they please the court counsel your honour's if supreme court rule one thirty seven means anything it means the stonestreet capital could not do what it did in these four cases and that there must be do it four times it means if supreme court ruling one thirty seven means anything it means that no reasonable person could conclude otherwise and it means that the trial court abused its discretion in denying my client's motion for sanctions miriam webster's dictionary defines egregious as conspicuously bad flagrant merriam webster's dictionary could list these four cases as an example of the word egregious before i move to the substance of my argument i'd like to bring up what i pointed out in my reply brief regarding stone street's statement of additional facts and its  stonestreet appears to think that the rules don't apply to it and its statement of additional facts does not comply with supreme court rule three forty one it listed numerous facts which were argumentative without citation to the record as i asked in my reply brief the court should disregard those facts they were facts regarding things that are utterly irrelevant to this appeal such as tax ramifications of structured settlement assignments and s streets practices and seeking approval of the silence none of those are germane to the issue before this court with one disturbing exception and that appears at page nine of stone streets brief in their additional facts court of cook county illinois there were no restrictions on assignment contained in that agreement and quote that's what stonestreet tells this court in its brief in stone streets response to my client's motion for sanctions in the trial court it said the exact opposite in the record for case number zero four zero four at page six forty c six forty six appears stonestreet response to the respondents motion three paragraph twenty of that affidavit at page c six sixty eight of the record states stonestreet also received a copy of hitchcock's annuity policy uniform qualified assignment and settlement agreement that ms hitchcock waved to the provisions restricting assignment contained in his hitchcock's settlement agreement and annuity policy and by virtue of this waiver stonestreet had the legal right to seek a transfer of structured settlement payments and well so not only have stonestreet disregarded the holdings of this court the multiple holdings of this court it is seen fit to play fast and loose with the facts with the record and with the supreme court rules in both the trial court and this court by making representations that appear to be just whatever it feels like making at the time with no regard to consistency in its statements was just going to point out your honor is by saying i'm county indeed the structured settlement protection act mandates that a petition for the transfer of structured settlements payments be filed in the county where the underlying action was filed or could have been filed there's no dispute the underlying lawsuit or personal injury case in this these cases was in the circuit court of cook county there's never been an explanation or even an attempt at an explanation by stonestreet either in the trial court or in this court as to why these petitions were honor we received discovery in this case consisting of recordings audio recordings of phone calls it's never been clear to me exactly who contacted whom first we do know that someone purporting to be hitchcock at some point  i am that injured person well your honor initially it's my understanding yes that the recordings bear that out they're not in the record at some point in the recordings there are recordings that where she identifie that's why we're here today no one from stone street or stella street's counsel's office ever demanded that the person saying i want to transfer these structured settlement payments appear and presented aidid and say and prove that they were who they we yes that's not required that right would you agree that that is not a requirement under the structured settlement protection act and that the letter of the statute it is not required but and so we didn't have the notary and i would think that when the person showed some type of identification to the notary perhaps the notary may have noticed i don't know if there was anything explaining our example would suggest woman that she knew as read receipt was the mother signs documents she didn't watch or signed them she assumed that receipt was signed in her own name and receipt never told her she was signing on behalf of her daughter  understanding is that she's under indictment in indiana at this time for fraud i don't know the details of that anyone oyo i have not found any criminal proceedings involving her but that's what happens and that's so counsel we know that it's not a requirement that they have a face to face but really the crux of the appeal turns on whether or not there was reliance on something that was not the law of the time that these petitions were fine correct in terms of what your position is that they were not allowed to assign it based on the case law and their position is that was that was something that we could reasonably argue for correct no well that's their position is their position correct so we know that there was a change in the law and i'm having difficulty understanding and i'm still perhaps ask the same question of opposing counsel but i'm not really understanding this suppose it change in the law that flint the the status of the law with respect to these assignments if there was no change with respect to these assignments all that happened here are was that in two thousand and fifteen the legislature added a provision to the structured settlement protection act that said you can now leave these side of a clause however in order to do so you must appear in that addressed anti assignment clive's the presence of a man sign a clause and that's where this court and the other districts of the appellate court made those decisions about what happens in the face of that language ruling in henderson and minutes in the other cases where that language appears even if the petitioner and in most of these cases the settling party was in fact the petitioner asking for approval of the transfers even if that party greta waive those provisions this court held the circuit court doesn't have mr mack attorney mack when he walked into the courthouse in two thousand and ten across the street he knew because he had been counsel of record in three separate cases before this court he knew that he could not file these and then in two thousand and thirteen a month after the fourth petition was filed by a turning back this court issued the settlement finding merce's branston decision and in that case this court address situation that was factually very similar to what we find presented in these four cases it's a situation where the settlement documents containing an assignment provision a situation where was counsel for the factoring company filed petitions that didn't attach the settlement but did attach the facebook page of the annuity policy that contained an anti assignment provision something that happened here filed a petition that stated in the body of it that it complied with structured settlement protection act that it did not contravene the order of any court and that jurisdiction was proper all of which were done in the four petitions that were filed by stonestreet in these case underscored its prior holdings in henderson and green in its shape or informant and that was the case law that was presented to the trial court on our motion for sanctions resting wasn't the law at the time the petitions were filed and the law is that you have to look at what the state of the law was when the petition for file but question didn't say anything new branston said exactly what this court had said consistently from one thousand nine hundred nine through two thousand and six in those five cases it constituted a fraud on the court as a matter of law i don't think any reasonable person can take the position that the trial judge took here and say scholars three had a good faith basis to file these petitions they did not it can do in addition to filing the petitions in the first place stonestreet also this represented to the trial court that it had personal that let's go back to law school days with personal jurisdiction minimum contacts are required for personal jurisdiction yet no service surprise you're going back a little too far and the issue is whether or not the person submitting to the court decide the issue and if a person files something saying i'm submitting to the court the court is giving the court jurisdiction over me i don't think you have to have personal service if it's legitimate which of course in this case we now know it's not but i don't think you have to have personal service the way i respond to that your honor is if that were the case why would the legislature act in section two dash two thirteen code that governs waiver of service of process and such work are required for for waiving process because here we do not i consent to the jurisdiction of the circuit court and it's signed by this four signature who we know that sometimes people represent themselves and there's never an attorney involved and they file an injury of appearance or they documents appeared to be off even though we know now over fraud why wouldn't that prostitute terms your research because your honor it was not filed by dark personal jurisdiction is acquired either by service of summons were by general parents and it is derived from actions of the person sought to be bound so i understand what you're saying i mean let me ask you this question if it had been filed by your climate actually filed by your client what was filed would it be ok then well it wouldn't be because it was a forgery no no no i'm saying if it had not been forged it was actually her who signed it and filed it would it have been ok if she if my client hypothetically that signed that document filed it herself with the court i would that i think then you would have a colorable argument that she had submitted a major and i don't think we're necessarily on a different page i mean we understand that this was a fraud it wasn't her it wasn't her signature but basically what i'm getting at is that that was sufficient had it actually been her i suggestion are that even if you conclude that there was personal jurisdiction in view of the fact that this court said you can't file these first plays that is not just positive but should thank you counsel you're out of time but you will have additional time reporting thank you thank you this court to believe but we did not know what mediately when that petition was brought to vacate that there was a fraud it took a period of time to figure this out seventeen months there were a unreasonable that it would take this mom to get to the right result and i think that's an actual a dangerous public policy to to weaponize a party's right to defend itself under counsel's world view of the world we should have immediately rolled over with those two fourteen zero one petition this was a fraud that went back to the very instant she turned eighteen responded never received a because a fourteen month attack was brought that stonestreet should have immediately said yes your right they had an opportunity deserved a chance and they had a right to test that claim and that's what they did talked about is a standard to review here which is abuse of discretion but i think that's a heavy lift for the responded here abuse of discretion is against the manifest whether the evidence and more importantly you would have to find that no reasonable person that i think that is an accurate statement of the law that it was silent prior to two thousand and fifteen when the legislature made it made it abundantly clear that anti assignment was no longer a bar but i think what has we've cited the case that says when the legislature says that it's the clarity of existing law that means that the legislature codified what the legislature believed was the existing law and that's the girl a case out of the second district branch of the president was new my view of the cases before branston were that no that where there were always objectors in those cases and in our protections as one of the justices pointed out everyone signed off on this there were no there were language and i believe it to branston that led to the two thousand and fifteen amendment to the statute where the legislature said hey no existing law is an counsel's right that didn't overturn any of those part cases but the legislature said this was existing law and that's what we understood was either existing law or we had a good faith belief that wanted the extension of that i'm not sure with the legislature saying that the anti assignment is not a bar was a statement of existing law i think that gave the trial court a reasonable basis to rule that it did because remember we're not here to litigate the motion of a case we're here to address whether or not the trial court was correct in denying the motion for sanctions against abuse of discretion standard would any reasonable could any reasonable person disagree and with the legislature saying this is declarative existing law i think that so what i'd like to focus on is this concept of hindsight it's very important that we look at the trial court's decision not with the benefit of hindsight which is twenty twenty that the breast an opinion the fact that this was a long running fraud and that stonestreet and responded were all conned by this you have to take a look at this at the time the allegations or defenses and i think that's what the document that was filed will be at that it was a fraud that it contained allegations shudder stands and agrees that a petition is filed she's a resident she's a she could sense from the trailer those are allegations that the trial were basically to position you stated earlier it was it wrong for you all to have the opportunity to flesh this out and to defeat and into ensure that it was a fraud before you just that's what i took from it but again i have a handicap that i wasn't involved in the in the underlying litigation but that is certainly what i took from it and that goes back to one of the initial things you can weaponize the parties good faith attempt to get to the bottom but to me it's a different issue whether or not you shouldn't even been seeking is that and i understand and that he has three he has three or four problems in his argument state of the law is one and i think again we have to take a look at  the abuse of discretion standard i think in a ruling on what the status of the law was and was stone streets conduct reasonable under the sanction standard the judge properly looked at the two thousand and fifteen amendments were it said this is the  is anecdotal at best when i go to the sangamon county courthouse or have in the past there were many structured settlement sat on the docket and i don't know if the structured settlement world decided that this was a convenient place to have them is i don't know again i've never really been involved in structural structural settlements and i don't have the i don't have the trial court background on this matter i can give you my speculation but i don't know the answer notarized and as it appears from reading the deposition again i was in that deposition but reading the deposition at a minimum the notary didn't do what she was supposed to do a gross failure to follow the notary at worst case scenario she was part of the fraud but we had no reason to believe that the notary was either negligent or was part of a fraud and i think stonestreet is entitle to rely on that notary and i think that is another reason the court had a basis to deny sanctions we have no do we have notarized documents because i want to suggest that we should have had it in person signing requirement again not mandated by the statute but if that is the court's ruling that we have to do that to avoid sanctions and totally a vis writes the purpose of having a notary the purpose of having a notary is to get some independent verification that the person whose side of the document is the person he or she says  again the abuse of discretion standard is a high threshold i believe to meet this court would have to find that no reasonable person could have ruled as the trial court  and i think i have given this order a handful of reasons each of counsel's prongs each of these arguments and why the court could have had a reasonable basis to rule as it did coupled with the fact that we can't engage in hindsight even though it's twenty twenty and you have to analyze it from what stonestreet saw at the time i think that burden become even more difficult to sustain for the response in short i think the court had sufficient facts and reasoning to support the file and we asked the court affirmed the rule provides a manner of attaining obtaining redress when you're forced to come into court and defend baseless allegations that's why the rule exists well we'll tell you we're back since a silly question of was and no i got it all right i i do think that's exactly why we have rule one thirty seven that's the supreme court saying look if you bring up baseless frivolous claims and somebody has to come in and hire a lawyer and defend it you've got to pay their fees and to your counsel's point that you know abuse of discretion is a high standard it is indeed but when this court says five times you can't do this i don't think a trial judge has discretion to say well i'm going to disregard that it's ok because that's really what happened here leaving aside the service of process leaving aside the in person verification i suggest with the department of justice statistics i put in there group and the fact that they had a copy of her social security card they had a copy of her state id they saw that the signatures were different they saw that the addresses were different a flag that relying on a notary under those circumstances may be generally it's ok on these circumstances that is not objective be reasonable but putting all that aside this court said over and over you can't bring these petitions they filed them and then as the court said in any acoustics an attorney has a continuing professional duty to promptly dismiss of baseless lawsuit even over his client's objections when he learns he no longer has grounds for a case and justice white you brought that up right up out of the gate once we filed our fourteen zero one petitions and they were confronted with this cour decisions including branston which had been decided in the interim they had an obligation under rule one thirty seven to drop the case and instead they dug in their heels and fought for a year and a half and seventeen months to try to keep these orders and in fact that's a continuing violation of rule one thirty seven so abuse of discretion is a high threshold it's been met here with respect to the amendment of the statute the supreme court swear lee rejected their argument and roth versus the act that involved a case where the legislature amended the statute said it's declared to the existing law and thereby purported to overrule the court's prior decision and the court said that's a separation of powers problem the legislature cannot overrule our decisions construing a statute and that's what this court did five times it construed statute the predecessor statute on the church code and then structured settlement so the arguments that they've mounted throughout this case have not themselves been supported by existing so they violated rule one thirty seven when they filed the petitions it violated rule one thirty seven while they continued to defend them by advancing arguments that had no support themselves now we did not we asked leave to submit our invoicing because we asked for fees including the motion for sanctions so our plan was to request if the court was going to grant sanctions then we would submit our affidavits and bills cited in the conclusion section of my brief case where that's exactly what happened that's what they asked for i can tell you ballpark judge that i'm not including this appeal i believe there are somewhere around two hundred fifty thousand so we're going on a motion for this this case involves a lot of paper a lot of time seventeen months of fighting for my client to get money that she was owed for a traumatic brain injuries which again the word is egregious i think our burdens been met here i think the