defendant illinois american water company is a public utility that sells water at retail the funded american lake water company is a common here by pipeline that sells water it will sell to only americans and others illinois public utilities act is a comprehensive body of statutory law that governs the regulation of utilities for somebody for several years the defendant water companies operated under t water to live your dream is whereby american lake water would sell lake michigan water a wholesale soup illinois american water would sell that water retell to certain costumers and certain service area to when the companies came into being they were sorely out of that day in the sense that citizens utilities way was identified as utility and some of the service here is including former township which later became so the water companies naturally want to sue consolidate the two agreements into one agreement into update their terms so on august second two thousand and ten defended illinois american water petitions the illinois passed by the legislature safeguard the rights of individuals and very clearly corporations to petition the government or to participate in the government without interference from claims and who are whose purpose was in furtherance of the rights of the decision speak associate or otherwise participate in government to induce favorable government action from all as a problem wrong to first prong it's essentially uncontested that the defendants were exercising its fissioning activity or participating in government to see favorable government action by filing a petition with a state laying out this issue in explaining here and unless this panel has questions about this prong of the move to the second prong which is where the heart of this few lives and that is whether plaintiffs claims are based on in response to now the scene home court explains in paragraph fifty seven of the official report that soley based on means whether the plaintiff is interfering with the petitioning activity or wh that right why didn't they file a claim for specific performance why didn't they seek an injunction at work why are the defendants to go to the mayor or the village counsel to get consent that's not what they did they filed a motion for  the action applied number two which is a related question is sent home put out has the plaintive excuse in this case the defendant satisfied their initial burden to show that the bolingbrook complaint was filed solely based on the defendant's protected first amendment rights to participate in government and number three and i think you can tell by the way i phrased this you number two is whether the defendant acts here in petitioning the i c c fall within the protected constitutional first amendment conduct protect only first are my attention to the first issue is which is is this the take of america's retaliatory play and to do that you have to look at what is a slap like well the stench is not perfect but there are several definitions that are given first off th the in section five of the act it describes slap actions a civil actions for money damages here we've got count one which is for breach of contract they're not contesting count one in this appeal count one they brought a you know they participate in government trying to get that development shot down and the government says he look if you don't stop this for the developers as if you don't stop this we're going to hit you with a you know the false nuisance claim runs high up in court so drop your opposition that's the happy to hear today that counsel admitted that the i c c petition has no effect at all on our contract that's good news to me because in the petition they define the liberty written as one thing but then it is on page three hundred eighty  concern was the contract says you can't change the terms of our contract without getting a written consent thing their petition says before the i c c hey look we've got this you know related company agreement you know they've got american like water in illinois american water so we need to get i c c consent to approve it and they called it you know we want to change all the delivery agreements to be one consolidated you form a green but of course that tried to hoist dismiss all three counties in the first time was based on jurisdiction they said we should have been before the i c c and the court shot it down and they've then filed a subsequent motion so it's a little you know the early should've filed that initially but they did lawsuit both first lawsuit was soley based on related to or in response to their acts are due the fact that we have count one for breach of contract merely shows that it's not so me based on or related to her ex we're trying to recover our that we're plaintiffs seek filed the suit genuinely seeking relief as they were doing in san home for damages for defendants wrongful acts a lawsuit is not solely based on defendants rights of petition now you only we have a valid cause of action here this is not something we're doing trying to squelch somebodies rights this is something we're really bringing on behalf of our contractual rights and to defend them concern that if this is the i c c then says this contract no longer can tear this country it does not contain the provision that you have to match the price was our concern that they would then argue see judge we now have an i c c position say we don't have to match the price now obviously the defense is that there was a concern that was a legitimate concern now that they have to under our contract they have to get our approval to change the contract now i'm happy to refile this thing they didn't do that which is why these counts were still viable at the time we filed you know we were concerned about our contract or all rights being abrogated without our consent you can't unilaterally change the terms of our contract happened you know applying what was initially being done by the courts because in the right developing corporation the supreme court case that came from before it very very it came out and said you know these only apply to mirrors cases so what the trial courts were doing with our tr did was it look to see is this a marriage this retaliatory claim and then if i've found that it was so what's in him was really doing was just laying down instructions and a little bit more solid procedures on how to go about that so  a statute now the cases including sandal talks about the c p a only covers actually furtherance of their constitutional right to petition for the if you're filing something pursuant to a statute you don't have a constitutional right there is section five of the act focuses on constitutional rights of persons to petition the government for grievances the gasman case from the first district involving  intervene and sought an injunction or brought a breach of contract playing than after the agreement would have become a factor or as i mentioned earlier they could have sought specific performance in the original complaint that's not what they did what they and i would point this carol to shoreline towers versus task that's a case where the first district in two thousand and ten found that two injunctive relief accounts were clearly predicated on petitioning activity performance where you're not actually in joining the petitioning activity but you're serving this contractual right this hypothetical one you mention i mean even at the end of the day also after the i c c approves whatever the i c c approve there are options left available breach of contract or whatever they are maybe it's an injunction to require the company to to do whatever it is they claim should have been done but that's not those suggestions that i'm giving you are not  complying with the contract that except for the playing field that yeah well they have to sit there and just as hard because the agreement would become a factor that's all the i c c approved so when we submitted the petition and the agreement