much more in a bankruptcy and i thought that was money that you were being your client rather was being required to pay as part of combat no it was not your honor for two reasons first the only cleanup that had been done at about what if anything the state of california and the department of toxics subsets of this control would require when it decided on a permanent remedy and as of two thousand and eight that permanent remedy in fact had not been selected by the department so what happened in the bankruptcy was that the department submitted a proof of claim which of course would be a general and security claim that would have to go to estimation by the bankruptcy court so all of the evidence bankruptcy case we're just says we're asked the state of california department of toxic substances control is now requiring the sarc oh for the blood to conduct additional that's right i thought well john boy sounds like the state is coming in and requiring your client to to do this and so when you start out saying well we just voluntarily decided through a bunch of money at this problem it just did the job ok well in the bankruptcy i don't know where that where us came close came from  authority it could be held to be jointly and severally liable for all remaining costs at the site but what was happening in the bankruptcy because the site had not selected a permanent remedy was that the parties were trying to convince the bankruptcy so what's happening is the parties are settling what is their mutual risk that the bankruptcy judge will come up with a different number than they all want but it's all under the be enough and whether the state is going to require more from them so they agree on a way to minimize the fighting going forward for another category of costs but all they agree to do is how to decide whether or not that even though with respect to the future cost you're right that nobody could predict exactly what this is especially all don't come our way but that you could have brought a contribution action at that point against i can't know the name of this other entities virginia we have no idea right now what the actual dollar figure is going to be i thought in one thousand nine hundred ninety could have brought such a contribution and i wrong on that no i think they could have brought that kind of contribution action because at that point they have been subject an action by so little i know of so the question is having not having brought that action either against regina chemical or against the railroad why should they be able to bring in now merely because you extent of your actual liability has been kept in a bankruptcy proceeding so instead of you being faced with some unlimited oh my god i don't know how much money is going to be you now know exactly what it's going to be so all of a sudden all of a sudden you get to bring alpha one that is what a circle gained in two thousand and eight when it settled future costs for the permanent remedy with the state of california it could only have gamed that did not pay for any future costs under the brooklyn agreement because those costs are contingent on the quoted costs that are not subject to a summation by the bankruptcy court so the way it discharged itself from for the future cleanup of the site by the state of california and that is what it liquidated in the bankruptcy does that answer your question yes although i had not understood the argument quite the formula now making it from reading your met with i guess the united states or a state well first of all i would say you're in a lot of good company that many courts and against have a hard time figuring out section one thirteen off a circle and so i don't have a hard time figuring it out i think  give it out ok but you're trying to you're trying to upset what seems to me the clear meaning of the text all right well the clear meaning of the tax which is basically the pla requires that i saw the requirement for so much of the united states i have trouble finding it for some of the state i believe there's only one district court that has addressed that question and i believe that they found that go she suggests that the bankruptcy did not relate to the response costs that were covered in the one nine hundred eighty nine settlement agreement that somehow it was separate and apart from that but the fact of the matter is it was controlled by that one nine hundred eighty nine settlement agreement the thirty three million dollars that was paid was determined based on the thirty three per circle was assigned to pay under the one nine hundred eighty nine settlement agreement applied to an estimated one hundred million dollar cost to complete the remediation for phase one ye judgments reached with percentages allocated often long before remedial plan is put into effect and completed judge wofford you made the point that perhaps as you just watch  triggers the plain language of one thirteen sheet three b which talks simply about judicially prove settlement without limitation to it having been with us state or federal government but they also took the further step which in my experience unusual of having that settlement entered as a consent judgment which triggered one thirteen g three f a now from my point of view these parties knew what they were doing and they did it to intentionally trigger the statute of limitations the three year statute for contribution actions and you asked the judge fletcher why would they do that well from my perspective the reason they did it is so that they wouldn't face contribution actions twenty thirty years later which is exactly the situation we find ourselves in now well i'm not sure that's right why would they do it they were limiting themselves right now if you're short term and also not short term rained or state lands commission maybe you're satisfied with your percentage allocation and you're not planning on bringing any more contribution actions but asarco might in the circle has and and if this action were to proceed further we would be able to make a contribution claims against them and they'd be dragged right back into you know further endless circle a contribution litigation what they're accomplishing is saying look if you're going to go out and sue anybody else management cut off their right to get money from a third party i'm saying right that's that's the intent behind having this file i'm not saying there they cut it off they still have three more years to decide whether or not to do two things in effect the three parties promised and this was an enforceable promise by the district court to clean up the site they also among themselves agreed that whatever those response cost turned out relation manager for serco that they're after that's what they did they went out and they conducted investigations they conducted remediation those costs are allocated one thirty because they were all deemed to be within phase one of the work and included in phase one was remediated of the virgin you chemicals acid affected area that was a known problem those costs were phase one and so whatever it cost either you know what was in the wrap or subsequent modification s they were going to be allocated one thirty the only thing they changed is the circle went into bankruptcy otherwise they would have continued along that path when a circle went into bankruptcy asarco got to liquidate it one third cost under the wakelin settlement agreement but to come up with a payment to discharge them from bankruptcy they had to apply that against an estimated cost they came up with one hundred million so they paid thirty settlement agreement we're basically enforcing it here and in fact in the order approving the bankruptcy settlement agreement the circle parents got worked in their term a new term that the vital it controlled how the bankruptcy settlement was a great man and you know asarco ended up paying their thirty three percent just like they had originally committed so there wasn't there were no new response costs that came up as a result of the modification of the remedy itself you know d t s he had didn't modify the remedy by making his claim the bankruptcy court d t s c was just saying look before you go away we need to make sure that you live up  that nine hundred eighty nine wicklow settlement and that you continue to pay your fair share and so what what the parties all agreed to in the settlement is ok we estimate that your thirty three percent thirty three percent share to finish the remediation is going to be about thirty three million dollars is the grammys one hundred million we did yes he will take that thirty three million put it in a special trust account and we're going to act like a serco would have if that settlement agreement that three year statute of limitations and it ran in one thousand nine hundred two any claims arising out of those same response costs right there time barred and has just the fact that you have a bankruptcy you know where approval of that settlement if the statue limitations starts to run what's the advantage to them getting a judicially approved some of take a second read i think there's there's a couple one is again there could be parties that feel like they they've paid their fair share they're not planning on making further contribution claims and they want to make sure that the statute is running so that if the other settling parties want to pursue contribution actions which they may be drawn into that they take a situation let's say your state lands commission you're paying thirty three percent right you think you've done it you don't want to be engaged in any more circus contribution litigation you know you want to trigger the three year statute of limitations so th somebody else or some or somebody else's comes back in a single of i'm on have so real i go ok that's right so i don't know if there are any other questions i think you know obviously we believe that the language of one thirteen g three be straightforward there's no reason to read into it that it has to be a settlement with the state or federal government there's you know supreme court ninth circuit precedent that holds that i another section language was used to limit a particular term and it's not carried over to the next term that you assume congress knew what they were doing by not limiting settlements in that matter of the one nine hundred eighty nine work when settlement agreement covered all the response costs that have or could ever be addressed in the future and so that the bankruptcy settlement simply liquidated let them these two years if i can the same question i asked ms lars fairly common because it's the first step towards getting contribution protection where you have to go back to the court and get a determination that it was a good faith settlement and then you can argue that under either  uniform comparative fault act or you cut out that you've paid your fair share and that therefore you're entitled to contribution protection you know private party settlements are different than government settlements where it's just automatic contribution protection and you know so you get judicial approval as a step towards a determination of good faith settlement which gives you contribution protection other than that the you know another reason would simply be to trigger the three year statute running so you don't face you know for ever contribution actions and you know here this is the problem we have you know asarco making claims twenty thirty years later you know it's it's contrary to the policy behind certainly to bring all the parties to the table sooner rather than later so that they can participate in the remediation and everything i mean here cna not paid attention to this for twenty thirty years that this is going on you know in a circle of nine years from the time they were first sued until the other three of stature ran and they knew full well about virginia chemicals i mean they were addressing it on site and they didn't so you know they have no one to look to but themselves thank you thank you ms larsen we've taken you i'd like to correct this after henson that the one nine hundred eighty nine judicial approval of the with clinton settlement somehow conferred contribution protection on the parties to that settlement you only get contribution protection under circular and contribution actions by other parties they got no protection by entering that judgment with the district court well i just heard they got some protection they got some protection have not settled with the government and that simply was not the case in one thousand nine hundred nine so all they got was an argument that they'd already overpaid i guess i understood the argument not is there some kind of a legal shield but that it just starts the clock running on your co something parties sort of if they're going to go out and sue some other party which in turn might sue you got three years to do it and if they don't and you know that you're safe and if we were pursuing an f one playing in this case protection they can't say that we haven't paid thirty three million dollars we have they have to argue that we haven't overpaid that's a different issue you know this is maybe not now in the because they have already done some work and all of a sudden here you are many many years later coming back after regina chemical that before the one stuff comes up they have already done some remediation during the entire lawsuit nobody goes after virginia chemical and now all of a sudden you're after virginie chemical i don't i don't just on the sense of what they should be required to pay in addition to what they've already done now these many years later i don't get  honor i don't believe that the record is as clear as what you have just described there was a letter to virginia chemicals telling them to do certain things that letter was resounded but there's no evidence of that work was completed and the other thing too and i think there's a fair amount of evidence this say we get discovery of the acid contamination one nine hundred seventy six the california regional water quality control board issues a clean up in the late model order they were send that order after a year after work has been done true but the factual part of this case that is tricky and the reason why the remedy is tricky is because the acidity of the groundwater which was changed by the operation ever genya chemicals  the potentially responsible party for the entire site under circle it's strictly liability for the it has strict liability for the entire facility not just for its own geographical area it ha three b clane in the trial court and to have the trial court determine whether or not at this point in time after other parties have been working on this site for over thirty years whether or not virgin humans a circle versus selling use chemical company who doesn't seem good system in this case was