good morning and welcome to judge woodcock may it please the court my name is geoffrey richmond i appear this morning on behalf of ellen's marcella never write in jose cust in ada as the court knows this appeal involves the doctrine of equitable tolling and in particular california's version of that doctrine statutes of limitations exist for good reasons and they reflect important policies but their intention with the fundamental principle that cases where possible should be resolved on their merit your account of the time line very think so i'm trying to understand what time you think should be told for the can put it together you need both of those time periods yes i need belt yes and how much time is the first one how much time i mean i can figure out you need to tell of  time is approximately one hundred seventy days from the time that the appellant's placed the pelleas on notice of the nature of the their injuries and of the nature of the alleged wrongful acts angeles denied that the two written claims in april of two thousand and fourteen and then when they told you when they denied they simply didn't deny they actually told you that the right person to sue was the school district correct correct and then you waited what twenty to twenty one months depending on when you got a notice in order to at that time it was approximately another twenty months before the complaint was filed yes why wait well i don't think it was a matter of waiting the appellant's were interviewing different counsel trying to find it trying to establish a way to proceed it took them twenty months to isn't that hard counsel the detail that's hard to file a complaint of some of them that hard to find a willing attorney to take details of the the of the interview process of course are not in the record and i don't have i don't have much knowledge of what they went through as they interview different county was worked with counsel i accomplished both some form of they hope that it could accomplish both some form of discipline and some for form of improved education some information distributed you know things we can reckon to adjust their injuries at the end of the story in terms of california law that has to do something to lessen their injury i think it's a fair reading of the case law that something to lessen their inge that the prayer for relief in this case includes a prayer for injunctive relief requiring improved education of officers district wide in terms of how to deal with the media and firsthand many issues and have i think resulted in a remedy injuries and that at the end that the that that what they hope to achieve in the lawsuit is improved education and improved procedures for officers dealing with the media maybe it doesn't connect the dots as well as it could have in explaining that that was the in the case we cycled lancy versus centex homes the california supreme court case they they state and i'm quoting here the effect of equitable tolling is that the limitations period stops running during the tolling event and begins to run period a delay consideration and it's your contention that lancy sort of pulls that that out i think i think lancy holds that you know california's approach to equitable tolling the mechanics of how the time works is a fairly strict stopped clock procedure there is there is the reasonable in good faith element of equitable tolling but i don't know of any california case that has ever irvin case how do you distinguish or it's extremely since we're dealing with a reasonable n'est test here that depends on all the facts i think you have to look at all the facts in an urban the plaintiff was in i don't know that i don't think i would argue that land sea precludes that it just wipes out the reasonableness argument entirely but i don't think any california court has ever found that the reasonable requirement requires a plaintiff to file earlier in an extended limitations period as opposed to later usually the way a limitations period works is that the plaintiff is free to file on the first day of the period or the last day of the period and there is no penalty for waiting until late in the period unless the deadline is missed good morning calvin house for the defendant events the event happened october the fifteenth two thousand and thirteen and as best we can glean from the allegations after that in paragraphs forty nine through fifty two there was a period of weeks in perhaps a couple of months that passed after the plaintiffs made their complaint to the l a us the police department it is not clear from the complaint when they filed their damages claims they do tell us that they heard back in april in may and then they started consulting legal counsel in may of two thousand and fourteen apparently and then if i could address irvin and the effect of lancy lancy itself is really not enormously concerned with the elements of  statute and they concluded that it was not after they concluded that they also said even if it were available it wouldn't apply here and i think what irvin and what some of the other california equitable doctrine and in order to get acquitted you have to act reasonably and so i think the appropriate interpretation of irvin and other california cases is in order to take advantage of ethical tolling you have to act reasonably but that's the limitations period so why is the staff right because it's equity and so i quickly we're choir's reasonableness and good faith efforts by the plaintiffs tolling which is written into a statute gives the conditions under which tolling i mean i understand how that theory would help you with regard for example to filing they claim with the city of los angeles because the city of los angeles was not the employer here and it's not reasonable to think it was ok fine so that's a good faith and reasonable defense but i don't see how it loops back to the time period i understand we said that but but the california law seems to be otherwise and now file you should file sooner anyway even though you will within the law limitations parade as the scapular but i'm not aware of a case that says that however the cases do say that in order to take advantage of edible tolling you have to act reasonably and when you're asking the court to extend the time period beyond what is allowed which in our case is two years you have to show that you act reasonably in order to get at is it reasonable to use your phone limitations period why isn't that wasn't they had there for limitations period they're asking the court to extend it under an equitable principle right and according to lancy the way you do that is you take out the child period you have the rest of the time lapse and therefore they have the time left and i can they just use if equitable tolling making a complaint to the police department is not a towing event under california law which requires you to be pursuing an alternate legal remedy which can somehow adjust your grievance although there was a statement about wanting training the essence of the grievances on the day in question they were deprived of the players were deprived of theirs civil rights by the way the police officers acted doesn't the mcdonald case require an action by meeting a legal action some action as opposed to it's not as opposed to just inaction right oh i see what you're saying you're not talking about legal action you say that the plaintiff has to actually do something with yes understood that's true and if we look at the cases that have applied equitable tolling they all involve the pursuit of some sort of remedy that would at least reduce the damages that the plaintiffs would get in the  i have to it has to provide so yes well as to lessen their injury or provide some remedy and i was a little dubious about the outset that i don't think his answer is necessarily a bad one i e i mean these people were reporters and presumably they might well have the same problem again and they want to make sure i was going to happen again but they don't allege that and the essence of the complaint seems to be the injury that was done to them when the police officer confronted them on the da know asked for shelter of relief in their complaint yes there's a paragraph at the end but in terms of the sub's of allegations of the complaint there's nothing that says that they're concerned that this is going to happen to them again that they've had repeated contact with the  police or anything like that so the essence of their plane is the damage that was caused to them and they have not going to add to any procedure that could possibly apply that would adjust that grievance in any way the california cases that apply it deal with a separate federal action that was filed but they deal with a worker's compensation proceeding they all deal with some formal process as to the l the complaint filed with the city how is it you say that doesn't count because the city has no jurisdiction essentially but if somebody files a federal case and it's just a mess for lack of jurisdiction there is a telling well but it's not really jurisdiction in that sense it's in the sense that the defendants are not employees of the city so there's nothing that i mean i'm saying what the court is saying and i think i mean i had the same reaction to begin with but then i thought well if you file a case in federal court and it turns out that you know there's no federal question or there's not seventy five thousand must act reasonably and if you run to federal court with no possible basis for doing it i would argue that's not good faith and if we're talking should apply but yes in terms of the way that the case is really that's true let's assume for a moment we focus not on the complaint to the officer but when the complaint against the city was filed in that period of time when do we know that as a matter of is that in the record to my recollection it's not of the record what we have in the complaint is the notification of when the claims were denied that's it and the most that we have is a statement that navarette didn't hear back for over a month and then she filed her claim for damages with the city process we explain this they filed an amended complaint they had an opportunity in their opposition to the district court to clarify any of this that might help them and they didn't do so so i don't know of an you have about a minute left i'd just like to respond very briefly to the argument that the prior complaints to l a us d p f and to the city of los angeles don't count because they were not seeking an alternative remedy  to have been seeking an alternative remedy in the california there was a case last year from the california supreme court that we did not cite because we didn't think it was procedurally opposite it what it involves a case in which decision has been it had been other than ones for procedures there are there are other theories for i keep on telling yes yes we're just saying that the prior action does not necessarily have to be in pursuit of a particular alternate remedy california is always whether the three prongs of the test are met was there notice is there a lack of prejudice was the reasonableness and good faith and i think the court is saying that as long as there was notice sufficient to avoid that prejudice and your car hit me and i think it probably has to be probably has to be a procedure that somehow is joined as it was in this case in which we had least alleged that lieutenant stevens took the complaints and promised to do something with them and to get back to the appellants that there has to be at least a back and forth procedure the supreme court in mcdonald specifically said that it was trying to encourage through its use of the equitable