no issues material that regarding the injury or colonisation elements of the pellets washing consumer protection act and negligence claims they still in the chapters sixty point for you for our  in the record of unquantifiable damages in this case yes your honor for one there's the adverse consequences of having a medical lien recorded against you without in company recorded liam is there any evidence in the record that either of the plaintiffs in this case had that happen to them there's no evidence that they've experienced the use negative side in our reply believe it was the reply came from the not to execute an argument on appeal was that there was no harm that was sufficient to support a claim because the underlying defendants were insulated from the effects of the judgment but in this case catholic and pardon had a right to some amount of lean right i mean so the only in are injured he would have been that there was an incorrect amount not because of the fact of the lane under these facts your honor we would disagree   flowing from the status shorey laser and that unlike this case where we're not dealing with some technical deficiency we're dealing with an instrument that we allege is invalid from the start why is it invalid from the start well it wasn't signed by the claimant signed by their agent well there's nothing in chapter sixty point for you for our z w they all have to be something specific in the statutes and that basic law is also a principle washing statutory construction that when the legislature expressly grants a type of authority and for a third party agent to sign a lien the statute expressly states the claimant or another person authorized to act on his or her behalf can sign that language is not  medical care from the hospital incurred debt they did receive your legislature is the hospitals and other medical providers who provide care in this kind of situation can record a lien against any recovery from the agent correct did they know at the time they recorded the lien they know the amount of the settlement they did not know that were they ever informed of the amount of the here's the correct amount please reduce the mandolin and the response from apple was that cadillac had denied that request and that was followed with another demand letter for the excessive amount  was a lot over eight thousand dollars the proper amount was about six thousand two hundred twenty five i believe that was followed by a subsequent so there's only way they in your view the only way they could act properly under the the medical liens statute is to demand payment of the exact amount of the lien that would be recoverable from the settlement correct your honor so another words if i guess in the other concerned the provider and the tortfeasor and their insurer in their view the patient and their personal injury attorney is essentially a bystander that has no standing or now that the lean is on the recovery on the amount from one of the insurance companies got two hundred fifty thousand correct he knew there was a he knew there was a lien up there and what are you supposed to do in this case the person being generally speaking to the ethics of the washington state bar was shown to questions i understand the injury your strongest argument is that your clients were deprived of the use of the excess amount over the lien  apply at all to you i am proceeds is there anything in the record that explains the thinking that the lawyer followed in deciding what to hold that there is nothing express we're entitled to reasonable  ences on summary judgment and we can infer from that mounts that were withheld that there was calls of a connection between the liens in the demand letters and those amounts being withheld the amount withheld for connection solely through them outs that were withheld though in the in the greco matter though he he looks like what he withheld also included the fifty thousand under insured motos motor settlement amount as they are attempting to sift the blame and or they are deficient collection practices including communique with its work visa and their insurer do you personally injury attorney in this case y good morning your honor my name is ralph palumbo i represent pardon health care i'm going to share this argument with bread fisher who represents cadillac the hospital i'm going to discuss cartons authority to sign  liens as catholics authorized agent the undisputed fact that appellant's did not pay any money or incur any expense in response to two cardinals alleged excessive demands and catholic's right to seek payment from liability to the hospital and that appellant's have failed to state any c p a claim but first let me talk about the the catholics authority r c w c sixty point forty four only through its agents did not literally sign the notice of lien appellants rely on a rule of strict compliance stated in the williams be athletic field case but in williams the washington supreme court held that the lien statute should be liberally applied to a claimant such as catholic who is intended to be protected by the statute and provided only noble services appellants reply brief exposes the fallacy of their own argument because appellant say that aren't r c w sixty forty four zero one zero provides quote the exclusive list of individuals and entities authorized to claim a medical services league including every operator of  employee is not the operator of the hospital a catholic employee can only say pursue a lien if they are authorized by the hospital to do so thus neither the language of sixty forty four any reasonable interpretation of the statute supports the appellant's position that a lien notice signed by an authorized catholic employee is valid but only notice authorized by carrier signed by catholics authorized agent is not valid they move on to the ex excess payment so essentially counsel has argued that carden made demands to pay more than twenty five percent of their personal injury so had a correct it is not correct purposes of your argument sure because the other one we know that garden and cadillac didn't know the amount of the sound right and i understand that but we're door shocked they seemed the correspondence between the lawyer and your client shows that they knew that the settlement with for twenty five now right and it is correct your honor that carden eroni asli sent a letter citing the full amount of the catholic bill in distortion exchange was eight thousand five hundred fifty instead of twenty five percent of her recovery which was six thousand two hundred fifty the brekky firm responded to that letter with a letter stating that eighty five fifty exceed the twenty five percent cap in sixty forty four and requesting the catholic except sixty to fifty that's are two forty seven so clearly the brekky firm knew what the limitation was and they simply could have paid out of the settlement fund that's right but they they have the right to do that correct yeah they do but there's no end if you're going to ever but if you're going to base if you're going to base your recovery on the mount of the lean then you're stuck at least for that purpose of the lean you're only you're stuck with the sixty two with the sixty two and again what we point out is that the evidence in the record in both cases show that the brekky firm was well aware of the twenty five percent that the debt the true debt is the amount of the bill that the hospital charged her for correct and but the brekky created the problem he could have simply discharged  pay the sixty to fifty and that would have discharged the linnet required no permission he required no permission from the hospital to do that and indeed had he done nothing in the first place the insurance company from a store would have paid the sixty two fifty and that would have discharged a lien but even with all of that mr chuck never paid one dime on her bills and so even if you conclude that carden made in excess of demand there still is chick never paid her catholic medical bills not one penny of it and never incurred any expense in connection with that he did she lose the use of the overage the whatever it is twenty three hundred dollars while the incorrect amount of the liens being held up there's there's no there's no evidence in the record to tell us whether in mr gray ghost case we know that the brekky firm calculated amount and put didn't even know about the lien until the day of her deposition so there's no evidence in this record your honor from wish you could draw an inference that mr chuck was harmed by this a single iranians letter which referenced the full amount of the lien and moreover as mr fisher will explain the hospital has walked away from this they're not asking that any money be paid and the time to sue the to address i'll address the u i am quickly uninsured motorist there's one that is one letter which shows or one note from carden which shows that card and collected information on uninsured motorists policy there's no there's no evidence in the record that cardinal catholic ever demanded any portion of that and in fact the the record proves that carden never even knew the amount of mr chucks you i am you good morning they please the court brad fisher on the house of catholic regional medical center as mr palumbo alluded i'll be trying to speak to the causation and damage pieces of this case and those are obviously issues which judge peterson felt were dispositive here such that she didn't even need to reach some of these arguments about liability if we take a small step back here and things work the way that even these folks say they were intended to work right by congress and the washington legislature catholics should have been paid a little under seventy thousand dollars on the liens against the proceeds that were received by these two plaintiffs instead catholic has received nothing it's not going to receive anything at this point it's too late to make a claim against the government pay ors the liens have expired they have no recourse here but putting aside the equity of that there's three reasons why there's no claim here based on causation and damages even if there was a form in excuse me a defect in the form of the lenos as they were filed in to be very clear as mr palumbo alluded is is our adamant position there is not that an authorized agent may execute a document on behalf of its principal but even if there was which other than this story shocked snafu the plaintiffs counsel is saying is the basis for this entire case even if there was a defect in the it is not a defect in the form of the lien that caused the damages that the plaintiffs are seeking here ok it's the fact that there is a right to a medical lien that's what they're objecting to here there's no causation in other saying is that the hospital had the right to file a lien or record a lien for the amount of the debt and they did exactly your honor and we might have a different whatever the be yet because as you've alluded to in your question so that you don't know right on the front and in fact you can't know because you have to file it before the settlement is paid so almost by definition you're going to have a gap there of the knowledge we might have a different case or if we made a mistake on the amount ok they'd be saying well you misstated the amount spot on to the dollar we hit the amount on the liens ok they didn't talk about the blair case and the reply brief even though that's a prominent part of our opposition on this if someone else i don't know if you two employee versus an authorized agent had executed only known as which they say is fine we would be exactly where we are today so there was no causation second of all the decision to hold money in trust a very experienced personal injury attorney was a decision that he made potentially along with his clients well the only reason correct that as a lawyer in that situation the reason why he would have done that is because a lien had been recorded in there was efforts to collect on potentially your honor but what's clear in the record here is when mr griego asked for his money he paid him well that's a separate i don't know what the ethics are how mr brekky sure it ceded but it seems like if a lawyer is holding money and there are conflicting claims on them money then the lawyer you know has to act responsibly and your honor you know maybe that he never would have maybe only would have held that money just sufficient overnight long enough to write a check you know get it in his bank account and write a check for the full amount of the settlement less his fees and client yeah i couldn't do that because well i don't i don't want to project i pretend that i know the ethics of the washington state bar but once he was aware that there was a conflict in demand on portion of that  money it seems like he's got to be careful well just to be clear i mean we don't believe there's any violation of the rule you know of our p c one point one five a g here in this case there's no this is their lawyer right just go get a declaration that says what happened and why if you want to put in proof of the causation the reasoning for that what we know is he did not hold the money until the quote dispute was resolved he unilaterally decided to release mr greig owes money when he asked for it and what he took was an indemnity from self to protect himself he did not hold the money under one point one five g and you can infer that given what his conduct actually was in this case they could have taken they could have a declaration from him  on notice what these folks decided to do is take the money right he collects his back he collects as a third on all of the money and then wait it out right and it worked here they got away with it because the liens expired and lien didn't exist you'd be able to collect through medicaid or medicare a small fraction probably less than the cost but yes we could have submitted a claim to that we point when you do when the hospital doesn't does that require them to waive the balance  amount that was not paid it generally speaking i think there are exceptions but i think the answer is generally speaking yes which is which is why this notion that the excess you are asking questions about ms doris shocking and only have about forty second eighty five hundred under their theory they should have written as a check for sixty to fifty we never got it we're never going to get it she hasn't been harmed but the gap there the difference we cannot recover from her ok you are asking is this debt still out there is this first of all the lino this is just a lien on us and we can only recover what the statute allows that's what that exchange of the letters in the lien was about and they can clo out the lien by paying it and under i think it's zero six zero zero zero they can demand a release from us right if they pay twenty five percent they don't need permission you just pay it and you are entitled to demand the release that's what should have  of what the peer structure is in this case ok if they had no insurance if they were self pay ok theoretically they would owe the balance for the services right part of it was recovered from the tort fees or they would be carrying a balance if they have a government pay or theoretically you know commercial pay or under contract with regents there would be limits on what the recovery would be both what the reimbursement would be to my client and what we could recover against the patient who was a beneficiary under that particular plan and the fact here is and again we've got a huge vacuum here but the fact is we can't we can't collect we can collect on a lien the government the legislature gave us that right leave your comments because they thought it was important people treat dramatically injured people we have that right to the extent of that right we cannot go after an insured patient for a balance or anything else in  manner that's inconsistent with the contract pay and that didn't happen here so this dispute i would submit at the end of the day there's this discrepancy with the letters again to mr plumbers comment they had it within their power to make the payment and extinguish the lien they didn't do that arlene expired and were out so catholic's getting nothing even though it had lien rights  statute it specifically would be an action against the toward fees or or its insurer so you have a right to to execute on the lien for one year against the tortfeasor it's insure it is not a right against the patient strictly right it is fired we didn't know it had been paid we wrote a letter to the insurance that we're filing a new lien they said sorry we paid that last april ok so we didn't we didn't even have the right to do that but the way this would have worked in substance  against the claim by us if that makes sense yes so where you get to at the end the day is they they can end up if we can make a timely claim against a tort these are they have to end up indemnifying the tortfeasor and the twenty five percent comes back at the end of the day here they made out great we're not getting anything we didn't cause any injury to them within the meaning of the washing consumer protection act thank you time's up but you can finish your sentence if you  cadillac on that line item so that didn't is in the record mr fisher addressed the blair case which i addressed in my only argue then this case is not fall within the again that all causation falls on the personal injury attorney and it was his mistake again and one of your honor's raise this point it was with the n at police power to  one request information from the tort fees are in their insurer and two to act within that one year period but a lawsuit attempting to enforce their lien rights are preserved that didn't occur in this case and finally on the question of whether there's a debt in this case there are they outstanding chargers i'm still not sure they have heard that cadillac has said that they are not going to pursue the chargers through some other means  addition to the league and regardless of the result of this lawsuit our position is that those outstanding chargers appear to still be out there that there was a bill issue that mr greg and there was the opportunity