a layperson that does that but what they missed was the actual testimony of mr king deacon king who did actually perceive that he had that visual appreciation with his own eyes and because of that what you had was the before and after plus you also had the testimony of mister i'm sorry mr earlier who was able to link the two in the interview in regard to damages  case is not so broadly phrases insurance coverage certainly not any more it started out that way but it no longer as as exists for the panel today the question is simply what is the appropriate consequence when despite five motions to compel a party to litigation doesn't demonstrate the minimum level of diligence necessary to put forth any evidence to support any elements of that and then fail to comply with a very clear longstanding and binding local rules governing summary judgment the district court determined that the appropriate consequence of some judgment church mutual urges you to agree in a firm we do know that the district court could have found on charitably this panel couldn't sort through and figure out which of the seventy five states are being reported nor could the disk record warm portly the local rules neither in the letter or spirit allow for this sort of globalised thematic response it was a breach of faith in a failure to comply with the local rules that basis was and we supported and it was self evident quite frankly that there was nothing left every element of all of its case was effectively procedurally extinguished although further that all of it didn't contest that basis of the district court's decision in its a that's forfeiture we can move beyond the procedural grounds the district court also went farther in looked at the evidence that all of it did a doofus despite the five requests or the five motions that compel all of which were granted the last one culminating in a bar in order that judge marriage entered stating that by january seventh two thousand and fifteen i believe there could be no more evidence and causation the district court went beyond look at the record the factual evidence your record in determined that in fact no witnesses at all that put forth at the summary judgment point time and none of the evidence established a single one of all of its elements which quite simply it first had to demonstrate that he when storm occurred on or about march first two thousand there's actually not a question of fact in the record established but then had to demonstrate or at least raise a question of fact that that wind storm caused damage to the exterior of the church resulting in all damage to the physical envelope allowing water to penetrate there was a single scintilla of question of evidence of fact that all of it then had to demonstrate that because of that wind storm caused damage to the exterior water did in fact infiltrate and damage the interior there wasn't anything on the record supporting that element and then finally out ahead of demonstrate that as a consequence of that occurrence it suffered damages which occurred to q late in actual cash value that's the contractual measure of damages and it couldn't do that in fact so there are two independent bases both of which independently sustain the district court summary judgment church mitchell believes is simply a straight ahead case and that the panel should affirm on and if there are no picking up on the allegation that there was nothing disputed in regard to this list of facts once again the issue in this case is was there a causal relationship between the damage and between the underlying event specifically the exact issues of fact the disputed issues that were submitted by all about this case spoke only to that issue because it was the only issue that was going to be dispositive of the entire motion now we specifically in our reply and i understand what my esteemed opposing counsel is saying but actually went through and explained why a lot of them has not had any issue it's because we were in agreement  when they said for instance that i'll give of giving the court an example kevin moore who works as a photographer they remarked that they had made the statement that he had no factual knowledge regarding whether there had been an advantage and if it had any causal effect we said we agree he was a photography he didn't have that there were other individuals that also didn't have anything of consequence except a bit role or a peripheral responsibility like a photographer in the case and we'd agreed with that the fact that they put when the policy was when the policy accepted and those issues we did agree with them the fact of the matter is when we respond as we supplied the fact witnesses and we also supplied the the expert witnesses and judge sykes had pointed out before what about the fact that part of the deacon romeo information had been excluded regardless of how you look at this regardless of what you consider the evidence in this case from an expert who had relied upon other individuals who had seen this game at the time who had done background research on whether events who had actually toured the actual superstructure the property and been able to evaluate when this happened was able to have conclusions that dovetail exactly with what the fact witnesses stated before that date they didn't have this damages afterwards they did i see that i believe my time is up unless there's any further questions i appreciate sports consideration