this is a third case of the morning four fourteen zero six six one and really state of israel  january fourth two thousand and thirteen under the cause number two thirty twenty thirteen elop fourth one two zero three six seven dash you and the determination of the court at that time was that genes claim against the estate had in fact been timely she was a known creditor had not received the actual notice the passing of void and therefore the catch all two year statute of limitations applied to that and this court overrules the trial court on that issue and said yes in fact her claim was timely filed and remanded for the discovery since that time there really has been no effective discovery we've made various attempts to try to complete discovery we've made a to amend our complaint and so forth and all to no avail basically because trial judge has found first of all that they out of the four corners of the agreement are the four corners and any parole evidence s miscible and secondly that our amended complaint does not relate back to when she filed her claim against the state back on july twenty second two thousand and nine because it alleges facts that she knew of or should have been aware of at that time and since she didn't raise them at that time they were away we think the court error on both grounds and we think the court also as erred with regard to the scope of discovery with regard to this case this point this case is very similar to this it comes from jersey county and if you're familiar with jersey county you know that there are three rivers of have there confluence and there are nearby the are river empties into the mississippi river and then a few miles further downstream the missouri river from the west enters into the mists and where we see keep running into problems here is the confluence of different os the lies that applies to the prenuptial agreements the law as it applies to probate estates and the law as it applies to the code of civil procedure which is what i'm most familiar with that's mostly what i do is that it and it's where we have those conjunctions that we have difficulty it shouldn't be a difficult case at this point what we have at this point we've gone through the on i remember the missouri river now we got the mississippi river going has seen worse it's a breach of contract case the issues are is for zero evidence admissible and the issue and the issue is does a court of civil procedure apply and those are all covered pretty well by statute first of all  and then the other issue has to do is were the allegations in our first amended complaint things said jane should have been aware of when she filed her claim against the state back in july twenty second two thousand and nine and they were not and i think we can show you that pretty graphically by showing you the various documents and their chronological order and this won't take very long and i apologize for the critical issue is there a prenuptial agreement that was entered into between jane and floyd before they got married where my wife is and he spoke there she had been married to the football codes they'd gotten divorced she and floyd math and decided to get married and they entered into a prenuptial agreement that was prepared by his attorney and then they proceeded to be married for twenty seven years until he passed away or around the holidays two thousand and eight they really didn't make much reference to the prenuptial agreement during that twenty seven years marriage but what we've got is a prenuptial agreement that's affected by a well that was left by virginia before the prenuptial was entered into and also by floyd's well that he prepared in september two thousand and seven twenty six years later which interpreted some of the provisions of the prenuptial agreements and we think that it's particularly with regard to this court's decision in two thousand and eleven that is a prenuptial agreement was in forcible and that they were only discussing what the terms were and permitting parole well this was interpretation of some ambiguous provisions of the of the prenuptial agreement this court agreed now we're taking that position that meaning of some of the language of the prenuptial agreement is ambiguous and first order it's quite right with it basically in the second order it remains the matter we had challenged two things in the second or one who was yes it was timely filed and two was the judge  in denying our right to take certain discovery and you found that it was premature to decide on discovery but in the first opinion or the first rule twenty three order it's pretty w language about saying it's ambiguous there's that word doesn't even appear sure it does and i apologize your honor first on page two paragraph six it says these terms are subject to virginia's a state which remained open at the time then it goes on it talks about how they lived during their twenty seven years of marriage and the rants from the farm both the farm half of the farm that was on the right by floyd which jane makes no claim to and also the income from the life estate which he was left for through january keep in mind that the children already had that half of the farm he was only entitled to the life estate and that would accrue as he lived he was entitled to whatever the rents were and so forth but performed their course of performance of this contract during at least the first twenty some years of their of their marriage after that it got a little bit crazy because of the impact from the children because of some  purchase of our certificate of deposit by floyd and so forth without james knowledge that we think were by a lay sions of what was intended by after acquired property and she wanted up in effect receiving a life estate in the farmhouse which he gave up maybe four years ago she had no business she was in the eighty's living fifteen miles from town in a farmhouse so she voluntarily gave up her life estate and moved into town bought a condominium and years ago he's one of these about process details let me look again at your first order and i apologize your honour's talks about the fact that they had lived together and that the rents were received by the couples it talks about on page twelve paragraph thirty eight it says jane's argument also fails on the merits and what we had said is that right attempted unilateral i you know laterally change their prenuptial agreement therefore it's not enforceable and she should court rejected that here's what your language is and i'll read it to jane's argument also fails on the merits first readjusts jane's contention floyd unilaterally modified the ante nuptial agreement apart from the fact contracts cannot be unilaterally is not used anywhere ok if that's correct and there is no reference to ambiguity and you have to interpret all words if you're integrity a statute that doesn't mean the statutes ambiguous it means ble and it's because there were terms in the agreement that were ambiguous otherwise it would be an attempt by him to unilaterally modify it and the court said he's not doing that he's trying to interpret it and you can only interpret our contract you know i didn't go beyond the four corners of the contract if there's some ambiguity and this court found that there was in effect floyd found their lies because he attempted to interpret it in his two thousand and seven well going on page thirty probable this fact this act is far short of proving actual concealment nine hundred eighty one anyway and then going on page forty i'm sorry paragraph forty third jane argues paragraph five is a modification because  meant by quote after acquired property and that very language is in paragraph forty one of your august sixteenth two thousand and seven group twenty three let me if i may very briefly there's where we run into problems and i context only in the context of their marriage so that's what we have here we have a ante nuptial agreement that's affected by the probate law both the probate law of jane iris i'm sorry virginia her well before they entered into the agreement and twenty six years later by the probate bar of florida and his well as he's interpreting what he meant to say back in one thousand nine hundred one then we have  question of ok and this was presented in so many words to the trial judge ok let's say we got probate via here you filed a probate claim how in the heck do you turn this into a breach of contract case and i was asked i was given seven days by judge historias to invest it and likely this is pretty straightforward it's done by statute the statute says i read the entire standard to be at seven fifty five i'll see s five slash one dash two point zero five what makes her claim against the state into a breach of contract and it says claim includes any cause of action ok then the next question is  how do you reconcile cause of action that claim with a cause of action because they're not the same thing and we recognize in that same thing when jane found out that they were trying to sell the house out from under her and not recognizing a life estate that's all appellate courts and the supreme court have reconciled how do you translate a probate case into a civil lawsuit and it says first of all any claim is appropriate for bringing an appropriate action so if floyd is r contract but there are also standards for bringing a probate claim here's what the court is set up ok they give half a loaf to each side first of all they say it doesn't matter what the nature of the claim is or what stage limitations is how long it is what applies is the but they give to the litigation side ias but it will give you half a loaf to your filing your claim against the state not a complaint we're not going to hold you to the same technicalities that we would hold a civil lawyer if you is filing a breach of contract stay as long as he subsequently amends it complain to and it has met the station limitations then even if it doesn't meet the i know federal court requires fact leading  shut down and the judge said i'm sorry after acquired property is a known issue i can only look at the four corners of the agreement we disagree with him for one thing because it's modified by regina his will beforehand what their course of conduct that's how they lived this up in the life for their first twenty some years we think we're entitled to going back to the judge said no you're stuck you can only ask but after choir property something other than the like to say that he got from james every time i tried to take depositions and going to that issue about for twenty years or so floyd farm with two of his kids and they kept all the income income of floyd's they just claimed it later but i'm not it permitted to get into that so every time i would get shut down so i thought well i know there's a way i can get around this and one thing the probate court says another thing that reconciles probably case with a little geisha case is it says in any probate claim the code of civil procedure a box ok and that includes section two six sixteen which is the one having to do with amendments so i thought these guys don't have a the facts were known by jane when she filed her original claim back in july two thousand and nine and that's simply not the case whether or so first of all the amended complaint should have been permitted i was very meticulous allegation of tortious interference of contractual relationship on the part of the children and there is an allegation of intentional infliction of emotional distress and just the stories said no i'm sorry you should have been aware of it stuff back when you father claim in july two thousand floyd's then we have twenty seven years of marriage commingling property doing all that stuff dealing with his life estate as it gets part of both of their property then we have as well which admittedly modifies it then we we get some of the stuff it constitutes breach of contracts and purchase interference or a contractual relationship an intentional impression or stress it's only later it's only later we guess for example this letter from as possible the trial court dismissal of the first amended complaint should be affirmed by this court for two reasons ante nuptial property remit as well as the limitations period mr mo into a great deal of argument about ambiguity however as this court pointed out the word ambiguous is not indicated at one point in your first order from august of two thousand and eleven well counsel indicates as set forth in the prenup is in fact ambiguous is not a question for the appellate court at that time but it's a question for the trial court if the court determines this provision for after acquired marital property which is the essence which is her claim in and of itself one paragraph from her portion of after card marital property if the trial court finds there's issues here based on the will or whatever then that would be a finding of ambiguity and we'd be able to go down this road that counsel so desperately wants to go down talking about the will outside matters plural evidence conduct of the parties but the trial court did not find ambiguity several months after applying remand after the appellate court's first opinion in february of two thousand and twelve the estate filed an objection to various discovery requests again seeking information about what floyd did during his life time with the money generated from the farm what sort of income from a we objected as irrelevant this is not concerning property wired after the marriage the judge reviewed hearing is in the record on appeal and he found and i quote the language to be incredibly clear after acquiring marital property only included property acquired after the marriage of floyd and jane did not include his farm crap the income derived from his farm ground we've already been down and have the argument that the prenup is valid lloyd did the prenup to protect this farm land and allow him to transfer during his life and his dad his interest in that land to his children and the trial court rule is provisions incredibly clear to tell you the story is it does not include the land or the income generated from that land after acquired male property that was in not the trial court or whether or not there may be an issue as to whether or not replacement property items involving this farming operation would be considered after acquired marital property and floyd in his two thousand and seven role trying to address that  jane repeatedly argues that this discovery must be conducted so she can determine the conduct of the parties the discovery in which counsel wishes to take his adult children of floyd's first marriage who had no personal knowledge of the inner workings of the finances or of the marriage between their father and jamison housing and ironically the best evidence of how that income was treated during the course of their marriage is already in the record presented for this develops court against deposition testimony was taken one month prior to the filing of the first amended complaint and during that deposition jane testified that the farm income was held in a separate bank account in floyd's name alone for twenty five years of their marriage she did not make deposits into that account you cannot make withdrawals and about how her name was only added less than two years prior to her passing jane testified during her deposition that they maintained a separate bank account in an entirely different plane that was used to cover their joint living expenses however these facts as there are any contained in the record are not producing the facts that council needs to support his position insisting continuously demands on taking depositions i don't children have no personal knowledge of the inner workings between this relationship the courts is saying our records granted our motion to dismiss excuse me the first man to complain on two separate grounds to six fifteen as well as the two six nineteen timeliness or statute additionally two six nineteen the estate moved back the antenuptial agreement serves as an affirmative matter to bar relief as a matter of law to defeat the claim set aside transfers floyd's farm ground and as well as we raised on the relation back doctor and the nation back doctrine is intended to afford parties the right to take advantage of the facts and form such as an improper statement on the claim not intended to amend amendments after the granting of the statute of limitations  prior to january twenty four team the children of floyd their involvement in the litigation was voluntary and subject to what they may or may not have known between the dealings of their father and jane is from the house and at no point was anyone put on notice that they should was known to jane even the op inside it and repeated trying to sell the house out from under her which is already been established in the record and in depositions was a mistake in the publication houses never sold out from under her ja continue to have a life say first long as she wanted to sell the estate even pay for all the maintenance and the real estate tax on the property as provided more and point well all of the taps or whatever hopefully not in the courtroom today all of these matters everything was known in two thousand and nine in july of two thousand and nine when she filed that first place there's absolutely no reason such actions based on i what this farm ground cannot have been done in that time six sixteen when you read that in subsection deep when it talks about adding parties after the saturday limitations has run its specifically talks about where there are mistakes concerning wharton has pointed out all of the complaints of the prairie each company asked to set aside intravenous transfers that were done by floyd during his lifetime floyd a part of this life on in the summer of two thousand and eight these are things that were known before his death obviously it's a view of transfers for more than five years from this first minute complaint was filed so we feel it should be dismissed secondly throughout these proceedings the appellant has made various allegations regarding things that happened  exactly the depositions he talked about and criticized the children for failure to see the prenuptial agreement prior to floyd's passing well they're only going to see the dead one of them to see and there's nothing wrong with them not been aware of it part of passing their allegations about a document of the church door document there's allegations regarding a sign the first i think all of things are totally irrelevant at this point in time but secondly there's no basis  indication that any of the children played a role in india of those things the other thing that i would just simply add deals with the scarring the appellant keeps talking about not being allowed to do discovery we were doing a deposition of one of my clients that deposition was stopped by mr masson was not stopped by us there were generations to various a better term really harassment one point he told one of my clients can you read and write so we didn't stop the depositions he did there were two more scheduled day and he chose not to not to take those depositions so that's all i have to this very briefly it seems like there is the old adage the best defense is a good offer it's you know the problem is what we have is a breach of contract case it's clear whether it's and they give us or not it's a pre exactly what the tension was then jane i think in late two thousand and eleven my recommendation i said you have no business living out on their farm house move into town and she did and then shortly thereafter  any you have anything to do with that signing they all said no but i'm not permitted to ask any of that in the discovery depositions of these witnesses and i know this is i have a legit jersey county is subject to the laws of the state of illinois there's a procedure for handling medication there's also procedures for not handling it but again you don't intimidate witnesses you don't interfere with contractual relationship she's gone you don't commit conscious intentional interference with emotional distress implication emotional distress that's what they did i didn't do this they did they did they did it as late as after jane moved into jersey girl in late two thousand and eleven which is two and a half years after we filed our original claim against the state and keep in mind the family the man to complain this case has been up on appeal far longer than it's been in front of the court years ago so we've had limited opportunities to do much here we were shut down as soon as we started taking depositions after the second man and that's improper and this is very clearly a an ambiguous agreement for the life estate information that jane received and that they've received is after acquired property we