jackson county mississippi who were objectors to the class action settlement but there are three very important people who have already made a determination that this class action settlement was as as a result of the basis of fraud in collusion and perjury the important thing is that those three people on the other side now they're not nearly as important as you three who right now for our retirees are the three most important people on the face of the planet but for the other side we have had information given to us that has become part of the record that number one a person from within the legal department of singing river hospital who was terminated from her job approached us this year and said there's something that you need to know unfortunately we did not get her subpoenaed to testify but i am we made a detailed proffer of her testimony who said there is evidence in existence of fraud in collusion between the attorneys for the hospital and the attorneys for the class action she said that there was evidence of ex parte judicial conduct because the attorneys for the hospital knew what was going to happen before the judge did and there was a there was evidence of in a ferret's bought by at least one justice of the mississippi is if she did it it's issued on the electronic system and so the second i had that subpoena issued everyone on the other side nearly that we were trying to subpoena her to testify now what was said what was done i don't know but but she was running for ten days and hiding out from our process server and we were unable to get her sir and i understand that ok given that it may be whatever may be the difficulties of why you don't is well did because of the second witness which was an employee of the law firm that represents the hospital delivered to us  plane on below a document with a note that says something to the effect of here's evidence of a poor our collusion between the same course again not evidence it's a profit here's the evidence randy both starred she was a supervisor for jackson county he's on the other side told me personally that lady bond head admitted to him that documents were shredded we put lay bond on the i'm sorry we put randy both storage on the stand and he said unequivocally yes late montell me that documents were probably shredded he had nothing to do with judge if you remember from the first fairness hearing late bond was specifically questioned by judge your role as to whether any documents were shredded and he  the hospital said we're broke we're broke we're facing bankruptcy we can't afford this point we said financial documents were shredded and we've never been given a clear picture of the finances of the hospital oh yes they made a document dump of tens of thousands of documents but we filed over one hundred requests for production of documents and they did not answer a single one of them in accordance with the law now what they were in the prior opinion from this court was worried the hospital wasn't financially solvent enough to pay this out over a few decades you're now saying they've actually really healthy all along and if that had been disclosed what there could have been a better settlement absolutely judge that doesn't the settlement pay back everything i know over a long period of time but from that that five year period it's a fifty five million dollar settlement that stretches out over thirty five years it's it's very saying if everyone had known they were so financially healthy that they were given a shorter timeframe for putting the money back in the plan that actually by looking at by looking at the evidence today of the finances of the hospital if we had another friend this would have to rob with a different conclusion the hospital in three years has banked one hundred and fifty million dollars they have over ninety million dollars cash today and three three and a half years ago they had zero they paid record and if you look carefully we you know you don't really have a problem in the last panel was concerned the hospital wasn't financially healthy enough to pay this out over all these years if that's not your concern or oh no these issues are all fine but we've got these it was pretty clear they said we have these four concerns i mean judging about who was on the panel today knows it better than i do but they said we have these four concerns that usually limits the scope of the subsequent hearings in district co subsequent appeal to that those narrow four issues which is not what you're talking about well wonderful question but if you look at that why i asked page of the opinion that this court wrote out let our people make the choice and have a choice they are they are being forced to accept a mandatory class action which for three years we've said this is have gotten every dime they're entitled to but usually the people at risk under this settlement are people who are still at the hospital who might not retire from start drawing any money until twenty years from now and who knows what the condition of the plan is going to be then or however month they got their first twenty five percent benefits cut the state court judge in contradiction to the to the agreement of the settlement didn't give them a sixty day notice said they ruled and said i'm going to cut their benefits about twenty five percent and take away their call a pavement so i have clients that that represents about a thirty nine percent benefits cut over what they've made l e and judge i'm telling you that is only the beginning that's not the end it's only the beginning this is a bad settlement it's always been a bad settlement china to get from this with a chance recorders yes for a judge bail ed and so will we have consistently said that this settlement is good for everyone except the retirees and the plain beneficially the other class that you made the c employees they have not provided for all of this so there's not one provision about how they're going to get paid when they're going to get paid if they're going to get paid and so there are distinct sub classes that are  no money has been contributed by the employees since two thousand and four and that's part of why the plan overall isn't going to be one hundred percent because in two thousand and fourteen all these planes rely on current employees paying in to help fund the retire any of these plans in the plan ended in two thousand and fourteen so that's part i mean that's part of the problem is that people aren't paying in anymore but you know the record from the district court says basically th company hospital had the the ability to stop the plan whenever it wanted a judge if you have a contract that is completely drafted bob a hospital this retirees had no no input into the draft in the contract and one provision the contract says you're going to get a lifetime benefit and we're going to take a mandatory payroll deduction you don't have a choice and we're going to pay you lifetime benefit but you have another part of the contract that says well we get to terminate the contract whenever w ant to is it really fair to allow the hospital to stop paying into their pliant their portion to lob about it to the employees and then to be in breach of contract and cite oh well we get to we get to have this other provisional says we get to terminate the plan that's or that but they're number one in breach of contract number two i believe was judge jones on this panel called called the entire thing a loser a what do you have that kind of when you can have that kind of conflict in a paragraph within the country so i would tolerate these vague unfortunate reality is there's retirement plans all over the country that are in when when companies the underlying company has financial problems and there's not as many current employees these pension plans have trouble the misconduct that this settlement was focused on was the five years the company wasn't paying in which was a big problem and as i understand it the the settlement does compensate fully for those five years now there's other problems caused by the fact in two thousand and fourteen the plan stopped but it did fully fifty five million fully cover back the money they owe you know every five years right and that's the issue the male and what will happen is the benefits will continue to be reduced and to the point where it's negligible what their retirement check will be in fact there are retirees that will be living with what are the settlement what would a fair settlement been a fair settlement for but certainly what they got is not faith never has been it's a result of the fraud and collusion that these parties put together a deal that's good for everybody except the retirees they're the ones that suffer reward for their for their absolute malfeasance and negligence and the people that are suffering are the retirees the ones that are that contractual right and it's going to be taken away from without a cho hours when we filed this case singing were intended to terminate and liquidate its pension plan without restoring any of the tens of millions of dollars of honor the class are essentially all the beneficiaries of this retirement plan settlement restores one hundred percent of the recoverable damages in this matter those are the missed annual required contributions between two thousand and nine and two thousand and fourteen in addition to that it implements new procedural protections that must be respected if modifications to the plan are made it creates transparency about the financial condition of the hospital the plan and the repayment status it installs a special fiduciary to manage and administer the plan whose sole responsibility is to the class members we have an abuse of discretion standard in this case and the key question about the fairness of this settlement is what would objectors be able to recover if this case goes to trial that is different from what we obtained in the startlement and at what risk the objectors want to risk everything that we have accomplished in this case to litigate from the very beginning on this quest to obtain lifetime benefits the full net pension liability that this plan does not guarantee and for which they have no factual or legal support we have yet to hear in four years of litigation your honor a single theory of liability from the objectors that would obligate the hospital or anybody else to the full net pension liability and that's because there is not one singing river had the right to terminate this plan it's in the plan documents and tort recoveries against the hospital for any if you if you say it was fraud to say they were going to lifetime benefits any tort recoveries against the hospital are capped at five hundred thousand dollars under mississippi tort claims act and by the time any trial is over your honors the trust will be too depleted and it will be too late to save these pensions anyway that said we are limited today as judge cost of mention in the previous argument by the four questions raised by the prior panel and those are the effect of the settlement on the class seen rivers ability to meet its payments under the settlement the settlements treatment of any recovery by singing river and it separately geisha against k p in ga and whether the timing  evidence that the come the hospital was solvent so that the payout to the planet is perhaps more from a higher certainty but it still does seem troubling that if it was so certain all this money is going to ultimately put back in the plant not also have the attorneys fees paid out in the same manner because interest is being paid so it's not like that the present value is being lost of the money there's no interest in the settlement for class councils fees and there's a very big difference here your hon council has conferred and if the benefit that you've got further gives leaves the as a benefit that is highly contingent upon future prospects the question becomes why should the lawyers stated the prior panel's opinion appeared to be primarily concerned about whether the hospital would be able to pay its obligations under the settlement or class counsel got this up for free and whether that risk rendered this entire settlement unfair and i think all the evidence of the supplemental and payable right now the trust liabilities also come due over time so it makes sense that we're going to restore this money with a guaranteed rate of return over time the attorneys have completed their work and they are there is there is money due and payable at the present time for services rendered the district court your honor held that it would be substantially in equitable to require trust counsel to wait thirty five years without interest to be putting something are currently doing only particularly december twenty fifth to you we had our fees paid over a number of years with for the years that we were most concerned about is a highly unusual for a class element in addition to that we negotiated so that this was being paid on top of the settlement and not out of the settlement if this is three thousand the restoration of those contributions the transfer renders renders this entire settlement unfair that's the only issue before the panel today and i think the answer that question is clearly no there is a substantial benefit to the class they're being paid on top of instead of out of the settlement the trust liabilities come due over all this time it's not like the entire fifty five million is presently due and paid right now and i think it's not due to the beneficiaries but it it was for five years not given to the plate and so the plan is that with that money i don't understand benefits some people are going to ask them why not get any money until twenty years from now but the plane is entitled to them that's right and they're going to get that money with a guaranteed six percent rate of return over time so the class is being restored to the same everyone hopes and had seen river made these payments in zero nine ten eleven twelve thirteen and fourteen and then the plan was terminated appropriately with respect to its provisions there put  advance substantial stones in excess of one hundred fifty thousand dollars to pursue this litigation your honor i will say with respect to the the overall settlement except we're here to talk about the effect of consequences the class say reversibility to meet its payment of obligations under the settlement and the settlements treatment of recovery by singing river in a separate litigation against k p m g we have an abuse of discretion standard here with respect to those issues we had a supplemental fairness hearing there was a additional notice to the class we had many more expert testify you respond to his allegations of shredded documents and witnesses go you know were in with the judge and all that sort of stuff i don't think it dignifies a response your honor but i will the prior plan just focusing on focusing on what happened with the district what i'm remained in terms of those allegations the prior panel found that there was no fraud or collusion the district were professional they were arm's length they were conducted appropriately and with respect to that the issue of shredding documents they didn't have any evidence your honor there's no evidence in the record of that and even if there were financial documents that were shredded there's been no expert no witness no one who has said they make any difference to this whatsoever they're been actuaries that testified in this case they have been c p a s who have testified in this case and not one of them your daughter has said that somehow there were some document that was missing the perp prohibited them coming to their conclusions about what the hospital owed to the trust and how it was going to be paid overtime the objectors did not bring an expert to trial to say these are documents that are missing and that prohibit me from drawing an appropriate conclusion in this matter every single court that has looked at this including the prior panels that there was absolutely no evidence of fraud or collusion in this case and frankly i am i would just like to say that in my career this is one of the cases not and very don't exist so until somebody comes from evidence you know i can't i can't i can't i don't think i'm not suggesting you do or all of that that's a kind of a friendly observation but it and talking of trying to look at the overall overarching fairness of this that suff fair point now one point i want to make for the record we had said that there is going to percent payout still opposing counsel just said there has been a reduction the last month is the very most recent payment at the time of the briefing in ad hoc argument that the some version and that was court acting responsive to that to the either expert advice about funding as to one of those changes made to to achieve the long term benefit i think part of the motivation to change according