good morning your honour's as you know this case involves the appeal of a unanimous decision by the board of trustees of the chicago firefighters pension fund of the denial of an application for a board's decision correct under the language of section sixty is two to one considering the language of the statute and case wrong applying comparable provisions under other radicals of the pension judge that's a good question i think when we started our briefs on this because the lower court applied at the nova standard and counsel for the happily has been arguing consistently it's a no standard we felt strongly that it is not at the novel standard they have standard applies where there is truly an interpretation of statutory language itself in other words what does that language mean we've always asserted it is it at least a clear and convincing standard but probably in light of this court's recent decision in romano to a manifest weight standard and i have come to the conclusion i think but i believe it is a manifest weight standard and here's why i say that charge because as you know the issue to be decided in these pension for future cases is was there a nexus between the crimes committed and the public employees employment that's the solution and the nexus language is in these statutes that is did it relate to arise out of or in connection with the now those rules to nat i don't believe require any of us to interpret what do they mean they mean what they say what they do require is applying them to fa issue in my opinion your opinion is a fact intensive issue each and every pension first which are case whether it's under article six or any of the other articles and i think this court  of fire fire to reactors i retired and the deputy fire commissioner between them they have hundreds of years of experience in the training and education and experience that firefighters killed on the sorry again that's absolutely the face of this case as in many of these cases most of them are undisputed as to what happened but take notes or question what was the conduct here and when were the what was the speciali cans trish pails to spread fire from one structure to another so in essence the rwanda about these techniques while he was on the job and then he made use of them in a modus circumstantial evidence and by the rate we're always going to decide these cases on circumstantial evidence we can't is going to get up there and admit under oath for this new specialized knowledge they're never going to do that so the court system look at is where the significance of the facts of the underlying crimes and then look at his testimony where he admitted that he said these things and looneys things while he was on the track and he used them when he committed the the specialized knowledge he really doesn't see that he concludes that ok but it doesn't say that so those are the principal bread the public employee could gain specialized knowledge from in this case twenty five years of experience justice harris at the risk of talking against my client's case when he was actually on the fire department for twenty five years that's a factor that's important to that's what the record shows he started in one thousand nine hundred and he committed that he was arrested and prosecuted six i disagree with that but the standard review the illinois supreme court has addressed this issue at least twice or maybe three times in it most recently in a case involving governor ryan in two thousand and ten the court stated  drugs and sell them for a personal reason so there was a clear nexus there what do we have here in this case we have instead of oh please what you typically have in federal court to give the proceedings before judge porter when geoffrey boyle pled guilty he source of complete outrage it was at the border there was clear out there to it so what's your take on whether or not his activities relate relate to his training and experience i submit judge that based on the record that this court has to decide there is no evidence that what he was doing when he started this fires these fires were related in any way to his job as a as a firefighter proceedings before the court the transcript of proceedings there is only one witness testified and that's my client for boy his testimony lasted twenty or twenty four pages in admit that he had you know as part of his training as a firefighter he knowledge of the last person the six and a half pages and i think a fair reading of that completely refutes the idea that he was using anything he learned in the fire academy when he was going around in the in the middle of the night truck trolling cigarette fire department works how he notices or information from the commissioner whatever that may have addressed arson twenty five years ago that he didn't get clean anything from that relative to ours but we of course the the record here doesn't have anything about had was in a position where children of course would trust him because he's in a position of authority and he's someone that they see regularly that their lives will be used in some way connected that was a standard right so you can see that this was in some way connected to something you  not based on the record that we have here and i would note by the way that the board would has the ability if they wanted to to call someone from the fire kept train you can hear someone who supervised oil to call him to her work on a fire with him or went to one of these suddenly you could see read the transcript he said i don't remember one fire start started then they get hotter i mean it's it is quite frankly i submit a very scant basis to find the nexus whether it be a substantial factor or some believe it's not a dog biting a man it's a man biting a dog so it's not a firefighter putting out a fire is he starting a fire and i think you sensed i think in the record it's apparent and from your appropriate important questions that there's a a source of  to safety later returned to the scene where the murder victim was laying and while the police were investigating didn't say anything to the investigating authorities and the one about his business until someone told him years later in their case that argument was made that well he's a police officer it's and he's not supposed to be shooting unarmed people that there's something inherent about peacekeeping that that should cause him to forfeit his pension and have that in their rule and they do and that's i mean i understand that they seem to be the theme of the attempt to cross examine mr boyle about the training and saw forth that is in there but if you look at the that that language from the bloom case you have a record there but again the court so there was something far more closely connected than we have here if i could just conclude i understand the difficulty of this this decision in the manner in which nine lawyers or nine judges want to respond to it too by the way and said so at the hearing and in this court of cook county judge martin in the circuit court struggled with this also in his written order stated that he found the results of this case unsettling and unfair but he also concluded correctly that these duty bound to apply the law in this case and i submit that if you do that in this case there's no way that jeffrey that the judge martin can be overturned in the board's order reinstated without somehow stepping back from the logic an approach that was used and were monel that in june of two thousand and ten you know the image or a motion doesn't replace logic and legal reasoning and jeffrey boyle's not asking to be applauded or to be welcomed back into the community of firefighters whose respect  cases that counsel cites two can be distinguished ryan and ted leo both had to do with interpretations of language and the statute it was understandable that their crimes related to their jobs ryan was trying to save his general assembly pension but the court said when you look at non of the benefits and member of the full on and interpret those together he froze for them all so that misconduct but any reference to your job in order to forfeit the pension wesley place to risk the world relate to drugs have an impact when you're right causing the fire department to use  resources and manpower that could be used someone else to help someone else by causing twenty or since there's a direct correlation and that's why i say it's the crying the nature really yes because he calls the fire department it's related to his job because he calls the response and the use of resources which by the way mr brill admitted at the hearing that he did cause that by his used his opportunity as a birth scoutmaster to actually entice the children that he is he didn't use his position as a principal and he didn't do it on school grounds and he didn't use any school  minutes so he was totally unrelated to his position as principal i want he committed those acts and violated the trust of those children that have been placed on him so i think the golf test applies which is in some way