the critical issue here is one of fairness that is there was a stipulated judgment that there is substantial evidence was coerced with threats of loss of custody of the only daughter of the marriage and also criminal prosecution we're going to go to the da if you don't sign the stipulation so didn't you bring that in front of the state court judge that approved the stipulated judgment yes your honor the intention lose yes your honor and why was it that appealed your honor i am not sure i thank essentially it was affirmed after the stay was an old in this case and our appellate time had lapsed the stay was still in effect even though counsel for mr boyce took them out of to that hearing also your honor it's very important to note that the reason for the denial of that motion essentially the judge said you're past the two simply say you got a fair shake because i assume to recall being involved with this it step one and it step one we said you know that was void but so you can rely on it for offended because that opportunity was provided yes your honor except that if you read the state courts judgment carefully and and judge by our highlights much of that tentative ruling in that case right out of a blog he says you're past the to yours you know that's the end of it and then that's one reading of it and that brings an interesting point to a judge taylor is saying judge power isn't passing on the validity of this decision by the state court she's not reviewing it to see if it is valid or  proper she can just consider it and the other consideration is you didn't you didn't bring anything up even until the adversary was filed that can be the lack of diligence and what was wrong with that the i don't have an explanation as to why the debtor did not mr boies didn't take more aggressive action sooner however once he was past the two years essentially that was the end of the analysis for the judge that was the only necessary finding so was his motion with didn't did the judge will that's preclude or just it's indicative well she gave it precludes of a foul no i mean that the of the decision he could've stopped right there in the one paragraph but it's also interesting that he is speaking extemporaneously and says well i'm not going to consider your reply because  it should have been in the original motion but if i did this is what i think and it's critical and judge of our side said he says that the defendant didn't make out a case for  america tory's defense and he says it certainly appears to be negligence and or misconduct on the part of defendant leading to the loss of plaintiff's money in apparently just eight months i think that is an important because if it was merely negligence clearly that's not a non basis for nondestructive rable judgment and misconduct is very veg and amorphous and under the modern interpretation of five twenty three a six misconduct in and of itself is not enough and the judge accepted their client agreed that it was fraud that's right and so there's essentially one place in the judgment that says it's fraud judge power says that's enough for me except that you can ignore this significant and substantial evidence  this judgment was a coworker or that signature was told coerced and you ordered you haven't overturned it it's still out there it is still there and we're supposed to just ignore that i don't you don't have to simply ignore it but you don't law i think it's been over you're on the river review of summary judgment at this court is to know at a minimum the judge should have had an evidentiary hearing to determine whether his signature on that stipulated judgment i love awards that we live by and it's a california has that that public policy piece and so she recognizes it she says i've got to look at this there's these allegations about a look at that one piece and decide whether or not withstanding and i've decided that given what happened in the state court this thing is capable of collateral estoppel as a serious diversion we're doing  decision and where she gets off the path of applying collateral estoppel is even the state courts say that the lynchpin of applying collateral estoppel is fairness and she doesn't go down that analysis also if she critically doesn't make the analysis about the important problem of collateral estoppel in that there's a strong provision and a strong public policy and i would say equally as strong as the finality of judge on the is to determine matters on the merits and he's never had his day in court to determine  the best argument because california has been clear for a long time that default judgment is qualified i don't know that that's the majority rule in the country but i know it's not a universal truism california is one of those places where even on the default we can apply record here where we have these e mails these text messages i'm going to take this matter to the d a i'm going to send it to jail those are all intense factual inquiry of your honor and they were not they were  sloughed over and not carefully analyzed in the decision it's just well we have this public policy and to give full faith and credit and we're going to blindly follow and i don't think that should have been the end of the i'm not aware of one year arm that's that's kind of but they are yes your honor but in this case the facts are a little more unique in that we have a fairly strong record coercive behavior the two critical things that make people scared the most regardless of your position in life whether your a judge on the supreme court or a doctor or the head of g is one our children i mean regardless of how we are in our professional life our children are indeed our achilles heel and the most important thing in our life and a threat to those our children scares us far more than a threat to us personally and in is sensually turns us into jell o sometimes and and the worry that doesn't necessarily stop even when they get to be eighteen and secondly your honor both are a risk of loss of freedom going to jail is no fun it's very scary particularly if you've never been there and so the two linchpins a killie's heels of most human beings their children and going to jail or tightened and used in this case by the app l e and that's never been fully address either by the state court he talks about a little bit and says well he's a sophisticated businessman well how regardless of how sophisticated you are a threat to going to jail and a threat to your children or taking everything possible i'm sure your honour's have read everything in pretty much great detail i know your honor taylor was part of the original appeal so there's definitely a history here one of the i would i would disagree with that assertion the state court gave a very detailed ruling he did give a real ruling say you did nothing for x amount of years i can deny it on that basis but he went on to say even if i were to consider on an equitable basis and then gave an entire page of why he did not buy these arguments he specifically stated the defendant was not credible christopher boyce raised issues i thought she was i thought lee says attorney was mine attorney she threatened to send me to jail she threatened to take my children away from me she threatened this she threatened that this was all submitted this up to this declaration from christopher boyce in relation to the motion to recession those were all considered by the state courts we go back to judge of our judge power considered all those facts he admitted to this fraud he admitted he specifically stated not only in the actual stipulated judgments but in the comments he made when he was working with a poll his attorney to draft the stipulated judgment when you consider actually litigated when you consider fairness he took part in over an approximately two months of negotiation over the stipulated judgment where he admitted things saying well i understand that the purpose behind this is to create a non dischargeable that i understand as an attorney a bankruptcy attorney that you can't do that you know that can't be a term of a stipulated judgment or a contract in general but it does show intent it does show he knew what he was doing why would he go do all this type of research if he thought you know i'm going to jail or i'm being coerced or this or that it just doesn't make sense the state courts all that the state court said you're not you're not credible the bankruptcy court saw that the first go around there was a mistake in procedural you know posture on that it was resolved when the state was in  minutes worth of argument on the status conference on what judge bower should or should not consider prior to making a ruling on this case he he stressed public policy he stressed the fact that m lisa's former attorney represented herself as the attorney for christopher boyce as well and he stressed these things and the court actually took it seriously much much to my dismay at that time but appreciated once her written decision came out she considered all she weighed that public policy and here we have a gentleman who agreed to something had a judgment entered against them sat around for a couple  years the side to file bankruptcy and only once it was challenge to did he make a mate make an issue of it only after the adversary proceeding with this was commenced did he go forward and say oh wait i want to try and get going to contest the fact that this divorce proceeding has been acrimonious and emotional between the parties it has but really that has no bearing on what the bankruptcy court was asked to do with the state court did and what the presented in opposition to my client's motion for summary judgment and each and every separate statement you know where they tried to dispute a fact was it was coercion from undue influence accent or so i think judge bauer then  molded what the state court said realize way they were asking for here their only defense so to speak their only chance of disputing these facts were this coersion and what not realized the state court made a decision realized the state court made a valid decision took that into account looked at the judgment herself looked at the facts and said you know what i agree with this court and she did it twice and the second time she did it it was even more in depth than the first time so did she just to ask question just break around because i'm not quite sure i'm getting what you did she did she treated us reclusive or she just reviewed it and found it persuasive i think and how would you do use english between those and tell us what she did i don't know that she did either individually i think she almost did a combination of both she took and said i am not going to give an inconsistent ruling with the state court because because that would make a mass how do you have a state court judge saying you know none of this was credible then you had the bankruptcy court reaching another decision that would make it very confusing but i also think she took a look at it on her own and did not find any of the evidence credible the record was devoid in any type of that didn't start with support their claim so i i learned that it's partially from the memorandum that the panel set forth at the time before that that's what was used and so when making these arguments that i kind of tried to tailor to that issue it was actually litigated there was a manifestation of intent so really did judge fowler make a does make a mistake based on what was in front of her and based what she had to deal with and you know i don't see that i don't see anything in the record i don't see anything in their arguments and  both with the state court hearing and with judge bowers discourse with a balance bankruptcy counsel and less you don't have anything for me  the judge in the state court how can you say that somebody is not credible one there not even on the stand and also you have e mails threatening criminal prosecution and then you have a declaration from the plaintive ms hamilton that says oh i never threatened him while those e mails directly contradict her declaration so how can you at a hearing on the end it's not the end of the road in order to give precludes of a fact which the court doesn't have to do he's got a manifest in and to be found and there's sufficient evidence to say that that's a f by it when it got him something and maybe i have a little bit of a problem with it you know the argument which is basically that if i can tease it out that he it was a fraudulent deal from the beginning because he never intended to be bound by what he signed he wanted the benefits of that settlement would that me well your honor that's not the whole picture because no it wasn't a fraudulent deal he was under stress he wanted to put this behind him particularly while he's being threatened with jail and loss of custody so he but he got no benefit in terms of a discount on the dollar amount he stipulated to the whole amount also it's i think it's critical to point out is that he gave back the vast majority of the money i mean i think there was two million or three million dollars the only thing in dispute is seven hundred thousand dollars so typically fraudsters don't steal two or three million dollars and give it all back except seven hundred thousand dollars that's not the usual pattern and there's an inverse relationship between what you give back  what you try to do to make things correct there's no dispute he owed her the money but the question is as a fraud but what you do to give back is an inverse relationship to the level of intent necessary to establish fraud on the level of fraud also it's important to note that in their agreement he had the absolute discretion under their agreement as to how the funds were to be used he had the discretion and so he had discretion he gave a significant portion of the money back and he stipulated to the full amount he didn't dispute that he owed it but he was under tremendous pressure so he intended to certainly be bound to the amount and i agree that if i were just sitting here saying well no the amounts in dispute and he can't be bound by the amount that would be a different argument which i'm not i'm not making here i'm saying that this is virtually a preposition waiver of discharge it's against public policy and the entire manner in which it was of pain is against public policy and against fairness and against having matters decided on their merits so i agree that he's probably stuck with the amount but whether it's fraud or not  is certainly a question of fact not amenable to a summary judgment in the analysis is i think insufficient to make a summary judgment in this case thank you