in me but but you know he didn't get his money he signed a specific a in agreement that specifically said that the check that the united states treasury is going to issue a check to rob or billy it didn't just say that  didn't get in a member mr after about eight weeks i start to contact mr will home told me reject think that it would be six weeks he said where's the money said he didn't know and he started checking on it and then found that the money because number one the government had a specific agreement with mr billy so if they weren't able to perform on the agreement which consists of giving him a check then at the minimum they had to come back and say that we need to get out of the states government i think has to be regarded as one unit we can't i don't see how like how we can deal consistently with the united states government if they can say well we're not bound by something that we've agreed and because some other part of us would want it differently i think an agreement is an agreement and there's obviously there's a lot of expertise within the department of justice and they pay out settlements and so of they had some issue where they didn't want to where they might not have to pay the settlement because of some statute that says that money is supposed to be rigged redirected if it so that's something that was incumbent on them  and say ok we'll agree to pay you twenty five hundred dollars but we're not going to agree to pay it to commit to paying you a check for twenty five hundred dollars it'll be assuming that you don't owe any kind of judgment of some sort  someplace else or they could have checked on that ahead of time but because they me that specific agreement with him they're bound by that they need to be bound by that agreement just like anyone else and that's what the case law says is that a good contract with the united states government is interpreted the same way is a contract between any parties they're bound by that there's no there's no dispute that he owed the child support is there were not there i don't think that's not really so isn't it kind of a strange in this kind of a strange argument that he now is the last of the child support at twenty five hundred dollars or less so isn't it just as a matter of kind of equity of common sense sort of analysis isn't he just the inside position that he would be had the government issued that check to it i think there's a quibble arguments but but in reality it's not the it's not the same because mr billy would have immediate use for that twenty five hundred dollars he was about to get a prison trying to start over from scratch after being in prison for ten years and he had immediately used for that twenty five hundred dollars at twenty five hundred dollars a lot more valuable to him at the time that he made the agreement then it might have been a few years down the road and so it make a big difference to have that twenty five hundred dollars at a specific time as opposed to paying off that child support over a period of time taking x amount of money out of his paycheck says here in the money that twenty five hundred dollars to go to pay his security deposit pay first month's rent while he got on his feet so when someone makes it and of course that happens all the time people borrow money in the they ask for cash up front they made they make arrangements where they get the where they're getting cash right away because if they're making agreements to get cash at a specific time it makes a big difference might make a big difference to have cash at that time were most people and so the same time most people in society do have debts of some sort that they expect to be able to pay over a period of time and not have to pay right away otherwise most people the regular person wouldn't be able to survive if they had to pay all money that came into them to pay back their debts immediately and so that's a situation that he had a right to the pentagon that he was that you know they read the last after the last appeal we were given leave basically to go ahead and amend the motion into a civil complaint against the minneapolis police department or the federal agents involved and i guess the probably that those issues probably would have been sorted out through litigation that would have proceeded but the federal government decided that it was in their best interest to just make its agreement with mr bailey pay on the twenty five hundred dollars and be done with it and so i think that's another them so i think that's really important point that that's another equity in this situation is that mr bailey was expecting that he was going to get this money from the federal government in return for giving them a big benefit of not having to continue to deal with this fiasco and instead of paying him the money they they acted contrary to the agreement and said well you all this money to child support and so we're going to we're going to you're not going to get it it's going to be redirected i it was a situation where mr billy would have needed to work it out with the with the state of illinois and just for the magistrate and mention wally's helping to support his children but the reality is his children are all grown up and so this is passed money that the state of illinois had paid out that they were seeking to get back so that's i think that cover the other thing the other issue has to do with whether the statutory authority is really there under the circumstances  as well even though the money came out of the government funds it was who was paying him back for seize property money that the government took that it didn't have a right to think there's also an argument here important point that it that this shouldn't be subject to the same kind of constraints that just an exchange of regular exchange of funds would be involved with and so i reserve the rest of my time for a bottle the court counsel i'm the general well helm i'm an assistant united states attorney here representing the united states in this matter judge murphy to your point about the multi headed hydra headed government i think that's important to recognize that there is a division of power in our constitution i agreed on behalf of the executive branch to pay certain money congress on the other hand on the part of the legislative branches an act of the law that says if you pay money it needs to go through the treasury offset program mr jordan or questioner rather argues that i can agree that a way that somehow signing a paper that says i agree to pay a check to you somehow can agree a way congress's mandate that this money be offset against a debt i can no longer no one can agree that a way i could no more agree a way congress mandate than i could agree a way the internal revenue code if i was to stand here and say well we've agreed that mr bailey won't have to pay taxes on this if it is indeed a taxable event no one would argue that i could do rules to apply this to state debts secretary has done that he's exercised his discretion and under those circumstances there is no choice i think really what mr cushion has arguing here is sort of an underlying a subtext fairness argument sort of an overarching due process look at how the government's fault up here they've lost my property they have lost my money and now when they agree to pay me back i have to pay child support it just isn't fair i think that's really the overarching argument here in the point is it is fair he's had all the opportunity to exercise his due process that the law should afford him he was the record below demonstrates that he was notified on at least two occasions that he owed the money and he needed to do something about it i refer specifically to the record below exhibit c is a notice by the state of illinois to him while he was in prison which he agreed he received saying you all this money we're going to offset any payments that you have against your debt later on the united states government gave him the same notice again exhibit b which isn't m we're going to offset against your any payments he was told that this was going to happen the notices themselves which i'm holding in my hand here set forth a means by which he can appeal which by which he can challenge congressional mandate so the subtext of fairness here is really not sustainable mr bailey has had all the due process that he deserves and more in the case law cited in my brief both in this court and below supports that notice is all that's required an opportunity to be heard and this court in stewart cited in my brief  mailing a notice to a person that they're going to have this debt offset unless they pay it is sufficient due process mr bailey had that and more now and he argues here  as a secondary matter that the debt collection improvement act shouldn't apply and fundamentally astro versus ratliff settles that so the united states supreme court case started in the circuit but ended up in the supreme court and it basically says it applies to every payment payment means payment unless it's accepted and this payment is not accepted the distinction here  proposition is in re seized property which is a two thousand and eleven case fundamentally dealing with property that was taken by the d a and later there was no you know no charges or for some reason it was going to be returned and that property the physical property itself had not been converted except you know the only way they could convert it was to put it in the bank account they were going to use it for evidence of the bank account and they wanted to give it back and the judge there said no that's not a payment that's a return of property this is a little different this is a cause of action here the property was actually lost or stolen we don't know which record below doesn't doesn't say and what it's not clear but for some reason that money disappeared that creates a cause of action for negligence or for conversion or for some constitutional that is a different thing than simply handing back the money that you took it is a cause of action we have settled that cause of action and agreed to make a federal payment that's subject to the law and i think that that reasoning is adopted in large part by the case that i cited in my brief which criticizes in reseize property and that is us versus thirty one hundred seventy four dollars that's a case and again in the eastern district of wisconsin but two thousand and thirteen case but that case i think criticizing in reseize property adopts the better reason that the distinction between seize property and other properties of distinction without a he had a debt reduced if he didn't pay it today he's going to have to pay it tomorrow out of some other resource he simply was not injured moreover what's going to happen if he gets his relief here if he gets his relief here it will be fruitless because what he's asking for is to get out of a settlement agreement and really litigation against the united states for some sum of money that's specifically what he's asked to do if that happens and we settle the case or if  prevails in a lawsuit against the united states what we have another federal payment which is again subject to treasury offset so it is sort of the circle any relief that this court can give still will be subject to the congressional mandate of offset so unless the court has further questions that concludes god the underlying cause here ultimately is not due process it's primarily contract and the government's obligation to enforce a contract and so if ms mr well home says that he doesn't have any discretion that congress ordered required him to pay the money to child support that's not what the statute that judgment come result i'm only relied on thirty one u s c thirty seven eleven doesn't say that it's required and says that the secretary may you know pip use the money to pay estate debt it doesn't it's actually a discretionary statute it uses the word may in that sense actually says the secretary may in its discretion the secretary may in the discretion of the secretary apply subsection a with respect to any past to legally and forcibly debt owed to a state so the government didn't have discretion not to enforce this debt owed to the state and if it didn't have any discretion then the government shouldn't have entered into the agreement in the first place to enter an agreement that they have any discretion to so the choices are either one to order the government to pay the money specific lead to mr bailey which is what the agreement requires and if for some reason the government the court to decide the government can't do that then the next step would be to get out of allow mr billy to gather the settlement agreement because the government did fulfill the terms of the settlement agreement and what happens after that i guess would be an interesting do we have to the nz then this back to the district court to flush out all of the facts that really need to be put together so that you can come back up your so we said we have the ten commandments now in our hand and now we can do something or what's your take on welfare our preference would be that you just hold that the government has to specifically perform the agreement which would mean to provide the twenty five hundred dollars check payable to mr billy has according to the contract and then no more work would be done but if the court ordered to sherman that it wouldn't do that then the then the next step would be to reinstate vacate the settlement agreement and then mr bailey would again be able to convert his his motion into a lawsuit which will probably rage raise more statue of limitations problems at this point so i don't know if it'll be workable so there might have to be some other remedies so i think it does though does present complicated questions as to what the proper