two thousand and five which is known as calf show that it does not extend to state parents bought for a actions there any doubt on the matter cough it would have to be narrowly construed as a matter of the principles of federalism that  issue here as evidenced by the forty six states supporting mississippi for the court the disposition of the case they believe is straightforward there is only one plaintiff in this case the state of mississippi it is not a citizen for purposes of diversity jurisdiction and therefore their requirements of even minimal diversity level own the hundred person humor asa the requirement of cafe cannot be met and our friends on the other side want to use the statute of cafe to change that result the mass action definition is the key part of this statute issue today it is in the joint appendix pages seven hundred ninety eight essentially the attempt to force hundred individual plaintiffs or more in a case in council provides that there is federal jurisdiction over such a case but that does not applied to this situation cafe refers to real who were affected by this plan that well justice ginsburg that's very unlikely in this case the plaintiffs the plaintiff in this case in the state of mississippi the consumers of mississippi have already sued in a direct purchaser action that has been settled so they have received compensation the state does have a restitution claim your honor is correct and it page sixty five a of the of the response and opposition of the orange brief sixty five eight describes the restitution claim the restitution claim seeks recovery to the state of the money not to consumers in mississippi and what's likely to happen here in frankly what happens very frequently when the federal trade commission or the securities and exchange commission or any other state or agency seeks restitution the money is recovered by the state and in a case like this where it is very difficult to  trace the individuals the consumers who have been hurt after all we were talking l c d price fixing conspiracy so every television computer monitor phone toy digital camera car navigation system there are no records attorney general and subject to all the procedures that occur in mississippi will have to make a judgment about how that money's be distributed in the past or i can tell you that's assuming we're forget about th the consumer action was settled and let's forget about a case in which the damages are difficult to prove yes let's think of a case in which the damages can be determined and the state comes in on behalf of the class of consumers and says we're seeking there room situation there's your argument change if the facts are different argument it but it does not change i would say in our case the state just to be clear about restitution the state is proceeding under statutes that give state the state the only cause of action only the state can sue under these provisions if the state the consumers have separate damages statutes the consumers would sue under separate statutes in a different court so the in a different court meaning in mississippi that would have to be in a circuit court court of law as opposed to a court of acting but if a state were to seek restitution and to distribute it to consumers just to be clear argument would not change because restitution is still a public remedy and for years for decades federal agencies and states s a real party in interest argument or is it a statutory argument it is the statute requires named plaintiffs and supposed name to an unnamed plaintiffs but plaintiffs yes named plaintiffs the simplest resolution of the case is simply a statutory argument that on its face the mass action definition refers to plaintiffs the only plaintiff is the state even if the state is as statutory authority to seek restitution it is still the only plaintiffs so you would not even need to get into the real party in interest test because the statute doesn't refer to a named parties or two people who might be real parties in interest that refer simply to the plaintiffs so what do you do will the reference to persons yes your honor that there is a reference to persons in the mass action definition it occurs if we believe very strongly that it it's that if that section continues and equate persons with plaintiffs and that the statute in fact wouldn't would be absurd if it did because it refers to the monetary claims of one hundred or more persons as your honor has noted but then it says that are proposed to be tried jointly on the ground that the plaintiff's claims involve common questions of law or fact those two sets have to mean the same thing otherwise it doesn't make any sense and furthermore there are severe practical problems that support our sort of square well i realize that but on it i'm not sure why that would make sense to read two different terms in the same sentence to mean two different things well what the person is could be here the citizens of mississippi who were damaged by the activity in question the plaintiff plaintiffs here there's one names point of plaintiffs can refer to the two the person or entity or multiple people or entities who were named  pointless so why i don't see what the consistency as well because we think that our reading is better because if you are applying the common question tast not the persons who are in the case those abstract unnamed unknown consumers you're not inquiring as to what their claims might be you're applying the common question test only to the plaintiffs how could that how could that produce admissible result you could have consumers you never you wou never know whether they presented common questions and that can't be what congress was thinking of because then you would have a license for an i did mr ball this is clearly a reference to the kind of rule twenty three  emphasized in class action case after class action case there has to be a rigorous analysis to ensure that there are actual common questions based on the fact actual the well claims asserted and we think this that there that any other reading produces confusion not just in this section but also in the remain and section the seventy five thousand dollars remit section of the statute this kaffir provides that if a claim does not make does not reach the amount in controversy requirement it has to be reminded to state court what if you have an executor and he's administering in a state in which one hundred people have equal shares to the estate and the state has a claim and he brings it on hundred eighty that held the trustees of a business trust were the sole real parties in interest in the beneficiaries were not even though they stood to get money as a result of the action so i think that would address your honor's question the of the statute still would refer to plaintiffs so if you would enquire in that instance whether under state law this is what happened in the varo recording choir does the executor have the legal authority to represent the beneficiaries as the sole case of course it's open on remained for the defendants to argue that the consumer settlement ours the attorney general's action that will have to be adjudicated on the merits in mississippi states are free to adopt different rules about this there is no case that we have found in mississippi squarely addressing this there have been a dozen or so parents cases over the last ten years there is a case though in from the state of washington which is illustrated if it's actually on page thirty five of the red brief  that from our friends brief and it's a case from the washington supreme court in one thousand nine hundred seventy six called ralph winters chrysler plymouth and in that case the washington supreme court encountered this situation where the state had sought restitution on behalf of consumers and sought to distribute the money to consumers and consumers also brought separate damages actions and the washington court said there was no double recovery no preclusion problem because the rest touche and remedies were public in nature and the private damages actions proceeded under different statutory authority were different claims and whether mississippi would adopt that approach i don't know but that illustrates i think ultimately that these are questions of state law and there is a long standing tradition of restitution being a public remedy after all the government we've cited some cases in the brief involving everything from rent control to energy price regulation the government brings the federal government as well as state governments has brought restitution actions where it has not returned money to consumers has sometimes done also sometimes has returned money has but in all those cases consumers never participate they're never permitted to interview the need make it would make no sense for a defendant in a class action brought by consumers to ever settle the case it's going to have to pay twice it's going to have to pay the consumers and then it's going to have to pay you  because you can say well we want restitution and we're not going to distribute it to the class members but we're entitled to it may soon the amount of the restoration is based on some estimate of the class and the consumer's claims well that the evidence is evidence of loss is relevant but the law is actually well settled in the lower courts it's not there's not a decision of this court but that a consumer releasing his claim or her claim does not bar the state from her seating with the public parents patri action the defendants when they settled there's a little bit of disagreement in the brief but the the m t l judge took the defendant as conceding that their settlement with consumers would not bar there is there is there what is your understanding and under mississippi law which you know a great deal more than i do about any limits on a parent's patri i action let's say there was one purchaser in mississippi and c d s whatever or two or three could you bring a parent workers from puerto rico and the court there one of the objection was this is not sufficient cause the sovereign interests to support a parent's patri i case and what this court said was that you can't just look at numbers because those people represent a public interest they were there alleged wage discrimination and there was a deterrent effect so that it wasn't really just seven hundred eighty seven it was the entire population of puerto rico or their parents patri i actions were the state attorney general brings that action and what is really a suit on behalf of private parties and if so do you call it private and parents well we don't think that would be that is not a proper panels and so restitution the remedy doesn't matter but the tourney general has statutory authority in this case to bring a case in the name of the state he's actually prohibited under the state consumer protection act all parties are prohibited from bringing a damages case on behalf of a private consumer except in that consumers name so the state interest that's being the state interest that's being asserted is damage to the consumers well no i mean the state interest is broader than that it is the it is the harm to mississippi as a as a population as an entity from this price fixing conspiracy justice the federal members of the population mississippi well yes but i think i think in snap the court discussed how the when the harm is broad enough that of effect a substantial segment of the population and affects them in their economic capacity their indirect as wells in as well as direct effects that the state could be concerned with now let me just what are those well in other words there are if people are harmed by  whether this is a proper parents patriarca case or any case would be heard on the merits and we know the defense will argue back in the mississippi courts that they have a series of defenses to why this case should not be brought one of them will be around the country just sitting back and waiting until every as private class actions proceed and as soon as one settles or one the plaintiffs in the class prevails taking the same complaint maybe even hiring the same lawyers to go and say well now we're going to bring our parents patri i action we know how the trial is going to work out or we know what the settlements going to look like and we're going to get the same amount of money from the state well the if there is where the public has been harmed of course so the interviews but there's nothing to prevent fifty attorneys general fifty one from saying every time there's a successful class action as to which somebody in my state purchased one of the items we're going to file the parents patriarca action the complaint is going to look an awful lot like the class action complaint and we want our money well i think that i think that that isn't going to happen because they the state will the complaints are not the same the state has its own susan its own in the state's own interest was in protecting its consumers so it would be able to file this suit every time its consumers have been harmed as demonstrated either through settlement or suit that's the state interest protecting its consumer if a state some states may adopt a different rule from washington as the washington court said the state the consumer claims perc would preclude a state attorney general action if the state does not if the state legislature authorizes its attorney general to bring a suit when this eternal general can identify harms to the state that are separate from harms to consumers you're honors are saying that that the two are identity they are not makes clear that they're not the state has a broader interest than simply the compensation interests that it individual as a matter of efficiency the chief justice is hypo hypothetical and back up the moment the class is certified why can't the attorney general join it so now our interest is a little different but it's so much the same that we want to join and we want to join in this plan and profitable with that prevent its removal if if the state attorney general was combined with thousands of individual claimants that otherwise would trigger cafe then then kaffir then you would be forced into this whole case situation the whole case test which you did not reach here because the statute and the real party in interest test are clear but then there's the whole case test you weigh whether the states has any of the essential nature and proceed central nature of the proceeding is that the state is the real party in interest in the hypothetical you posit i think it would be removable obviously turns on the particular facts but yes if the state attorney general is in court with a thousand individual claimants that is probably a calf a case that has never has never happened and in all of the districts outside the fifth circuit because the fifth circuit is the only court that has adopted the rule that we are that you were viewing today every other circuit court has held that cafeteria not extend to state marriage roger action in all of those cases the attorneys general are not running around following class actions to try to piggyback on top of them they are  not joining other class actions the those in those but you're against provide any reason why they wouldn't do so and presumably would start doing so with greater frequency if you prevail in this case well it doesn't have to be the same case that can be the next case on the in other words a state legislature could say that if consumers ever covered the attorney general can't or that the attorney general doesn't have statutory authority in such cases but where the state legislature has told the attorney general to enforce the public interest and giv statutory authority to do so you'd be derelict if he didn't honor the legislature's directive and that's what's happening here that it a series of cases involving vitamin price fixing adulterated products google street view or already have there is this there was a class action settlement here that is your view of what's called the meth action a mass action is you have to have a sizable number of plaintiffs each one  foreman i can see in mississippi doesn't have class action but if you're in federal court why would you ever have a mess axe instead of a plastic well if you if you can it benefited the plaintiffs you don't need to go through all twenty three if you massey if you're right about what mass action means in this statute what does this exception about the general public do and the general public the it's doing two things first the as the amicus brief a public citizen describes the legislative genesis of it it was really to address the california unfair competition law situation where there are private attorneys general who are able to bring suits in the name of general interest the general public and th that that was sort of the original genesis of it is a separate reason to reverse we believe we need it as well because it addresses a situation where a state is where any lead against state or private is representing the general public as opposed to individual claims and here because restitution is a public remedy and because the individual claimants cannot be identified the state is proceeding on the basis of the general public of mississippi of anyone the district court found this in the petition appendix at forty nine a fifty district court discusses the traceability problems i'm sorry i said that the petition of an example john you can you tell me when you come back where the money goes if you win yet the money probably goes to the say treasury because in this case it would be too difficult to trace who gets who has been harmed the that's why the district court found that the given the  schools and things like that but it's not going to go it's very unlikely to go to the individual consumers thank you your honor i should thank you mr massey mr kerr mr chief justice and may please the court the attorney general's interpretation of the mass action definition requires this court to conclude that a mass action can only be one of the actions with one hundred or more named plaintiffs and can never be a representative action that interpretation cannot be squared with the statutory language the purpose of the act and the structure of the act off justice kagan you refer to the general public provision  provision expressly refers to the possibility of a representative action in the palin fedak a language in that provision and you know i look at it on the in the act form on sixty six a but it's of course in the not half of individual claimants or members of a purported class so in other words this exclusion under the mass action definition is contemplating a situation where there are individual claimants or members of purported class that that has to be beyond the named plaintiff and another example farther down in the exceptions to the mass action definition there's a reference  to section fourteen zero seven which is the m t l transfer provision there again there's reference to the possibility of a mass action being converted into a rule twenty three class action those provisions don't make sense proposed class that could be persons and you could identify the us but under your theory what is the core do to figure out which of all of those a name to people parties in interest with the claims that the reference to plaintiffs may well be as the attorney general posits the named plaintiffs so the seventy five thousand dollar requirement and justice ginsburg referred to this this is well at that that can make perfect sense it's it's a way to make sure that the named plaintiffs who after all are being given the keys to federal discovery and maybe the ability to negotiate settlements that they've got some skin in the game that that the plaintiffs that named controlling the litigation have seventy five thousand or more at stake you know this language is very reminiscent to what's in federal rule of civil procedure twenty the jointer rule well and if i look at the class since your honor i see similarities between this provision and the p s l r a the private securities litigation reform act that reformed class actions in the securities context and there was there were provisions requiring that the named be a prominent victim of the alleged fraud and here i think it's got a similar idea that we want to make sure that the named plaintiffs have that kind of stake and this is an important point because i think there's been some suggestion that this  situation like this where certain plaintiffs do not satisfy the jurisdictional minimum as long as there are some that do the district court has discretion to allow those that don't to stay in the seams that that would be hard to think that we could be exercising supplements and jurisdiction in a case where congress has expressly spoken and said you can't or should well i don't understand that because section thirteen sixty seven says supplemental jurisdiction shall exist unless it's express y provided otherwise in a federal statute and this court interpreted similar language in the brewer case which is cited in the papers said expressly means it's got to be direct it's got to be explicit has to be inescapable  represented why doesn't this end up being a crime where only the state of mississippi has a state because the individuals  citizens and that the attorney general here is basically suing as a representative or a conduit for those citizens the fact that those citizens that many of those citizens not all the fact that many of them have settled and have resolved the claims in the district same thought that in a maybe it's changed since i knew the law in this area but i thought because of illinois brick the ultimate consumers couldn't recover but rather there you have to be a direct purchaser rather than an indirect purchaser of the price fix suing in order to obtain money is what we just heard for its treasury and third the state of mississippi is suing because of their believe that the defendants injured the economy of mass of mississippi and they injured it in by hurting the pocketbooks of many individuals in mississippi the names of whom they don't even know right now they say look at read this statute just said sufficient because we're not disputing that the attorney general has standing to bring a claim as a nominee for the real parties and interests in that but why does that fall within this statute because the statutory language says i proposed you know there's no there's nothing that the mississippi attorney general has to go through to show that the plaintiffs claims and common questions of fact they don't there's no showing of that kind that has to be a trial of some kind you have to make a motion but it can also i only know that there is a proposed proposal to try these claims jointly there but they don't have to show this clearly referring to a kind of rule twenty three inquiry which they don't have to go through to do a parent's patry i would do the same thing your honor in the case in the in the case that they say is the quintessential mass mass action case they say a mass action case is one where a bunch of plaintiffs have joined together in the single suit that's what they don't have to show that general files a complaint on behalf of one hundred or more persons claiming to have standing and to be seeking to recover for the damages to those hundred or more persons he's proposing to try those claims  and as to as to whose clinton's claims they are i mean the mississippi statute is pretty clear that they claim for restitution is is at is necessary to restore to the persons an interest the victims of the attorney model act that's been interpreted by the state supreme courts of other states iowa and arizona they look at that language only get the money goes to the people says just like any that you says you can't even identify those people well that that  that that doesn't hold up i mean obviously those people were identified in the class action they're getting the money it's being distributed people can turn in receipts there are records every i trust case as this issue identifying the victims and compensating them that's no different here plaintiffs and they don't call it a class action and that would fall right within the meaning of mass action if the numbers are right that's right but if we take your approach and depart from that mechanical but simple simply administered reasons is behind the lawsuit is some person hurt our citizens and so now we will get into that instantly in stressing but very difficult question of where when you say hurt your citizens you mean hurt them by giving them rise to an independent cause of action for each of them who we don't know who they are and we don't know if the statute of limitations has run to some and we don't know if others have other disabilities but nonetheless we're not certain this suit is entirely for that it may be mixed up with other things do you see the problem once i start down your road i do i do larded from the clear and simple but but to be clear that our in opposition the only basis we have for removal here is the inclusion of the restitution claim which under mississippi so the fifth circuit found that mississippi law required the money to go to the individual i think this court should defer to those prior rulings of those courts and so we basically back to the statutory language and by the way puranas patriotic is such a loose label that's thrown around it it the the attorney generals seem to raise that up as a latin shield of some kind suggesting that it's long as they invoke that term that issues of federalism prevent removal or say that that doesn't hold up the statutory language which is in english says that specific specific cases are removable and so we i don't think we should i don't think it productive to talk about whether something or not but justice pryor there are a lot of cases that can be brought by state attorney generals that would not be mass actions like this case without  restitution claim ok also if there's a big pollution problem or or some public nuisance or some other thing like that where where the where there's no identifiable victims but the public as a whole is injured i think that that probably is a quasi sovereign claim what do you do about this this language in the definition i haven't heard you explain it it says it means any mass action these any civil action in which monetary relief claims of one hundred more persons are proposed to be tried jointly on the ground that the plaintiffs claims involve common questions of law or fact now their proposed to be tried jointly here background well i thought their trial being tried jointly on the ground that the suit is being brought by the attorney general under the state statute well i view that language as contemplating a rule twenty three type analysis i understand it and in this case we've got a state attorney general who suing not only for the consumers also for himself right he's got proprietary claims and there is also soon on for all the counties and municipalities in mississippi i think a basis for is a combination of those claims in a single lawsuit is the inescapable commonality of fact and maybe law in those claims so i do think that he can bring the suit on the grounds that the plaintiff's claims involve common questions of law or fact in that that proposal has to be adjudicated by the court i think justice kagan that the attorney general's already done that i think his complaint beginning on the first page says i'm bringing this claim on behalf of purchases by the state and by it's citizens of these l c d panels and it's a single complaint so i think but i think he does not have to show any common questions of law or that in the typical way that we demand and that's actually a really demand in showing that we have forced lawyers to make in the class action context all that the attorney general has to do is to stand up and say i have a state interest in protecting my citizens and deterring improper behavior and here is my substantive right well well i guess i suppose we could move for bifurcation to separate the the proprietary claims from the claims i mean half of citizens and then he would say no way it makes sense to keep them all together that so it's not a question of you know one set of claims another set of claims now or later he has a claim that's all yes well certainly he at least is attempting to combine the claims of all the various individuals in the state on the grounds that of commonality right i mean even if you separate his claims out i mean it's  that we all can see the complaint is both for private named persons and for restitution both won't result well certainly if it's a mass action in that circumstance if because restitution under mississippi law is for those specified individuals no the rest of my hypothetical part of the restitution goes to the state well then  statutory language says if it's a civil action where's where's the language well that that's the beginning of the mass action definition if you can look at it on either sixty five eight and sixty six a or seventy nine eight hundred seventy nine  mass action means any civil action in which monetary relief claims of one hundred or more persons so as long as you've got a qualifying claim then the civil actions removable and it doesn't matter if there are maybe this is getting back to that too to your point i refer to the references to representative actions in the in the general public provision and in the fourteen zero seven provision that inescapably mean that that this provision can apply to representative actions maybe that doesn't satisfy your commonality point but but it gets part way there and this is the main provision where they're trying to define what mass action means and i take your point that there are is some slippage between this provision and the various provisions that it refers back to because those provisions were talking about class actions and this one is talking about mass actions but this is the essential definition and this one seems to be pointing to a very different kind o in which there are one hundred individual claims that one hundred people seek to have joined in which a court is going to make a determination about whether those one hundred individual dams have questions of that's all the statute was meant to breach that would been such an easy statute or right that instead of this more convoluted language it could have just said it's a civil action in which one hundred or more named plaintiffs are serving monetary relief cla persons and plaintiffs are the same will happen well first of all how do you explain i mean to pose a question to you it's inexplicable that the word i might not answer it it's inexplicable that congress would use the word persons and then twelve words later use plaintiffs if it signifies the exact same thing and then continue to use the term plaintiffs right isn't your proposal that before someone can remove they have to decide whether the class no because you're not going to decide whether these plaintiffs are actually going to be playing a part of this class and so you decide the class question if you use the word persons and you use the language of the statute it's the class that's being proposed it's the name in that class that's being from proposed to persons that are being proposed to be tried toget there's another provision in here that is incorporated into the mass action you know recall that if something qualifies as a mass action then the provisions dealing with with class actions apply as well and some part eight which is found at the bottom of seventy seven a specifically says this subsection shall apply to any class action before or after the entry of a classification order by the court with respect to that action so it's what this statute is addressing is possible class actions and in fact i think it i think it makes sense to view this the statutory question in light of the overriding statutory purpose here and justice prior you address this in your opinion in standard fire  driving force behind this statute was to put interstate claims of national importance into federal court to to provide the option of a federal forum and and in that case in standard fire this court unanimously examined the statutory question there through that lens here so congress dealt with class actions proper if you will a group twenty three in the class action section and then it's got the mass action section which is designed to catch other devices that have the same problems sometimes congress doesn't do it right you know sometimes they try to catch everything the language they use and i mean that's the statutory question but it's not just didn't do it right this time it was that there was a very serious effort to get attorneys general out of this statute and and that's and you know it seems to me that they did pretty well no no no no no no they made their proposal to to modify the statute after the act was in this form they saw the act in this form in including attorney general hood sent a letter to congress saying this is going to infringe upon our rights to paramus patriotic cases that amendment sponsored by senator pryor failed so so i think the only conclusion that can be drawn from that is that attorney general hood and many of his counterparts in other states saw this problem saw this this threat now the response that some on the senate floor gave to that to that proposal was it's not really necessary but the reason it wasn't really necessary is because the bonafide interests of the state role really protected through the local controversy rule and through the general public exception congress did not intend for state attorneys general to be able to use their offices to hire outside counsel out of what i'm familiar with that sentence in that senate report i'm also aware that that senate report was issued and dated a week or ten days after senate after president bush signed this act so i question its value and its credibility i mean it's contrived let you slate of history but but but but even if it somehow could be considered that i don't think that that sentence is definitional that certainly is one alternative to two conventional class actions that congress was concerned about our point is it wasn't the only one congress was trying to close loopholes and trying to prevent abuses and lee interpretation of the class of the mass action definition would undermine that that purpose now in my remaining time perhaps not justice kagan at the end of the day there was no carve out in the statute for attorney general actions even though that was sought but the act does reflect some sensitivity for federalism concerns it's got a an exception for situations where states are the primary defendants or state officials or the primary defendants there's also a notification to state attorneys general when there's a settlement of a class action those kinds of provisions show that congress was trying to be sensitive it was horse trading it was cutting deals was log rolling it coming up with with an act here that was at at once sensitive to two federalism concerns but also trying to solve the very real abuses that it has identified so and on the federalism point the attorney general's brief has a lot of sites patients to eleventh amendment issues and some of this court's precedents dealing with states sovereign immunity i submit that those precedents and that amendment deal only with situations where the state is a defendant and here we're talking about the state as a plaintiff and the only intrusion we're talking about is removal from state court to federal court that that's not on the same playing field as that the authorities relied on by the attorney general  a couple of other things there was a suggestion in the reply brief that the complaint here was not in fact a copy cat case copycat complaint but instead was a summary of the federal indictments and that that explains the eerie similarity between the class action complaint and the attorney general's complaint that that's just factually not right the some companies who are defendants like me like my client to shiva was never charged or convicted of anything in this case yet we're a defendant in this case and that's because we were a defendant in the class action case that was copied and in fact the indictments against some companies bear very little resemblance to the complaint that the attorney general has filed here in terms of the justice in may please the court the issues that i would like to raise on the bottle are limited the most important thing is that jurisdictional schemes should be clear simple administer both predictable the simplest route the simplest interpretation is the one we have shown that these the statute is directed at actual plaintiffs with concrete claims that are proposed to be tried jointly the only thing our friends on the other side have pointed out is the use of the is the word persons justice sotomayor is one hundred percent correct that the word person is debate is an echo of rule twenty of the joined a rule which also refers to persons and plaintiffs so the fact that congress used the word person once in a mass action definition simply confirms our point that the statute is really directed at the mass joinder mass consolidation situation and does not have anything to do with actions by sovereign states their primary argument seems to be that the attorney general doesn't really own the claims in this case that these are claims that are owned by the citizens of mississippi that is a classic state law issue which should be raised and remained in the state removable but he didn't decide the attorney general's forty to sue in the name of the state under the statutes which give him that authority and we don't think the fifth circuit decided that question and i read the re brief it page thirty three as saying the attorney general's authority is not issue here if we assume the attorney general has the authority to bring the claims in the complaint as he pled down which is the restitution claim in the name of the state and the the there was a decision in mississippi in two thousand and six the only really relevant authorities called the south face and there are a lower court in mississippi to chancery court upheld the attorney general's authority to bring a very similar parents w look at the statute he quoted the mississippi statute and it says there is the authority to have restitution to restore to any person in interest any monies which may have been acquired by means of a proc is prohibited so he says that sounds as if what you're talking about is you want restitution though given to the state the restitution is for individual purchases of individual citizens because there could be no other and therefore you have a list of people in mind or you must find where there were particular individual purchases by individual citizens and get that restitution into the treasury right now but i think something like that was his argument and i wanted to know what you were going to say are you going to give up these last five words and the purchases of its citizens that were that's what i understood the fifth circuit to have held well what the what the from what they what the prayer for relief says is the rep restitute to the state right for its purchases and the purchases of or they will get the money i know they'll get the money right but he's saying to get the money you have to say which money well and you get the money which money means you better have a list of the individual people who bought something for otherwise there is no such money and that's enough to make those in respect of this paragraph individual people whose claims the state of mississippi is pursuing something like that was his argument and i just wanted to know yo the the point which is that you in and in in the normal case aren't you in fact suing for the citizens that name citizens or and city in many cases we are it is still a public remedy of restitution in many