may please the court my name is paul cochrane i'm counsel for the appellant douglas church talk this appeal is about the right of a party to make a motion which the federal rules of civil procedure permit him to make in this case we are challenging an order of the district court judge sullivan dated june sixteenth of two thousand and sixteen which judge sullivan summarily denied deemed and denied letters and treat them as motions as long as the parties have a fair chance to be heard well i think the answer to that is yes and no the the law in the circuit is that district courts have no power to prevent someone from making a claim which happened here just sullivan didn't say you can't make your motion judge sullivan said i'm going to treat your three page letter as a motion number one and then consider it on the merits and then number two there was a motion for reconsideration which was fully briefed that's correct but wise and not sufficient for a sufficient opportunity for your client to be heard because the motion the motion was never made the letter that was keeps you from making arguments but if what point have you ever suggested any argument that you would have made that you were kept from making which isn't on its face frivolous that is you know i may agree with you about the procedure but why should we do anything about it in a case where you haven't told us at all ever what you might have said if a formal motion it's been m proud of the reason that has never happened is because of the procedure that occurred here the procedure is what you are now relying on for not telling us at any stage what you would have done that is oh good he did it best way i can say i didn't have a chance but you never tried because the law didn't allow us to a rule six point three reconsideration motion does not allow you to raise any facts or arguments that were not before the did you try when he said i am treating this as a botia to supplement what you had said with anything else he didn't say the judge i've never been in from oh he didn't say but did you do what any reasonable person would have done which is come in and say you're treating it as a motion here is what i want to say we made a motion for reconsideration to do just that judge like i've never been in front of judge solomon what more would you have offered in fact but what exactly were you precluded from putting before the court by having the court act on your motion letter and the motion for reconsideration i've had difficulty understanding what it was that you didn't feel that you had an opportunity to present to the court and i can understand that drama because we were never given the opportunity to make that presentation you tell me now certainly as we said in our in our to a letter which was restricted by judge sullivan's rules we want to present clear and convincing evidence that the attorneys in this case misrepresented facts to  it has been tried no no i don't know how many times so ok if that is what you wanted to present that would be something that if you presented it the judge could have immediately said that is frivolous that is no that is i would like to know what argument you would have made that you claim propose to make a motion had never been made before this is not before the circuit court on the prior motion that motion was limited to fraud on the circuit court with regard to the written consent and the exhibit a issue as if you look at page two forty nine of the record you will see that the pelleas here acknowledged in their reconsideration papers that we were raising a new issue on the proposed district court potion based on our letter that had never been raised before an issue that they knew that something had been raised before the circuit on the prior motion that was the same motion but it wasn't the same motion a fraud on the court motion and a hazel in cup for men has no time bar it can be brought it any time hazel was thirteen years after the lawyers knew about the the the dishonesty and of the attorneys involved in obtaining the judgment they had settled the case and thirteen years later the supreme court said this goes to the integrity of the system it makes  a fraud was perpetrated that dishonesty took place then that motion has to be heard we made a pretty motion letter it didn't call for any presentation of evidence in fact the rule to a which we've tried to raise here which the police refused to address and which the district court ignored says you can only present a three page letter with a brief overview of your motion don't put in any affidavit or exhibits and you can't reply to the other side on those limitations alone under rule two a the best payphones exception to the richardson rule that you can't prevent a party from making a full reckitt of what they want to say does not apply like you know i'll say my take our ethical responsibilities extremely seriously we did not lie to this court we did not lie to the district court there is no foundation to the accusations that have been leveled against us i think you can hear in mr wouldn't say every day but certainly with some regularity in the district courts and what that cases suggest said what the district courts following it have done is they look to see whether the submissions are the  non brief submissions are of sufficient length and detail to set forth the argument whether the moving party has an adequate opportunity to make a record for use on appeal and whether the application has a clear lack of merit in this instance we think that the district court had a bundle of material before it to treat the application as a motion and its terminological i think important for us all to remember that it did not deny mr chertoff the opportunity make a motion it deemed the motion made and it did so on the basis of not only the initial three page single spaced rule to a letter which cited cases from this court from the supreme court decided the rules best payphones give some some guidance yes it indicates that a robust pre motion letter standing alone can be sufficient for the court to make to a demon motion to be made and in this case your honor i think that i think the case provides provides guidance i don't think there's not a there's not a clear algorithm but it certainly could the case does instruct us that a letter that is sufficiently detailed standing alone may be enough in this instance there was a letter there was a reply letter there was five hundred pages of supporting materials that had been submitted to this court in support of a very similar motion just two days just two days before  o i do think that the best payphones case gives a district court a flexible usable standard that the district court seem to be using without true difficulty  if the i don't know if the court wants to it will i can turn for a moment to the lack of merit of the of the arguments and that was apparent to the discord in the past it was certainly apparent to the district  only the only hint of a difference between the application that was made to this court and the application that was made to the district court has to do with the allegation we made in our amended complaint in two thousand eleven that certain meeting telephonic meetings took place which mr corcoran has now claimed he has evidence to suggest that we were that that that that was false and that we were lying when we made that allegation that order but there's no opinion of the school board that says that what was done was correct and under both circumstances how can one say it is so frivolous as to as answer to that question is that the appeal is frivolous as a matter of fact the appellant is raising the once again arguments that have been considered and deemed to be frivolous in the past and single both and with respect to the district court's procedure but he has no that's and that is a separate question it may be that the district courts procedure was correct because of the underlying arguments he's making are frivolous but the question goes to the district courts procedure and as to that we don't have any precedents we have a summary order which has been followed so how can one say that claiming the procedure was wrong even if we underlying argument to he would have made would have been frivolous and might have been sanctionable there below for making it but that's not what he can't object to the procedure even if under a correct procedure the person would have it nothing to do i mean that's a question for the district court but for us a question is always whether the visitors was brought up with respect to the procedure we think the procedure set forth in two thousand and eleven in an admittedly non presidential opinion is clear and was clearly followed by the district court as has been followed by others corcoran was invited to say what the evidence would be were he to go back to the district court and flush out his theory of fraud and he was unable to do that this morning that's what the notes say even if there frivolousness and more generally our request for sanctions in the form of a monetary order and an order against further filing to the other thing that i would say is that we are now five years after the settlement nearly six comments what i would say is this is the third time mr chertoff has abused this this court with this matter and he submitted in his opposition to the sanctions motion a notation that he has spent i mean order was made in two and a half years including a six month review of the record to determine whether or not there was a good faith basis you're out of there you're out of there was a fraud on the court we're entitled to have a hearing on that that's why we're appealing not just to do it but because we have a motion we're entitled to make and if it's not a good motion we will be sanctioned i'm willing to take that risk we're entitled to make a motion best payphones is a limited exception can only be a limited exception to richard motion liners were trying to make frivolous motions i deem them the motion and the nine americans and every district judge does that every district judge has to do that to be able to manage the dockets and and it may be true that we don't have precedent that blesses the procedure but it happens all the time nope no question about it but richardson says it shouldn't if there is no way that a court can determine whether or not this application had merit without hearing what's behind it we were we made this letter application on under a rule to wait it said we couldn't put forth our evidence it said we couldn't reply misters our says we affected replied that's wrong that the judge  erroneous determination based on misinformation here the district court said you had a motion for reconsideration and then put it you could put in whatever you want the district court said in the juice sixty thought or there is no new evidence being raised here no new arguments everything they're arguing here and thank you