matter based upon statue imitations other rulings and the underlying theory behind the district court's dismissal was that it was unreasonable for my clients the snap's to rely upon their investment professional to rely upon the financial advisor they had gone to a with their life savings to get advice on investing it in a manner that would allow them as most retirees want to allow them to have income for the rest of their lives as well as keeping and preserving ended up selling them achieve this goal that they can take out a certain amount of money which he helped them set so that these amounts they can take that out of their of their lives and still have at the end this death benefit this is the value that was the original mouth that they had put in which for the  around three hundred seventy thousand for sharon who had such a transaction i believe was around two hundred twenty four thousand it turned out to be not true what mr watts represented in terms of what this this investment w do the snap's repeatedly received statements as as you'll hear from from counsel that they maintain should put snaps on notice that these representations were not true of but they did ask about this as a reasonable person would went to their investment professional and i you know use that term because that's what of resource and when can financial refer him as a professional someone who they can rely on for well let was shortly after that so during that period of time prior to that certainly there is a discovery rule on the statutes very clear that it's stays the fraud claims and turn the statue of limitations that till it's discovered or should have been discovered and certainly there's a sort of reasonable doubt standard or reasonable there and that's what what lincoln argues and what the district court found was that my clients were not reasonable because when they did ask questions about this they asked their investment pressure the person they relied upon on the only person they knew at the counsel to a procedural question here that would just may reflect my lack of civil experience but it seems odd to me that there's the actual annuity contract is not included in the motion to dismiss brief correct and so it is not before us is not among the exhibits is not part of the rack of the contract is not judge we did not attack at your point and really the issue is not so much what you know any dispute as to what contract provisions mean in it the dispute is is what they were told that this this annuity contract violated was if you have statements that were certainly either the promise was wrong or the product was wrong right i mean that there would be an inquiry of something right i mean that's the whole point of inquiry notice and they're angry notice here i'm trying to understand it's either a true just as a matter of common sense how can you be reasonably diligent then to ask the person you're on notice that this person might have lied to you how can it be reasonably intelligent to ask that person where you are lying to me for something as someone else's river source told them to ask how to contact i understand that but shouldn't they have given that they were on notice that this person is a potential big liar doesn't common sense sort of indicate that reasonable diligence would be checking up on him not asking him just common sense would assume that if one looked and looked as he told them that they had a guaranteed value and you look at these statements they have a separate number that has a guaranteed death benefit out of it the question is why do they have  guaranteed death benefit value that's not actually the amount of money you want to get in your death which i think it was the issue of whether they were reasonable and up he says no look you know you look at that number you look at this number and there is a number on the statements it says three hundred seventy thousand dollars and it continues throughout that this is the guaranteed death benefit but it turns out they found out later after two thousand we are suddenly through in evaluating sort of the the reasonableness of their reliance i mean you know as i understand these these at least as you claim they were represented they they represented that they were going to get and that i think the math is a little over seven percent guaranteed return for their life plus one hundred percent of the principle upon their death yes right which certainly a sophisticated maybe anybody but certainly a sophisticated person in two thousand and seven two thousand and eight where treasury are below four percent and that would be a were marketable deal like one might say like a too good to be true type of a story don't we have to take that into account as well that that they were own notice that they've got a remarkably good deal they're pulling this out of an investment so they had a previous investment at least one of your clients had a previous investment and so they're pulling it out of that deal which could not have been nearly as good as this deal because nobody would have sold the deal that you suggest was actually provided and so they know they're in a situation where it's too good to be true and then they started getting the statements that reflected it probably is too good to be true and this is the judge harris's point that a reasonable person wouldn't just inquire of the person who sold it to them they would inquire beyond that  respectfully disagree that my finance reasonably should have been on notice that this deal was to be true seven percent perhaps a judge an attorney a financial professional made mate realize that that's a high percentage my plants are apple the amount and again really what's this title is the amount of money they're taking out a month this would have worked out if they had to you know less money per month because they would have been able to keep these guaranteed values but what happened was as we allege the individuals to watts set these amounts and he should have known better and he probably did know better but he said the amounts that they were taking out well that's not a situation where they went in and said i demand i've got to have this amount he said you can take this amount out every month and still keep your principal and they relied upon that and  i would note in terms of the issue who they contact and when they contacted they also contacted the eight hundred number as we did we filed a supplement the court ultimately said that she did take that into account and then they contacted the eight hundred number of they were complex and really well hidden it's not showing up on the statements you can ask a lot of people what's going on no one's going to tell you and these are really hard to discover and even then you know there's always questions about welsh of the planet have done a little more wasn't there someone they could have called surely if they had like you know gone back and read all the fine print from ten years ago they might have been tipped off that there was something not quite right and this looks nothing like that right this one is just it's right there on the statements all you had to do it turns out was talk to the guy in the no one office over this was a pretty easy fraud to uncover and so in light of that i mean it is your sort of mean counter argument what is what's your mean response to these statements odd posture in that actually they were sophisticated enough to read these statements and say whoa something's not right here it's a this is not a checking account where you have a balance you have checks oz's i appreciate that i looked at the statements i personally was sort of baffled by them but apparently your clients weren't they didn't know that this doesn't look it's not matching up with the with the numbers that when they asked the person that they trusted is down the street or why did they try to time at that point because they already were you as you can see did run increase notice that they had a possible fraud on their hands because he said they had a guaranteed value of three hundred seventy thousand dollars and statements confirm last point i want to make only a few minutes left on the negligence issue just in general whether or not by whites have a claim for out as a professional just like an attorney's professionals like doctors rational yet the position of the district court is that there is no standard of care that he could be held to that we can claim and make either virginia cases holding this kind of financial professional to a duty of them your valuable never go down your debt benefit will never go below the exact dollar amount that you paid me on day one was at least suspect if not flat on term now to your point  is not a hypothetical where someone should have it on hookers and avery notice is of course the serger pretty much all of these issues there's no question that the sachems have ron they really issue here is is there any doctrine here they were on notice and they knew it the complaint specifically says not just once repeatedly when they would receive her statements from her source they would call up or go visit mr watts and it was almost like groundhog's data to  financial person i'll put myself in that category it's really kind of atheling and it does say it guaranteed benefit amount has not gone down your honor it actually doesn't say that but i agree with you it's not the most into  that it maybe you can walk me through a way that has guaranteed benefit amount is that number going down over time that number remains the same ok ok and i could explain to you what it is but for these purposes you could but let's assume right i didn't have the benefit of of your insights i was reading it yeah and that would be a fair you pointed out earlier it wasn't confusing and in point out i'm just asking question now so my question to you is why isn't it a perfectly reasonable argument your position that yeah this thing raises questions it would raise questions for anyone it's totally confounding so they call their guy and the guys like let me explain it to you it's all fine what i what i told you was right and if you read it my way it's right that seems like that would be a plausible way to understand what happened here it would what was alleged that is what they do allege that he told him he told them that his promise was in fact true and that the document could be read in a way that meet his promise true ok but they plainly did not take comfort in that and i say that because if they had you would expect a reasonable person have been told that first or maybe the second time he would say you know what i trust him it's reasonable for me to trust him i don't have to i'm sort of unfair that there are no worse position because they were more diligent and kept asking for explanations you know what i'm saying you're saying if they had just been like they were diligent because they kept going back to the same source that is providing them with questionable information what they have on one hand is a state from the company that says x your values or declining quarter after quarter after quarter year in year out on the other hand you have the gentleman this is my last question i'm not pleased so do you want to still hold as a matter of law no jury could find otherwise and unsophisticated investor does not exercise due diligence once their own inquiry notice by talking to his or her broker about an investment and their financial statements that that is per se insufficient or is there a narrower ruling no i think it's you know i think it's and i believe the case law says it's all of the circumstances ok and which are the circumstances it was circumstances here are that you have the complaint says they do nothing more after oral argument before judge still we received a i guess i think was a supplemental brief we had but again it can i just bring you back so that's pretty much what i asked you so as a matter of  yes that's that's correct ok that's correct for for example if this was a situation where the allegation was we got a statement which mr was he explained it again and then he said you know what i don't need to look at your statements again i've got you covered that's why i'm here  sleeper not an apple form but either way i could see that that gets you a little closer but in this case at best all they did other than going back to the very source of the potential fraud who just repeated the fraud was it perhaps a not a phone call this may not be relevant to what notice they were on or what they did or shouldn't do but since we're looking at it in you started about her twenty five ok so that is their guaranteed amount what that means is one way or another you will get that money back dollar for dollar how do you get it back either through your monthly or  so they carroty it is and this is a total benefit so another at like if we're going to be clearer about it that would say guarantee total benefit and then you could figure like the remaining benefit that is sort of the delta the correct the new t contract was not part of the motion to dismiss why is it not a why are we not looking at the annuity contract because my understanding is the nature of the claims to not challenge the contract at all the contract function function exactly as a as it was attended to function it reliance right i mean so if if in a theoretical we're all you know the contract on page one said in really big letters and i'm sure it got do this because no contract like this had big letters anywhere but if it said big letter like there is no guarantee death benefit that the value of your you know benefits may well drop over time and that was on page one and then they started getting these statements that were consistent with that their reliance would seem less reasonable than without that i think that's probably true but again given that they in fact say that the statements enough were enough to let us know that something was he here something wasn't right from the horse's mouth from the annuity company itself that they understood to mean what mr west told me may not be true then at that point you have an obligation to undertake a reasonable investigation it's possible that a reasonable investigation would not have led the saps who are an object a person to conclude that mr watts was lying i will submit that the actual complaint undermines that possibility entirely e c v you may recall spoke with gina and gina told them exactly what was going on now if it was that easy in twenty fifteen to call somebody in the office i think we can all agree that reasonable investigation requires more than simply one continuing to going back to the person about whom you have doubts or to even of the court were to consider it's not in the complaint but if the court were to consider the allegation i came up after argument that i can imagine that if you're sufficiently concerned call that number on day one ever speaking with wasp on day two nothing's changed you still have the same concert you could have done any number of things including conflict that you know what we're going to trust him you know i know that that's not your act that's not what you actually think right you're arguing that because you're stuck to the facts as alleged i suspect that someone might say i'm not saying you did that you believe they knew exactly what they got and that this is all made up after you die my personal belief is exactly that yes which which would explain you know sort of the same set of motives but that's not the situation we're under right now we can't make that assumption but it is still we're trying to understand the mental state that would be a no other perhaps more reasonable explanation for why om these circumstances look like they live your honor i  have perhaps not surprisingly struggle with that very question for a long time i've been doing this work for a long time and with no disrespect to mr greco or school i have a hard time coming up with another explanation but you're right that's not it's some level everybody agrees there was a guarantee the the question is was the guaranteed a death benefit or an overall benefit and so a reference here to this idea that they discussed the guarantee everybody knowledge is that there was a guarantee the question is what is the guarantee period thirteen mr watts repeatedly assured the snaps at their death benefit was still secure and would not drop below the original amount best as they were talking about this being a death benefit guarantee and then some i think were to look back at this statement which i agree with joe tears i'm an attorney that does this kind of work i don't understand these things i don't know how anyone is supposed to understand these things and i would submit that they're intentionally set up that way so that no one understands these things but it says nine two thousand and eleven so it's as you got this value as of this civic date right below that it's a guaranteed benefit him out three hundred seventy thousand dollars it's not the very least it's misleading but it certainly goes into the exact statements that the professional that they reversed or said was a professional is telling my clients and i think there's an important distinction i think this wasn't sort of partly brought this out is important distinction between inquiry notice versus discovery of fraud itself says the statue limitation doesn't start until the discovery of fraud until it should have been discovered so the question is not should they have been on inquiry notice as to whether these values were changing and they shouldn't fire about it the issue really from the statute is a should they have discovered a fraud as of that point and i think that's an important distinction in a much higher level to say not that these numbers are not making sense they're not necessarily what i thought they were supposed to be it's going to be the point that they discover that this individual had  that's not weighted to the right i mean there may be different issues but you agree that river source lived up to the contract that they may you just think that they were fraudulently induced to get into that contract yes yes i'm in for another distinction and again this case the negligence claim against the artist claims i wanted to get away from the fraud very recently and we have arguments as to why negligence was delayed in terms of the statue limitation those claims in part are based well and then we also have the argument affable stop simply basic fairness as to whether it's it's there or stop from from using this bar in terms of my client's claims when their own agent their own representative who they told my client specifically in