please the court good morning my name is william palmer and i represent the appellant's in this matter i wish to reserve three minutes of my time to respond to questions this case challenges the misuse of the california unclaimed property law the sale and to the deposit as a matter of trust you follow that path and seize the funds actually generated that can very easily be done your honor and i'll tell you why because the funds are correct your honor not only were the fines taken without notice the laws deliberately ignored section three hundred thirty one but there was no process my client lives in england he holds as property in england he's never set foot in the state of california he wakes up one morning and a piece of this investment is taken and sold by the state of california my other client is a flight attendant she's been investing in a retirement fund that should be worth eight hundred can't find your investment because they forgot to exchange it when they had the opportunity so she's never received anything back and in the scene and her family now is that i  damages judgment against the state of california dan there's two issues there your honor there is a damages remedy against the individual my clients for asking for the return of their property the nature of the property w has continuous right so it run with it until it's properly trading and i think they're asserting that the stock was sold so what they would want is money compensation for the stock that's somebody is property and sells it without following proper procedures because that would be inconsistent with the just compensation requirement and the electrical contracts by governor davis it has also been addressed by the supreme court and the whole thing meant ski cases where by property was seized from individuals and destroyed the california supreme court held that the property had to be restored that it was not retroactive or are damages that stock they put it in the california investment cool and they rolled it over in investments there are these pools all over our state every day at five thirty am young men and women get up and they roll the investments over those remain private funds they were never part of the state it's they were taken in violation of the constitution and in violation of the expressed statutes that's intel stock i could trace it and show you where it is today it's still and in a crisis investment i would like to preserve the last two minutes california but you have asserted an affirmative that's not so of the eleven from them correct correct you have the authority from the attorney general of the state of california to assert that the tense in this case yes you a defense asserted in court in the name of the state not in the name of a public official then isn't that the job of the attorney general and only the attorney general to assert that if that's where you as an attorney other side a little more time thank you i should identify myself i'm robin johansen and the half of the state control of the state of california in response to judge b s whose question earlier also state constitutional officers are required to be bonded and the question here is really twofold according to the plaintiffs the control these actions were taken  i know it wheeling its case i will never put any money in california it's just a system and you're right it easy for me to imagine somebody with a six figure income getting a check for eleven dollars and fifty cents for dividend and distributing about it not getting around to the positing it because it's not worth a trip to the bank on account of how small it is relative to income until their old pile of them  tempers condemnation case we've all been wasting our time all these years including the supreme court deciding whether the government is or isn't liable to pay money you have a condemnation case and it ordinarily be an inverse condemnation case against the state government in federal court where it was held by a federal notice and what i want is now i want to know what the notices are it looks to me as i read the complaint and i want you to educate me if i missed something but it looked to me as when i read the complaint so there is no individual eyes notice at all six show me in the record what the evidence is of some sort of individualized notice the evidence in the record in the statute your honor but the issue is the eleventh amendment and under the eleven affidavits declarations sometimes sworn testimony that supplements the facts and bears on jurisdiction so i ask you where it is and then you can't tell me where it is so i'm right back to the complaint he has more stock that's likely to be as cheated without notice to him in the future under this procedure and he wants an injunction to prevent that from happening at the eleventh amendment does not prohibit doesn't keep the same sort of residential connection that might enable him to control his property and protect it why doesn't he case that he can do to stop a street one of those you can vote when he gets proxy statements i would guess that most people do what i do when they get a proxy statement store on the way you can spend twenty minutes or a half hour reading the fine print figuring out what the issue is and voting on it and not making any difference to the outcome or you can throw it away so you throw it away number two we can report a change of address you have no occasion to do that if your address doesn't change mine hasn't changed for thirty years number star property say with a holder that's not how it works what happens is that the banks that we've got this property and we can't find church b s or we don't know where he is we have tried we have sent mail to him it has come problem that these plaintiffs claim that we do the court i think is really looking at the real issue here the issue is not whether we are all in danger of having our property issue two  that particular native village that particular request permanent equitable restitution and they tried to call everything else but it didn't sell what yes six hundred funds your honor the money that the a weapon amendment implicitly contains an exception or if the amendment takings eleven far as i can tell you do not have a case that speaks expressly to that if you i've never seen a eleventh amendment jurisdictional issue i've never seen  i wish them i guess i'm entitled to some extra time but i don't take them and i'm over that if you need it first of all what you've highlighted is the fact that california is in desperate financial straits and we have resorted to taking people's retirement funds to balance precisely on it on the notice this case without notice they didn't need to plead eleventh amendment they could have shown up in court the first day attach the notice that is the direct mail noticed requiring them a lane and walker they could have attached the newspaper the internal memo from the controller on the first page starting in one nine hundred eighty nine it says notice not sent that's the direct mail notice on the second page of the memo it explains to you how our state section fifteen thirty one right at the bottom so they made these cartoon ads which are and which are not calculated to reach the people and that's the only noticed that mr  thirty one and that's a critical notice section in the code that lays out the requirements the timing requirements for the direct mail notices it lays out the timing requirements and content of the publication notice and the third point is it lays out the affirmative steps that the state has to do that you touched on to locate these people because we have their social security number and inspection fifty thirty one it says if the social security number is there they have to go to the  cases and the cases that are annotated under their code section so the reason they can't cite their own laws are so far outside of them that they can't bring them in the eleventh amendment immunity only applies when people are acting within the scope of the constitution and their laws when a state official knowingly disregards a lot for that that's true i think if you sue for damages well nineteen eighty three cases and you've got your eleventh member problem even if they acted contrary to exception carved out penn hearst your decision in writing eliot and duke energy no you cannot as a state official knowingly describe disregard the u s constitution and your laws and still argue that you're entitled to eleventh amendment you back what is left of the investment but here you're selectively applying under section fifteen i believe it was fifteen fifteen forty get back what was left it's not they take your stock and then you have a year to file a claim alleged that they didn't comply with the notice present provisions of fifteen thirty one therefore claim present and under fifteen forty one or immunity under fifteen sixty six doesn't apply if they didn't comply with the sections that were that were to protect the property owners so you're saying you don't have to follow the administrative claims procedure because the state didn't follow the procedures that come prior to the administrative claims that would lead to a that statutory construction that would lead to an absurd result you'll find the decisions against the state and bank of america versus corey you cannot apply the sections you like and not apply the sections you don't like  tell me a little about williamson why wouldn't you have to sue in state court or pursue whatever remedies you have in state court as well as your state administrative remedies prior to getting its federal court because your honor we have alleged constitutional violations alleged the this is the forum i made a very conscious decision to bring this case in federal court because i had acted provide years as one of the chief counsels form one of the major agencies in the state i knew that the governor was a form comptroller i knew that the attorney general was against me and i knew that the judges that i'd be in front of all of pointed by them and i thought i had a better shot being in front of you then and it's in a bank in front of a state court in a bankruptcy state would like to just a couple final comments i was that there was a first of all the complaint states these people were known ladies still working on the airline their addresses are on their they have their social security numbers fifteen thirty one require the state take affirmative acts to protect these property owners they disregarded those sections their addresses were known the purpose of the state was to rule that the statute was to reunite the property owners with the property or similar stock you know that's the value of the stock as of when and let me point you raise a very good point your honor another key section of this code required the controller to sell the damages purposes i would argue for example the point of the highest value of the property during the time it was taken from me i well i might argue that i'm entitled to similar property or i might be entitled to the wrongful investment itself to correct these to gather things i don't know whether there are any finally companies for anybody else that may or may not be involved in the section but you have not given the court the benefit of any list of possible disclosures that we might have on the bench which concerns me because i have some insurance stocks and if i find a bunch of companies behind some of this then i'm in trouble even hearing the