watched his job and a week later deprived of his income from the bankruptcy case the trustee has asked for all of the wages that he was owed at the time of that bankruptcy basically property that is exempt under state law and if we look at illinois law that carries an unpaid wages it's very clear that it's exempt the illinois wage deduction wall is in the which deduction law so under illinois law unpaid wages may not be collected by a creditor does that mean that those wages are almost all provided fifteen percent opinion and if i'm mispronouncing go side of the power dries in any a good price probably isn't here so we will never see it we don't know if he'd prefer germanic pronunciation of his name but the point that i want to make is that guy she dealt against some forms of collection would be sufficient to make a piece of property exempt under the bankruptcy the court held up it must be all forms of collection and so in that restriction of c plus stray ssion is not enough to make the property exempt find it has to cover all forms of collection but as i just discussed all forms of collection are  illinois law with respect to unpaid wages he district court and the trustee have argued that the guy should rule should not apply one of their arguments is legislature that they had exemption apply in bankruptcy and the st point i want to make is that there is nothing in section five hundred and twenty two b that requires any expression of intent from the state legislature that its exemption should apply in bankruptcy the statute is very clear if it's exempt under state law it's exempt in bankruptcy as well and that should be the end of the discussion but the district court and the trustee have flown on to make a number of arguments why that should not be because they say the state has clearly indicated an intent not to have the wage deduction wage exemption excuse me apply and bankruptcy and so this  recognize let's go through those are the st is that there is some kind of limitation to bankruptcy because the full list of forms of collection is not set out in the wage deduction at the situation to discovery assumes well of course not illinois would only for close collection procedures otherwise be applicable so for example in the homestead exemption there is no express pro have bishan against using what is defection there's no express probation against  though to collect rent those things are not applicable to foreclosure and so they're not in the homestead exemption law but not mentioning in applicable forms of collection hardly by the district court the district court went through the analysis that we've set out in our proof and agreed with it so it's only if there's some exceptions to the five hundred and twenty two dollars b rule set out guys that would allow for any other option here but there's only guyse i'd like you to discuss we enco or maybe it's ween co he's not here either which helped but the illinois garnishment statute does not set out an exemption we go along with the pronunciation is that the wind co decision was based on the idea that there was an available form of collection for wages and that was the situation to discover innocence and at the time was decided that was correct though the illinois citation statute at that time did not for close collection of unpaid wages but it's actually it was amended before the one code decision before we go but not we didn't pick up on it i may be fine it may be that it's a bad decision but normally if we've got a bad decision what you need to do is ask us to modify it over into little shreds you know it was correctly decided or the law that was applicable at the time the issue arose we decide exemption will based on the time that the bankruptcy court cases filed the bankruptcy case in wind co was filed before illinois had changed its citation law and so the court correctly applied the then applicable citation to discover assets law and came to the conclusion that it could allow collection of unpaid wages there was a discrepancy between the citation statute and the garnishment statute at the time there would have been yes  geisel because not all forms of collection were prohibited at that time there could be collection by the trustee of these and so as a filing there was still that discrepancy and illinois law that's not as the time of the decision that's right ok the rd of the reason i've noticed that the trustee does not rely on we and go properly so i will be asking specifically mentions bankruptcy as opposed to other exemptions in illinois which have limits imposed on for bankruptcy purposes so for example if someone converts non exempt assets like cash that could be taken by a trustee to distribute to creditors into something that's no longer available that's it becomes exempt like a retirement account transferring that not exempt into an exempt form is held by the illinois legislature not to be justified if it takes place shortly before bankrupt and so bankruptcy is mentioned in that exception what's not mentioned in the context of the wage exemption well the reason for that it seems plain to me is that there's no need to do that the debtor can't generally control when wages are paid in time of bankruptcy so that it's going to have the influence of increasing the amount of exempt wages while the debtor can time a bankruptcy filing as against payments of bonuses etc possibly but the point here is my game the system if we find for  garnishment laws like this one that limit to some small fraction of unpaid wages the amount that can be executed on and whether it's seventy five percent the way it is in indiana or eighty five percent the way it is in illinois or whether it have some dollar amount those are determinations for the electorate and i think think judge cites that the point you make is a really important one because the belief that the court of the trustee might think there should be a limit here is not a reason for failing to enforce the rule ends writ and this court in its robinson case robinson st reagan had to deal with a similar problem illinois exempts  bible well does that mean that a rare st edition book of mormon worth thousands of dollars can be exempted from this court said yes because the legislature didn't impose any limitation on that exemption and the same thing would be true here one might say that it would have been wiser for the state legislature to put some kind k out for time limit wage exemptions but it hasn't done it and the final point that i wanted to make is the question of paid wages versus unpaid with the district court and the trustee have both argued that because our exemption only applies to wages held by an employer that it ought not to be considered applicable in bankruptcy because it wouldn't apply after the wages are paid to the debtor in the nd is when the state st because as i mentioned earlier the exemption is determined as of the time the bankruptcy is filed and as of the time the bankruptcy i take a tetchy will be true of say an exemption for a domicile yes exists shall but the day before the bankruptcy is filed and it's cash no exception exactly the situation is that the status of the property at the time of the bankruptcy filing determines its acceptability and so that is wrong no if it were relevant we've cited authority for the proposition that under illinois law paid wages are also except and that's in the by owing the waged exemption to a plain bankruptcy and frankly that's just not true st of all the court shouldn't be looking at legislative intent in determining an exemption should go in the language of the statute that's the robinson case but beyond that the court said that normal wages are exempt from collection in bankruptcy but vacation pay is not even though illinois classifies it as wages are you defending that r question in this case is whether wages are exempt and it's not specific to the occasion that's correct nd question for you is i notice you didn't cite or rely on when co site because you agree with m wade off reading of it or reading of the it's limitations in light of amendments no your honor our argument was primarily based on plain language statutory interpretation that that i would i would say that my opinion is that case is still good law largely because that's why did you not cite it because it is by far your best authority if it's controlling it actually deals with the problem of wage exemption illinois wages in bankruptcy it doesn't specifically address the question of whether if this statute is a bankruptcy exemption it does deal with shows that it isn't you could say well it but the statute it that the case it's been amended since that youngster we don't says that amendment matters but you now say winco is still good law and in that event you just wind instantly so why are you what we're really talking about in this case is a little bit different issue i understand that the the implications of the rico case on this one but it's a much it's a little bit of a different question here and we're asking where the illinois intended to this for this to be a bankruptcy exception who cares what anybody in illinois by the way is a state states don't have minds they can't intend anything but what is it in the bank or the federal bankruptcy statute makes anything turn on the contents of legislators heads and as we go through their acts right normally we say legislation is a thing it's passed by both i'm by the gov the federal statute refers to state mall it doesn't refer to the contents of people's heads it doesn't say if the supreme court of illinois has interpreted the law to mean such and such you still have to prove what the justices intended right they wrote something it has you facts right so what in federal law makes anything term on state legislators intense conceivable the supreme court tells us that legislative history might bear on the meaning of the enacted thing but the enacted thing is not evidence of the intent the enacted thing is law this is pretty fundamental unless there is some reference in the federal code to intent and that's what i'm asking is there any no  so going back to the prior reference to the waco case i would note that that statute is pretty much the same as it was before this specifically gives courts the power and the discretion to order a debtor to pay a portion of their income after rich received and that statute has been left largely intact or there is a reference to the two through the two wages under the i understand the debtors argument that the statute doesn't necessarily have to address other forms of process and that's technically true in theory but for example of term judgement it's a generic term it's not a former process and of itself unpaid ways that the only two forms of process as i understand the state scheme on unpaid wages are subject to nowhere the former process of ariel moylan that that is correct while there why does it matter that the statute doesn't mention there an applicable forms of process while it's it's determining whether the state intended for this to apply doesn't matter what anybody intended i think we've covered that for the statute the statutory scheme only provides for two ways to execute on unpaid wages and both ways are subject to this fifteen percent limitation there are no other ways to the chief process against unpaid wages so why is it necessary to your argument that the statute mentioned in ethical forms part does that make any sense but it does me it makes perfect sense and if certainly i will i w  this is this asset it's a bit different then you know money that parked in a retirement account or a homestead because the debtors can can't time to bankruptcy filings with this particularly a self employed debt are self employed debtor can structure contracts that they can they can do this in a lot of and some of the cases that we've cited are good examples that the the the joke your case will better received almost seven hundred thousand dollars in severance pay that that will be accepted if if this court agrees with the debtor why is this legally significant but what it is it's important because this is not an issue when it's clear that this is an exception i know that's what the roberts approach that it doesn't matter what the how much it is if it isn't indeed an exception but we're here to determine whether this is a think up six and we don't determine whether it is by reference to some amorphous notions of good policy we just look at what the state law says policy can i think can be taken into consideration if the statute  right used to be that if a state made the full value of a home exam then it was exempt and people moved to florida and texas just to take advantage and that was a challenge just bad policy and courts said no you know it's it's written down congress than amended the bankruptcy code to set a cap on that exemption and to limit it if you move there within say two years of filing for bank you're asking us now to what set a vacation pay is too much that's subject to a cap even without the benefit of any statutory language thank you very much the case is taken under advisement