all right our third case for this morning is john crane incorporated against shine law center and john crane against simon greens company was the victim of a long running project and scheme involving numerous false communications directed to john crane in illinois and causing injury in illinois give john crane the right pennsylvania california and texas that's different types of communications give rise to different answers to questions some of them were communications that were served on local counsel in the various individual whether it's local counsel in philadelphia or whether it's counsel here or counsel in texas or anywhere else does that really matter if it's a response to something that the pennsylvania court is handling well in a case in a case like this  essence of the claim is that john crane has been defrauded have been ever seed communications and it's its home state where its decision makers are has relied on those statements in the process of coordinating and considering what to do in this broad's of that's busted litigation where it's its own national coronating council also resides in illinois the communication that starts with the chain that's the begins with local counsel who is not the decision maker in these cases the decision maker is is national coordinator counsel and management itself including in house legal management that means that that communication is in fact communication to illinois is relied upon in illinois in a number of different ways and the result is even that one even that one that is delivered first to john crane's agent elsewhere is a communication knowingly intended to reach john crane in illinois and so that is so in any wrongful acts in litigation there and would be a basis for personal jurisdiction in the target's home no i mean i would say that's not correct and that's the differentiation that i think really goes to the heart of this case the the malpractise cases for example talking about intentional torch ok well taken take wallace take wallace is a good example of where he got malicious prosecution that tort all of the elements of that tort took place in california there was  communication that went back and forth but nothing about the communication gave rise to the cause of action it was that the wrongful prosecution the malicious prosecution in california that one of the entire essence of the tour and their fraud on the court there that was complete in pennsylvania you think there was i absolutely do yes sir so but i also could i ask i mean just to go back to walls for a second i mean i guess i'm not completely satisfied with your answer to judge hamilton because even if all of these events were happening california if the motivation for the tour so to speak is to extract money from the defendant then i don't know why  that's not an argument for personal jurisdiction at the principal place of business of the defendant in any case and the point is i mean you're you're analogizing into a robber you know who ties a mask on and goes into your headquarters in i llinois and steals money from you through this rico arrangement that you will match but that would be a tremendous expansion of specific personal jurisdiction if that were the case i think it would not be an expansion at all and i liken this case to the bell and first clipping case in which we had a dispute or wrote them arose out of a contract entered into in arizona that related to real estate in mexico but fraudulent communications were sent to wisconsin and those those communications were relied upon in wisconsin which gave rise to personal jurisdiction in wisconsin but there were no it's was a little different wasn't it from the reliance mean of course you know in the course of litigation you get answers gender raga tori's the system works only because you have some ability to rely on the candor and truthfulness of the person answering me in iraq or tories but it still seems to me that the that the court in in these three states depending on which proceeding you're talking about is the is the place that is immediately injured in that you are served second or third ring out well i would say that there are different sets of injuries and that's an important part of our claim here we have on the one hand there is an injury from the judgment that we would say was fraudulent leigh obtained that's not that's over here on the one side and that's the most obvious one when you think of the court having been defrauded but under maine's against citibank to jump to the other issue well i know you have a problem if you're injuries from a fraudulent judgment then you go and use whatever the local jurisdictions equivalent of sixty b is of course and i want to actually put that to the side because i want to talk about the others the others are things like increased litigation expense where john crane decided to go out and try to independently prove other exposures to be it's these other as best as products whose actual exposure was concealed from john crane the loss of contribution claims the john crane would have bad had it known about the fact that these other exposures existed and could have gotten through bankruptcy trust but but was deprived of my is that is there some reason why that avenue is not available to you right now the bankruptcy trustee shut down or there's a time limit or something well i don't know the answer  whether there's a statute of limitations but i will say that in these cases the plaintiffs the underlying plaintiff's have claim to the bankruptcy trust and unpaid and that may itself create some sort of bar but in any case  that is a loss that john crane has suffered and it's unrelated to the fact that the judgment was also tainted and the same is true with respect to the way when you see these cases have higher and higher verdicts you end up valuing them more highly and then over time settling them more ali this was a pervasive scheme over a long period of time and that's the injury that's independent of these judgment how to say mr ferguson i you you're saying it's independent but i really have trouble with that this whole scene these all seem to told we're relying on the fact that we haven't been told of these other things we don't submit bankruptcy claims for contribution this is that the essence of the injury is that john crane has taken steps or not taken steps because of the fraud that has been perpetrated and john crane made those decisions having received that information or lack of information in illinois that's that's why we contend that the microbes back to chief judge woods original question so i somehow about which communications were directed where yes do you assert any communications directly from these defendants to your clients in wisconsin directly i'm certain you will directly were there were some communications between all of the now and in our clients but the the the principal ones that died that i'm that we've really focused on is are the  their local counsel discovery responses partly the discovery response yet and also communications that based on discovery in each of the cases involved setting for example pretrial order parameters and that sort of thing with our coordinating council here in illinois well so that's again another directive ailment and then the final thing of course is the end point of the fraud was that they submitted claims to bankruptcy trust themselves which we believe rightly rightfully should have been both disclosed in the litigation and if were then rightfully a claims of john crane but they did that in part by registering with and then submitting claims through doesn't matter it doesn't mean that's not jurisdictionally relevant that you have a purpose there is that the defendants didn't purposely avail themselves of illinois a form well they certainly purposely went to registered with and then submitted claims to those bank about the river feldman issue for a moment longer of say one of the things that i wondered about is the prospect that in the case against simon greenstone we might have a split result as you pointed out it's a little hard to see how r feldman applies to cases that you won in state court or won in a federal court but we do have three as i understand it three of those cases are they get in involving simon greenstone or similar to the ones in shine were been startled without judgement at all and several that have been lost trying to china secret question about settlements here was i would i would have thought the documents settling these claims would have been documented in such a way litigation and what i understand is it's not unusual for cases to be settled either following or with the pendency of a dismissal for want of prosecution for example or to be a contractual release in the settlements of any future claims related to the topic of the i i have not seen those myself but i presume that there were and i think to the extent let's just say for example there was some sort of satisfaction in the court argument good morning in may please the court my name is diane brier and i represent to shine defendants in these consolidated appeals so i have a question for you mr pryor it's not common that litigation is seen as the the problem itself but it does happen in the any trust area for instance in the north pennington you know california motor transport area and as i understand the rico theory the john crane people think that there is in fact a rico conspiracy that involves your clients and the other law firm and that there are a number of predicate act which are represented by different lawsuits and i've course understand that your theory is wherever these cases are going to proceed it shouldn't be in illinois but i don't understand why from the rico point of view where essentially the point of the conspiracy is to shakedown john crane why illinois is not the proper venue and place for personal jurisdiction and if it isn't then i don't know why pennsylvania would be either for example to the extent that some of the underlying litigation is in texas and california and i don't know how you bring the rico action unless you can base personal jurisdiction on the you know the point of the rico conspiracy your honor there is no alleged conspiracy between the schein defendants and the simon greenstone defendants that are also there is an allegation that the that the shine defendants individually and through their law firm ari rico enterprise correct right and now so i'll leave simon greenstone off to one side my question is identical which is if it's a rico enterprise and the whole point of that is just i mean i'm not accusing you of being the mafia of course but but if you were if the whole point is to shake down you know in extort money out of this company then why isn't the target just as though you had sent somebody into illinois to steal valuable artwork from their headquarters well that would be in illinois they had conspiracy illinois related  point of the rico enterprise so so why doesn't the fact that rico is in here change the way we should think about the i don't believe it does your honor for the following reasons there's no ricos in effect an intentional quoting to the right you have an enterprise in your enterprises designed to you know to as i said kind of get money out of people right through the appropriate kind of predicate act we know that there's a lot of law on what the predicate acts can be and i don't understand you to be arguing that malicious litigation hypothetically of course i'm not asking you to admit that but that the malicious litigation couldn't be reached predicate act no i'm not arguing that you could be to what i'm saying is the focal point of the alleged enterprise the focal point of the alleged rico conspiracy as it relates to the shine defendant was in philadelphia county pennsylvania where that's what i'm asking you why because as as this litigation as a whole tells us the location of any given lawsuit is a fortuity itself it wouldn't be a different lawsuit if one had been in philadelphia and one had been in new york and one had been in miami it would still be the same lawsuit your your predicate acts or the malicious litigation your honor the sole link to this forum is j c c i lynx shine in this form now i understand that but but but there allegation is that you are trying to extract money from them i mean presumably their money is where they are met many things could be said about that you know but but that's their theory as a understand the reason they filed their protective action after judge starr ruled in the lower court in the eastern district of pennsylvania where it resides today is because they know that shine and the shine defendants never directed anything directly to j c i know you got going to draw a negative in for me and they obviously didn't want to follow a statute of limitations or is no circumstance in which an enterprise devoted to the goal of unlawfully extracting money from some buddy who is located in a particular state here in illinois could be said to have minimum contacts with the place where the victim is this is a long way from walden against fiore will say the only way they could do it your honors if the defendants directed again i'm trying to get back to a simple case if the shine law firm wanted to hack into somebody's bank account who's an illinois resident and so they figure out the address and they hack into that bank account they take the money then the fact that they're sitting in philadelphia when they do it doesn't mean that they have not committed a tort in illinois that would be different if we've been talking about but as i understand the theory that's what j c i says you've been doing they say from your base in philadelphia you have figured out a way to get money from them by dissembling in these instead of a hacked it's a court order yeah well but it's not directed j c i was one of thirty defendants in the underlying collini case one of thirty six defendants so there was nothing to do and in fact it's the only illinois defendant so in this litigation in philadelphia county the process that occurs there all of the discovery was there all of the depositions the court sat there the verdicts were there the jury was there and if j c i was harmed as they've alleged other defendants but i thought they allege that because they manufactured products with a certain form of this festus and they were still solvent that there was actually some targeting on the shining law firms part against them and perhaps against that you know other companies such as them but is against them because they're south and and there's a greater chance of larger recoveries the allegation is that they targeted solvent defendants see i was one of thirty alleged solvent defendants in the in the underlying rights that they each might have these claims i don't think j c i cares if other people bring similar lawsuits only if the under the case like judge i would respectfully submit that's true only if defendants targeted their tortious conduct at this forum and there's not anything in the record that they did everything in this record is a daisy chain allege fraudulent discovery served on the philadelphia coun internet but he didn't communicate with the community even under their theory that communication with true sharing to philadelphia council but didn't want to stop with the council you wanted money from the company but they didn't do it china never dealt with d c i in illinois that's exactly that's why o the underwire form was a fortuity and i don't think that that's correct for example played if david kelman was injured and was suffering from a fatal cancer related  or asbestos related cancer and he chose to file suit in state court in los angeles he had been exposed in the navy that included no i mean i understand that from from that point of view there was a reason for each of these forms from the point of view of the reach of the alleged rico conspiracy the different pieces of underlying litigation could have been anywhere unfortunately they're probably as best as victims in all fifty states and so there could be you know york your clients or other people but the rico conspiracy is this set of strategies in the context of that as best as litigation to extract more money than an honest litigation process would have extracted from j c i that's my understanding and so in that sense it's fortuitous it wouldn't matter if you had if you would suit on this case that are barred by ricker feldman to the extent that j c i's a state court loser and certain kinds of relief such as perhaps recovering the difference between the inflated damages and the actual damages i think certainly see that that's for her feldman part i can't see how there's a river feldman bar for cases they won and i really am skeptical that there's a broker feldman bar for the bankruptcy  trustee transactions because if they repeatedly say in their briefs we accept the state court's judgment as a given we are not trying to change it in any way and under saudi basic industries it seems to me that takes worker feldman off the table well i disagree on reform for those parts of the case because this really is no different than the maid's case for a host of reasons all of those but but names had only one form of relief i mean we remember mainz and it's it's to the extent it's saying that this judgment was tainted because there was fraud you're exactly right i think maine's same same situation but maine's did not involve lawsuits that the plaintiff won manes did not involve any situation where the plaintiff was willing to say i accept the state court judgment as a data for the next step and those are the ones i am focusing on here yes i understand with regard to the case where john prine warren that's the hill case and that was in federal court we believe that their sole relief is through all sixty and they have not it's not a record feldman jurisdiction and will obviously have to see but there isn't going to be a personal jurisdiction problem in philadelphia would you agree with that the bulk of our cases i think five out of the seven war in los angeles  even for the rico conspiracy where some of the predicate acts were pennsylvania lawsuits and texas lawsuits in other words it's your theory of rico personal jurisdiction a theory under which personal jurisdiction is ok as long as it would exist on a standalone basis for any of the predicate acts i think the overwhelming weight of the cases would be in los angeles that's where five of the seven cases where you could you answer my question rico involves acts yes and i want to know whether in general of any kind of rico case if personal jurisdiction would be acceptable looking at the predicate act as a stand alone case is personal jurisdiction ok for the full rico action even though there are some number of additional predicate acts that wouldn't have gone forward there we would concede that it would be in california and in texas for the whole conspiracy they're asserting yes you're ok so pennsylvania is fine california is fine even though that's not simon crean's stones this is texas is easy because that's right but record feldman that in fact there might be cause the jew jurisdiction might become available if john crane were to go into the role in state court proceedings for example and seek relief from those judg judgments are set aside then you would have a right and claim that would be subject to federal jurisdiction perhaps i think these cases are time barred there they're quite claims i understand that would be that's part of the payoff here but is there any way in which those payments would have harmed john crane no your honor they would not cameraman's injuries there they're named in our motion to dismiss pittsburgh corning new narco there were no claims for indemnity or contribution there that's why that was never part of the original complaint in this case and we believe that the claim of indemnity contribution is really an afterthought to try to bootstrap into around the record feldman issue and as of the three cases that were dismissed voluntarily those war there were agreed upon and so that's why we would argue that that would fall under were filming thank you all right thank you very much anything further mr ferguson yes thank you  alteration of a state court's judgment and we're not asking for that even some of your relief sounded like it was but i certainly could imagine a district court pairing off the part of the case that didn't seem  and that's what i want to get to next and that is that in addition to that there is the reasonable opportunity doctrine or exception to the doctrine that applies when you don't have a reasonable opportunity to litigate the issue that's being brought in  federal case and in this case it is the secrecy provisions of these bankruptcy trusts that prevented john crane from being able to even effectively use state court process to test the assertions that were being given to them that there were no other exposures so there was no reasonable opportunity in this case now you have been right against this bill on your part to say that that's not really true that there were lists of the different places where these people were that this is a very repeat play oriented business that you know in the shipyards in the company everybody knew what kinds of products were there to manufacture those products but that is exactly the disadvantage which john crane was put which is you had to use this circumstantial evidence to show potential other exposures in these jury trials ten don't tend the jury don't tend to buy that when you've got an actual affidavit that is sitting in the drawer of the opposing counsel is either held until after the case is over with or sometimes has been submitted to the bank the trust and then withdrawn or remains in the bankruptcy trust the lack of the ability to use state court process to obtain that is what prevented us from from litigating this in a way that was fair and complete and so i would submit that that's another reason why it really you really wouldn't cover all of this of a certainly not at the motion to dismiss stage you i would suggest that  district court should hear the evidence on that before deciding what would go in and out if anything on the subject matter jurisdiction and then the last thing i just wanted to to address was the assertion that was that it's so called soul link between the defendants in this case and illinois when you target someone with fraud in their home state and you receive the payment by making them rely on your false statements in their home state that is not the same as the sole link cases where people say well the sole link is they had some communication it's certainly not as your answer just same as you know doing a lot of things in georgia to people who you know happen to be nevada residents that's right but it's also not like when you commit malpractise in michigan and happen to send have a telephone call with a person in illinois