plan based on their past performances they know when the market is good when the market is bad and the ships in the market for taxes services were slow and anticipated all so there is expectation were the district court  was it looked at this case and that it was a case of claiming it carries with a specific transaction a specific contract but is not a case involving a specific that is not the case that we had this is jones we took her to the hospital for dialysis every tuesday and now she's running over that's not the case this is the case and there's there's there's not a huge amount of missouri case law in this area but what there is in our favor but there are also apparel cases we discuss at length in our brief but other states that follow the same rule where this is a business that's offered to the public in general not you have to be able to define the group and the group that we did five here is that part of the public does looking for a ride for higher taxes ri st louis and that's a defined group you don't have to be abel death by mr jones mr smith and so on as being people who want to tax you guys you have to say yes there's a population they write the taxes regularly they have three years for decades  and you don't know who you're going to get any particular ride but you know you're going to be getting a fair and taxi drivers have been doing this for years and years so there is a valid biz expectation in this regulated industry w so they could have followed the rules and competed and if they did we would have no complaint or we wouldn't be filing the suit but they chose to ignore a law which i think it's well known to that's their general business model as ever they go they break the law  would regularly get referrals of different patients from different doctors never knew who was going to refer him to handle relationships with the patients but it had a history of this kind of business going on the hospital requiring the hospital to transmit medical records but not provide for cause of action for the patients it's the was not intended to benefit the doctor it's a right for that for the patient that wrongful act the liver refusing to su justification is not a threat it's the element of the class of action council before you go there just like to back up just a moment would you agree with me that if this was a free market situation that the generalized expectation of future business from the public is not and actually by the government well i think that just like fish swimming or water businesses swim and regulations and that they are part of the entire vironment around and f there are series of moscow terror that regulates bad drivers rules follow all the laws and someone else can come in and simply thumb their nose at the laws that are there compete with us in a way that they have no will they have no justification do it because you're not justified to break the law to gauge in no rights no not like we have a monopoly on a taxicab business but we have a right to expect that if there's safety was out there that apply to our industry that everyone gets to do it it's like you know if i'm a coal mine and i'm subject to all these regulations to have joe's coal mine over the street that simply doesn't let the inspectors come in and just big coal willy nilly i think that i have a right to expect that the government should apply the rules against them as well so here the question is does have a right to compete with us in this way and they don't they have a they have a right to go and follow the rules they had a right to go and lobby the state to change rules which is what they did so we have a in sight listen to your time period because they got a new and that exempted them from the regulations have a right to do that we can't complain about that we don't we say your title under new rules our class period ends a day before during the time that they're acting in violation of the law they are acting without justification and the method they use is also not justified because they're doing that the method itself is violating the law and they like to say well just regulatory issues we have regulatory issues it's not there's a specific missouri statute that says you will do this you will follow this tax code and attack the code is very explicit and what is it is not permitted so it's not a minor issue as if the entire fundamental structure of how did this was operating for that slightly listen to your period my name is eric carr on behalf of labor technologies incorporated your honour's this is this is a case tortious interference which is a claim that simply does not fit the alleged using the class action mechanism factors and say as a whole we can establish a valid business expectancy because before entering the market all of the business came into well which one of us we're not sure but one of some of them identify as drivers as independent contractors force moronic have company surely that's enough to get past this point isn't it at this stage of the a i don't know if you're making an argument on when you're making an argument on this point that i don't think so you're at the point even if it's a single cab driver that makes it harder in a sense right because now as your honor we cited this objective reasonable expectation of future business now the question is whether a particular taxi cab driver has an objective lee reasonable expectation that he or she is going to be the one out of a thousand alleged tax of cash or hybrids in st louis who gets the next fare the only way they can come close to doing that is saying well if you combine all of us  one thousand of us we know one of our one of the one thousand would have gotten that allege that fair and that that doesn't work for valid business expectancy but ok what missouri law do you have we would say roads and sloan those two cases  the closest fact patterns for it in in the sloan case an insurance salesperson used to be able to use a list of turning sixty five potential targets for sales and then the insurance company change the policy so now he could only use like ten a month and he said well i had a business expectancy and everybody on that list and even then that's at least a list it's not the public in general and missouri court said no you don't those names of potential future customers are quote legally up for grabs and therefore no valid business expectancy in the other the other side  card what about carter where the doctor didn't know what patients are going to be referred to all all you know is that because of what the hospital did he was going to get fewer referrals to important facts that distinguish karr first the primary allegation relevant to tortious interference itself was that there were specific identified doctors who provided these referrals and so an app in essence rather than name all of the potential referrals there was a name doctors who were providing these these potential referrals so the primary allegation and carter was at least more narrow in the second quarter point which makes which makes the tortious interference claim i forget if it was a motion to dismiss or or a summary judgment in that case  go forward was a separate basis for their torches that interference claim was that these doctors identified two specific plaintiffs who left those doctors it's because the hospital wouldn't give their records to their doctor and that means that just been clear case that had identified either specific doctors referrals or actual patients that they lost but if we move part of the issue here again it's an it's it's a lack colleague admitted is not wrongful it's ok so therefore the question has to become whether the alleged wrongful conduct here not having a valid chauffeur its license and here not not going through a particular background not just to bring the market but if you look at the actual allegations in the complaint paragraph you could find it i mean the argument is if if if you set up regulatory and safety requirements for barbers or lawyers or doctors or whatever and somebody comes in and says i can cut hair without having gone the barber school and i can do it for two dollars an a person cheaper they're going to take some business away and so that's a tortious interference because you didn't get going to barbara's license but or you didn't go to law school you're writing wills because so what's your answer to that to two point number one the allegations in this particular complaint don't involve that last that that caused a link instead they are are they allege labor is fully capable of complying with the tax code in its operations and they further unless they will continue to suffer not so long as you are continued its operation regardless of whether they're in the lead but i would presume they are suffering now even though it's unarguably but are we only talking about the period of time that's relevant for the complaint but even during that period of time where i mean they do not allege that the actual regulatory violations are what caused their harm as opposed to we were just mere presence in the market but the second point on that your honor is in the situations where a haircut or barber a a plumber i think we have in our brief i have a problem with a competitor who is allegedly not living up to regulations a lawyer is the courts in missouri as well as the courts that have dismissed these kinds of cases another district courts make clear there's no private right of action for that we don't want every plumber who wants to try to take get some business back from a competitor to run to date or federal court and say well this regulatory issue is now my issue now this court's issue as opposed to relegate it to the regulator that is state general assembly has made clear is the body that's supposed to be enforcing these law i think in recent in my view that maybe one of your strongest arguments for what is your what your best authority for that that under missouri law a person who is in a regulated industry and has competitors who do not party can call it tortious interference and say well the wrongful means that this particular regulation we we would cite to the nonce be abram's case now granted that was a fraudulent concealment not tortious interference tort but the same argument was made there was a regulation that was being violated and they tried to use that essential element of of a fraudulent concealment claim and the missouri court said you cannot do that why because we have to defer to the general assembly wishes when it comes to who which branch of government executive or where should say whether the executive branch of government or any private party can enforce those regulations and when the general assembly says nothing about a private cause of action in a regulation that general assembly is saying only the executive branch only the agency should be able to enforce it and that's and that's the answer as well your honor with with regard to the carter case that judge benton was discussing in the car case the general assembly provided a private cause of action for a plaintiff to go ahead and get his or her records that that process crosses that important line right now the general  private party can go ahead and bring a cause of action under this but what about the argument that that your bottom a dead that may be true but the person who actually brought the lawsuit is not a party who was the could just sue under that cause of action right but if that cause of action which already can be brought by a private party has caused tortious interference between that party that could sue and someone else then we've private cause of action under the m t c regulations or the stack to be enabling statute there may be other causes of action in that situation again he would fight those facts about a lack of background checking pretty vigorously but but for purposes of the question  there may be other cause of action but they could not bring it under the m t c s regulations indeed if this case were to go forward it would be the first ever private cause of action under these m t c regulations has never happened before and there's a reason and you know that is one of the reasons why many of the district courts around the country have entertained bees and you know unfair competition or tourists they're furious cause of action by taxi company thing against over and i think i think we've covered the main points in the rest or in the brief i don't know if i need to highlight anymore i mean there are additional elements that cause problems one is knowledge of the valid business expectancy so again it's derivative of the point that there's no valid business knew exactly what was going on in the industry knew her knew exactly that there were taxi cabs around who were making their business this way and that's good enough for knowledge of a valid business expense but we were surely knew that right it's alleged that they did i don't think we would dispute it but but the point is that's not enough for a knowledge of a valid business expectancy because you actually have to know about the specific relationships that you are interfering in courts have dismissed these claims on that ground to again derivative of the idea that there is no valid business expectancy in the first place because you cannot simply come together as an entire competing group of people and say among us one of us probably our best definitely one of us one of the thousand that we represent we've gotten this fair and you need to  i just didn't hear how true cooperatives you know what a true cooperative is a true property where the owners are the owners and they split everything in percentage it isn't and all this a true property would have a case against you i still don't think so your honor because and here i think it's just a step removed because they can't even make that allegation that sloan made instead they say someone among us probably would have gotten this fair that's not enough for a valid business expected i thought small no one off more on the legitimate them of the reason that they didn't want the insurance company didn't want every one of their agents getting the same list and having ten like a member insurance company was a banker's life i think one has sure they didn't want twelve bankers life agents calling calling these people what eight o'clock at night and that was mean to me that so i don't know the song really says a lot from case i see my time is expired means to them yes you certainly may very briefly that yes that was on sloan we discuss at length in our reply brief pages fifty three nineteen and it's that it's very clear it doesn't have anything to do with this case missouri does not require you to show a specific business transaction that a particular transaction interfered with we'd recognize as carter and as bell which was the made partner store where he made apply for credit if you jerk who read that we don't know who just may that was sufficient but their actual presence was entirely for the fruit of their poisonous tree of violating the law they say that we are all competing with each other so none of us can claim that we lost a fair the fact that you're a competition with other people who are competing began beating so can we say we were got mr jones straight from the airport no none of us can say that but we can say based on past history that all of us would have had the additional thirty four percent of business we had prior to that each of us do it visually this is not a case which he suggested which the class instrument is being used to create a cause of action yes the class incident will ensure that everyone gets offended everyone gets their rights and makes the damage calculation probably will easier in a lot of ways but we each individually have a claim what you might get is the money in the first contract so almost everyone there are cases of a contract or situation in which a party isn't forcing its contract the complaining party plaintiff says hey we have this contract you could do a but i'd make more money if you did not