[00:00:05] Speaker 04:
The next case for argument is Hudako versus Regent of the University of California.

[00:01:04] Speaker 04:
All right, good morning to all counsel.

[00:01:06] Speaker 04:
Before we get started, let me just note that on the appellee side, there's splitting of time and you'll get your individual clocks.

[00:01:12] Speaker 04:
That makes it easier for us and for you to keep track of your time.

[00:01:17] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:01:20] Speaker 02:
Good morning, your honor.

[00:01:21] Speaker 02:
Myron Moskovich for the appellant, Edward Hudako.

[00:01:25] Speaker 02:
And first thing I'd like to do is

[00:01:29] Speaker 02:
withdraw the argument that the district court judge, Susan Ilston, was biased and a Holocaust denier.

[00:01:40] Speaker 02:
That part of the appellant's opening brief was written by another lawyer who got a bit carried away.

[00:01:47] Speaker 00:
And let me just leave it at that.

[00:01:49] Speaker 00:
That's an understatement.

[00:01:50] Speaker 00:
I mean, that was an outrageous statement, and I'm glad you retracted it.

[00:01:54] Speaker 00:
I agree.

[00:01:54] Speaker 00:
But it should never have been included in a brief.

[00:01:56] Speaker 00:
I speak for myself on this.

[00:01:57] Speaker 02:
I totally agree.

[00:01:58] Speaker 00:
And that's the first thing I recommended to my point.

[00:02:00] Speaker 04:
I appreciate that you started your argument saying that, because that is completely without foundation.

[00:02:05] Speaker 02:
Absolutely.

[00:02:06] Speaker 04:
So it's a good way to start the argument.

[00:02:09] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:02:10] Speaker 02:
But I couldn't let that pass.

[00:02:14] Speaker 02:
The other thing about the brief is it gets very involved in a culture war between the pro and anti-trans groups.

[00:02:25] Speaker 02:
And there's no need for this court to get into that at all.

[00:02:31] Speaker 02:
This is a very simple case.

[00:02:34] Speaker 02:
It's a case where government dockers

[00:02:38] Speaker 02:
sliced open the arm of a teenager to insert drugs that would inhibit his natural development through puberty without the consent of his father.

[00:02:52] Speaker 02:
That's what this case is about.

[00:02:54] Speaker 02:
And the cases on the rights of parents

[00:03:01] Speaker 02:
to control and be involved in their children's upbringing go way back.

[00:03:08] Speaker 02:
I sent a letter to the court yesterday with some cases that I'll be mentioning, so I won't bother including the sites.

[00:03:17] Speaker 02:
In Troxel versus Granville, the Supreme Court in 2000... Can you, counsel, clarify and define for me what is the clearly established right that

[00:03:27] Speaker 04:
the plaintiff is advancing in this case.

[00:03:29] Speaker 02:
The clearly established right is the right not to have your kids sliced open and have drugs inserted into them that will change their development without the parents' consent.

[00:03:44] Speaker 04:
So it's a right to make determinations of medical care for minor children?

[00:03:50] Speaker 02:
Yeah, yeah.

[00:03:51] Speaker 04:
But what about the custody order in this case?

[00:03:54] Speaker 02:
Pardon me?

[00:03:54] Speaker 04:
What about the custody order in this case?

[00:03:58] Speaker 02:
The order from the Contra Costa judge, there were two orders.

[00:04:02] Speaker 02:
One gave the UCSF doctors the general power to treat the kid for

[00:04:13] Speaker 02:
to trans conversion.

[00:04:17] Speaker 04:
I'm talking about the plaintiff's right.

[00:04:19] Speaker 04:
So you define the right as the right of a parent to make decisions, medical decisions, for their minor child.

[00:04:27] Speaker 02:
Exactly.

[00:04:27] Speaker 04:
But the order in this case has the right to weigh in only in the event of surgery, right?

[00:04:34] Speaker 04:
So I'm asking you to address the implication of the order on your clearly established right in this case.

[00:04:44] Speaker 02:
Here's what the order says.

[00:04:51] Speaker 02:
Now, keep in mind, this was a hotly contested divorce, a big fight about custody, which parent had the right to control the minor's medical situation, and the Contra Costa judge gave most of those rights to the mother and not to my client, except one.

[00:05:14] Speaker 02:
except one.

[00:05:16] Speaker 02:
The minor child will not be permitted to undergo any gender identity related surgery until they are 18 years old, absent written agreement by both parties, Christine Underhill and Edward Hidako.

[00:05:32] Speaker 02:
And the UC doctors simply violated that.

[00:05:35] Speaker 02:
They simply ignored that, according to the second amended complaint.

[00:05:41] Speaker 01:
Well, the argument is that it fell under the

[00:05:44] Speaker 01:
First, the prior clause that it was commencing hormone therapy.

[00:05:50] Speaker 01:
There's two problems.

[00:05:51] Speaker 01:
But I mean, I think to the broader question, would you agree that a custody order can modify what clearly established rights are?

[00:06:02] Speaker 01:
Because you can always waive rights.

[00:06:04] Speaker 02:
Yes, I totally agree.

[00:06:06] Speaker 01:
So then it comes down to the custody order, correct?

[00:06:10] Speaker 02:
The custody order deprived my client

[00:06:14] Speaker 02:
of almost all his rights, but not this one.

[00:06:17] Speaker 02:
This is a constitutional right that the Contra Costa judge decided not to take away from him.

[00:06:24] Speaker 02:
And this is the right that was clearly violated.

[00:06:28] Speaker 02:
Now, the UCSF defendants claim that, well, maybe they misread it.

[00:06:37] Speaker 02:
Maybe they read the other part of the order, which allows conversion therapy without surgery as

[00:06:44] Speaker 02:
eliminating this order.

[00:06:48] Speaker 02:
That's the only way you can say it.

[00:06:50] Speaker 02:
If they're right about that, then this part of the order that protects the father's right where their surgery is gone.

[00:06:59] Speaker 02:
So it's a totally unreasonable reading.

[00:07:02] Speaker 02:
But there's another problem with it.

[00:07:04] Speaker 02:
You don't even have to get to that point.

[00:07:08] Speaker 02:
This comes up on a 12-6 motion.

[00:07:11] Speaker 02:
The complaint doesn't allege anything about misreading the Contra Costa order.

[00:07:18] Speaker 02:
That's a defense.

[00:07:20] Speaker 02:
And a defense is for trial.

[00:07:22] Speaker 02:
We don't even know if they'll raise that defense.

[00:07:25] Speaker 02:
They may not say that.

[00:07:26] Speaker 02:
They might testify that we don't care about some state court order.

[00:07:31] Speaker 02:
We think this is the right thing to do.

[00:07:33] Speaker 02:
We have no idea.

[00:07:34] Speaker 02:
This cannot be litigated on the face of the second amended complaint.

[00:07:40] Speaker 02:
There's nothing in this.

[00:07:42] Speaker 02:
in the Second Amendment to complain about this.

[00:07:45] Speaker 02:
It has to go to trial if that's going to be their offense.

[00:07:48] Speaker 02:
And we really don't know if it will be their offense.

[00:07:53] Speaker 04:
Can you briefly address the case as against Harkins and Bigger?

[00:07:58] Speaker 04:
I have a hard time seeing how they can be de facto state actors.

[00:08:03] Speaker 02:
Your Honor, we'll submit that on the brief.

[00:08:06] Speaker 02:
I think the case against the Dockers is much stronger, obviously.

[00:08:10] Speaker 02:
because they're the ones that took out the knife and cut the kid's arm open.

[00:08:14] Speaker 02:
These other people didn't.

[00:08:17] Speaker 01:
But we'll submit that on the brief.

[00:08:18] Speaker 01:
Are you still contending that they're state actors, and if so... Pardon me?

[00:08:22] Speaker 01:
Are you still contending they're state actors?

[00:08:25] Speaker 02:
Yeah, they were state actors.

[00:08:27] Speaker 02:
Tell me why.

[00:08:28] Speaker 02:
But I'm not going to use my limited time pressing that point.

[00:08:32] Speaker 04:
The most guilty people... Well, I think you should answer the question if Judge Thomas is asking it.

[00:08:37] Speaker 02:
Well, according to the allegations of Second Amendment to the complaint, there was a type of conspiracy here among all of them.

[00:08:46] Speaker 02:
And Harkins and the others were involved in that.

[00:08:49] Speaker 02:
And yes, they too are liable.

[00:08:53] Speaker 01:
That's my answer.

[00:08:55] Speaker 01:
Well, the conspiracy has to be with another state actor.

[00:08:58] Speaker 01:
Who is that?

[00:09:00] Speaker 01:
The doctors.

[00:09:02] Speaker 02:
I'm sorry?

[00:09:03] Speaker 02:
The doctors.

[00:09:04] Speaker 02:
the defense lawyer, all these people are involved in making the cutting open of the boy without the father's consent happened.

[00:09:14] Speaker 02:
But as I said, I'm going to focus on the most guilty parties here, and that was the doctors.

[00:09:22] Speaker 02:
I mean, any claim that this wasn't a clearly established constitutional right is rebutted by this court's own decisions.

[00:09:34] Speaker 02:
In Drummond versus City of Anaheim, it is not necessary that the alleged acts have been previously held unconstitutional, so long as the unlawfulness was apparent in light of existing law.

[00:09:51] Speaker 02:
Well, the existing law was right in front of their faces from this Contra Costa Court.

[00:09:56] Speaker 00:
Is that a state law right, then?

[00:09:58] Speaker 00:
I mean, you would be claiming a clearly established contract right.

[00:10:01] Speaker 00:
That's not a clearly established constitutional right.

[00:10:03] Speaker 02:
Well, it's a good question.

[00:10:04] Speaker 02:
This Drummond and the other cases about this are typically about constitutional law, not about interpreting some state court order.

[00:10:14] Speaker 02:
But in both ways, it's obvious.

[00:10:18] Speaker 02:
There was a case that came down

[00:10:23] Speaker 02:
Taylor versus Riojas from the U.S.

[00:10:27] Speaker 02:
Supreme Court.

[00:10:27] Speaker 02:
It's cited in our letter, a 2020 case, where the defendant alleged that he was a prisoner kept in a cell that was freezing, that was full of excrement, and he was kept there for a length of time.

[00:10:44] Speaker 02:
And the defendant said, well, there's no prior case involving those facts.

[00:10:51] Speaker 02:
And the Supreme Court said, that's not the way you do it.

[00:10:54] Speaker 02:
That's not the way you do it.

[00:10:56] Speaker 02:
There doesn't have to be an exact case.

[00:10:58] Speaker 02:
When the government defendants do something outrageous like they did in that case, then they should know better.

[00:11:07] Speaker 02:
It's exactly the same thing here.

[00:11:10] Speaker 02:
They knew that the complaint alleges that they knew about this order.

[00:11:16] Speaker 02:
that they weren't supposed to cut the kid open, they weren't supposed to insert these drugs without the father's consent.

[00:11:23] Speaker 02:
And they did it anyway.

[00:11:26] Speaker 02:
And the cases involving the rights of parents involve rights that are not as important as this.

[00:11:38] Speaker 02:
It really comes down to that.

[00:11:41] Speaker 02:
They're about raising the kid.

[00:11:43] Speaker 02:
There is one case.

[00:11:45] Speaker 02:
Parham versus JR, where the court did allude to tonsillectomy, appendectomy, and other medical procedures, which is... I guess the question, I mean, you know, here there's a disagreement among the parents, and does that not affect the analysis of whether the right was clearly established?

[00:12:05] Speaker 00:
It's one thing to say a parent has a

[00:12:07] Speaker 00:
a right to oversee the medical treatment of their child, but it's a different thing to say that they may have that right in the face of a state court order that plainly takes away some amount of the parents' control.

[00:12:18] Speaker 02:
I don't understand that, Your Honor.

[00:12:24] Speaker 02:
Yes, the state court order took away a lot of Mr. Hidako's rights.

[00:12:30] Speaker 02:
But it left this one, this constitutional right to object to surgery on his kid and insertion of drugs that would inhibit his development.

[00:12:42] Speaker 02:
It left that one.

[00:12:43] Speaker 02:
That is a constitutional right.

[00:12:45] Speaker 04:
It's not a right to... It left the decision as to whether to commence hormone therapy solely in the hands of the mother, right?

[00:12:55] Speaker 04:
Under the custody order.

[00:12:57] Speaker 02:
Yes, unless there's surgery.

[00:12:59] Speaker 02:
Unless they're surgery.

[00:13:01] Speaker 02:
That's the difference.

[00:13:02] Speaker 02:
Taking a knife and cutting the kid open.

[00:13:05] Speaker 02:
The Contra Costa judge said, when it goes that far, you're going to have to get the consent of the father.

[00:13:12] Speaker 02:
And they didn't do it.

[00:13:15] Speaker 02:
I mean, to me, it's outrageous.

[00:13:17] Speaker 02:
When I first picked up this case, my first thought went to my own son.

[00:13:23] Speaker 02:
I have a 14-year-old boy.

[00:13:25] Speaker 02:
and he's just started high school.

[00:13:27] Speaker 02:
And the idea that some government doctor on his own would cut open his arm, he's an accomplished tennis player by the way, and insert some drugs that would stifle his growth in some way, he's a head taller than me and still growing, it's appalling.

[00:13:45] Speaker 02:
I can't think of a worse thing the government could do.

[00:13:49] Speaker 02:
Do that without my involvement, without my consent.

[00:13:53] Speaker 02:
I'm the one that raised him since birth.

[00:13:56] Speaker 02:
And to me, it's obvious.

[00:14:00] Speaker 02:
If it was obvious to the Supreme Court, you can't stick a guy in a cell full of excrement and freezing for several days.

[00:14:07] Speaker 02:
This is obvious, too.

[00:14:09] Speaker 02:
I mean, the cases that go all the way back, the court said the liberty interest in this case, the interest of the parents in care, custody, and control of their children is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty

[00:14:25] Speaker 02:
interest recognized by this court.

[00:14:28] Speaker 02:
That was in Troxel versus Granville.

[00:14:32] Speaker 02:
I mean, you look at a case like West Virginia versus Barnett.

[00:14:38] Speaker 02:
It's an interesting comparison.

[00:14:41] Speaker 02:
1943 case.

[00:14:43] Speaker 02:
And the parents were Jehovah's Witnesses who objected to the state requiring their kids to pledge allegiance to the flag.

[00:14:53] Speaker 02:
because the Jehovah's Witnesses felt that was in violation of the Bible's prescription against bowing to craven evinces.

[00:15:03] Speaker 02:
All right?

[00:15:04] Speaker 02:
And the Supreme Court ruled for the parents.

[00:15:06] Speaker 02:
Now, think about that a minute.

[00:15:09] Speaker 04:
To me... I hate to cut you off, but I just want to remind you that you wanted to save a little bit of time.

[00:15:15] Speaker 02:
I do.

[00:15:15] Speaker 02:
Okay.

[00:15:16] Speaker 02:
I'll come back later.

[00:15:24] Speaker 06:
Good morning, Your Honors, and may it please the Court.

[00:15:26] Speaker 06:
Robert Gato for the UC Regents Defendants.

[00:15:29] Speaker 06:
We agree with the general proposition here that it all comes down to this custody order, because that defines, by Mr. Hudako's own complaint, what this alleged constitutional right is.

[00:15:44] Speaker 06:
On the one hand, you've got paragraph 7a that says, hormone therapy is permitted.

[00:15:50] Speaker 06:
You have 7B that says Mr. Hudako can still veto gender identity related surgery.

[00:15:57] Speaker 06:
How do you read those two provisions together so that both of them have meaning?

[00:16:04] Speaker 06:
Here's how.

[00:16:07] Speaker 06:
It can't mean what Mr. Hudako says it means.

[00:16:09] Speaker 06:
What it has to mean is gender identity related surgery means permanent physical changes.

[00:16:17] Speaker 06:
If that's what that means, then both of these provisions make sense.

[00:16:21] Speaker 06:
You can go ahead and do the hormone therapy.

[00:16:23] Speaker 06:
That obviously was a vigorously contested issue in the state court.

[00:16:28] Speaker 06:
The state court ruled as it did.

[00:16:30] Speaker 06:
What Mr. Hudako is saying is, oh no, you can have hormone therapy.

[00:16:35] Speaker 06:
You just can't deliver it through an implant.

[00:16:38] Speaker 06:
Because pursuant to Mr. Hudako's own complaint, there are three ways to deliver the same hormone.

[00:16:43] Speaker 06:
Injections, pills, implants.

[00:16:47] Speaker 06:
So what his theory is is, oh no, what the state court said is you can't give hormone therapy through an implant.

[00:16:57] Speaker 06:
There is nothing in that custody order that would support that construction of the order.

[00:17:02] Speaker 06:
That doesn't make any sense.

[00:17:03] Speaker 06:
What the court was doing is it was separating it into two piles basically.

[00:17:09] Speaker 06:
One is therapy, one is permanent surgery.

[00:17:13] Speaker 06:
That makes sense from a state court custody order perspective.

[00:17:19] Speaker 00:
What about the allegation that it was billed as surgery?

[00:17:23] Speaker 06:
It's not a problem.

[00:17:25] Speaker 06:
I understand it.

[00:17:25] Speaker 06:
That's what it says.

[00:17:26] Speaker 06:
That's fine.

[00:17:27] Speaker 06:
But it doesn't make any difference here.

[00:17:29] Speaker 06:
Because again, you're trying to reconcile, you're trying to harmonize two provisions of a state court order.

[00:17:35] Speaker 06:
And that is the interpretation that makes sense.

[00:17:40] Speaker 06:
But even if that is wrong, it is certainly, as Judge Ilston found,

[00:17:47] Speaker 06:
a plausible interpretation of this order.

[00:17:52] Speaker 06:
And if it's a plausible interpretation of the order, then you certainly have no clearly established constitutional right based on it.

[00:18:02] Speaker 06:
And so that's why the qualified immunity ruling must stand.

[00:18:06] Speaker 06:
And it must stand on a 12b6 motion.

[00:18:08] Speaker 06:
It's the perfect case for a 12b6 motion, because again, it does all come down to that custody

[00:18:15] Speaker 06:
That's what defines, under his own allegations, the alleged right in this case.

[00:18:20] Speaker 04:
Well, he's trying to use cases like arm troxel to define it at a much higher level, which the right of parents to make medical decisions.

[00:18:28] Speaker 04:
But you're saying that's too high of a level of generality.

[00:18:31] Speaker 06:
Correct.

[00:18:32] Speaker 06:
As we've contended in the briefs, that's far too high a level.

[00:18:35] Speaker 06:
What is required here is any reasonable doctor that read this order would absolutely know that he couldn't do hormone therapy through an implant.

[00:18:45] Speaker 06:
That's the only way Mr. Hudako's theory works.

[00:18:48] Speaker 06:
That is wrong.

[00:18:52] Speaker 06:
So there can't possibly be a clearly established constitutional right based on the facts of this case because his rights were so limited by this state court order that, again, is beyond a federal court's purview by Rooker Feldman.

[00:19:06] Speaker 06:
So that's what sets the stage here.

[00:19:09] Speaker 06:
It is, Judge Thomas, all about the custody order.

[00:19:14] Speaker 00:
What about the intentional infliction claim, which doesn't have some of the same clearly established law overhang?

[00:19:20] Speaker 06:
And sure.

[00:19:20] Speaker 06:
There are some distinctions.

[00:19:22] Speaker 06:
I agree with you, Judge Pressley, do.

[00:19:24] Speaker 06:
But again, one has to look at, first of all, how can it be outrageous conduct to follow the dictates of a court order?

[00:19:35] Speaker 06:
That's simply not outrageous conduct.

[00:19:37] Speaker 06:
But more to the point, Mr. Hudako never alleges that

[00:19:43] Speaker 06:
This form of delivery of hormone therapy was what caused him harm.

[00:19:51] Speaker 06:
It's all about hormone therapy in general.

[00:19:54] Speaker 06:
We all know he's very opposed to that.

[00:19:56] Speaker 06:
But that's what his allegation is.

[00:19:59] Speaker 06:
It's not that this particular delivery system caused it.

[00:20:03] Speaker 06:
It's hormones in general.

[00:20:04] Speaker 06:
Hormones in general, that therapy was allowed by the state court.

[00:20:09] Speaker 06:
That can't be outrageous conduct.

[00:20:11] Speaker 06:
It's a matter of law.

[00:20:13] Speaker 00:
I think his argument is this was surgery and surgery is broader than the way you've defined it maybe not clearly established but but his position would be it is and there was a you know

[00:20:26] Speaker 00:
It's not like taking a pill.

[00:20:27] Speaker 00:
There was something more invasive that happened here, and it was billed as surgery.

[00:20:30] Speaker 00:
So it's at least a factual question.

[00:20:33] Speaker 06:
No, because again, he doesn't tie any of that.

[00:20:36] Speaker 06:
First of all, that's not in his complaint in terms of there's a difference in the delivery system.

[00:20:39] Speaker 06:
That's nowhere in his complaint.

[00:20:41] Speaker 06:
That can't even be inferred from his complaint.

[00:20:44] Speaker 06:
He never made this distinction in his complaint.

[00:20:47] Speaker 06:
He just said, it's surgery and it's prohibited.

[00:20:53] Speaker 06:
It has to be viewed in the context of what was permitted under the state court order.

[00:20:58] Speaker 06:
Hormone therapy was, so that can't be it.

[00:21:00] Speaker 06:
It's got to be something more.

[00:21:02] Speaker 06:
And he doesn't have anything more in his complaint, and nothing from which you can infer anything more.

[00:21:08] Speaker 06:
And on that basis, 12b6 on the intentional infliction was properly sustained.

[00:21:19] Speaker 06:
I've got other time.

[00:21:20] Speaker 06:
I've got other points I can make, but those are the

[00:21:23] Speaker 06:
ones that dictate this case, Your Honors.

[00:21:26] Speaker 04:
I think we've got the argument.

[00:21:28] Speaker 04:
Let me see if my colleagues have additional questions.

[00:21:31] Speaker 04:
Doesn't appear that we do.

[00:21:32] Speaker 04:
Thank you, Counsel.

[00:21:33] Speaker 04:
All right.

[00:21:33] Speaker 06:
Thank you.

[00:21:40] Speaker 04:
Mr. Wilson, just a minute.

[00:21:42] Speaker 01:
There are others.

[00:21:44] Speaker 04:
Counsel, I had split their time, so I have Mr. Wilson and Ms.

[00:21:48] Speaker 04:
Hanson left to argue.

[00:21:55] Speaker 05:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:21:56] Speaker 05:
Mark Wilson for the appellee, Daniel Harkins.

[00:22:00] Speaker 05:
I'm going to be brief, partially because I have to be.

[00:22:05] Speaker 05:
The claims against my client hinge solely on whether or not he was a state actor.

[00:22:10] Speaker 05:
Obviously, he was a private individual, not like the regents.

[00:22:14] Speaker 05:
Judge Ilston correctly determined that the allegations in the complaint, the factual allegations of the complaint, did not even give rise to an inference that he was a state actor based on

[00:22:24] Speaker 05:
What Mr. Moskowitz has said is, and Mr. Moskowitz submitted on the briefs, and all that Mr. Moskowitz could say is that it was some type of conspiracy.

[00:22:33] Speaker 05:
And as Judge Ilston correctly found, there is not enough factual information in the complaint to support a finding of a meeting of the minds between my client and any of the state actor such that he can be liable under Section 1983.

[00:22:50] Speaker 05:
And unless there are any questions about that, I will submit.

[00:22:55] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:22:57] Speaker 04:
Ms.

[00:22:58] Speaker 04:
Hanson?

[00:23:00] Speaker 01:
You're not up yet.

[00:23:00] Speaker 04:
Just a minute, Mr. Moskowitz.

[00:23:05] Speaker 03:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:23:06] Speaker 03:
Lisa Hanson for Appellee Nathaniel Bigger.

[00:23:09] Speaker 03:
As the court's well aware, Mr. Bigger is a private attorney.

[00:23:14] Speaker 03:
He was Appellant's ex-wife.

[00:23:17] Speaker 04:
The case against Mr. Bigger is even tougher than Harkin's.

[00:23:21] Speaker 03:
It is, Your Honor.

[00:23:22] Speaker 03:
And I think Appellant's counsel's, I'm going to call it a concession, that there's nothing further than what's in the briefs and submitted on the briefs as to Mr. Bigger is quite telling.

[00:23:36] Speaker 03:
And the reality of this is the allegations in the second minute complaint did not, as the US Supreme Court has said,

[00:23:44] Speaker 03:
across the line from the conceivable to the plausible.

[00:23:49] Speaker 00:
Was Ms.

[00:23:50] Speaker 00:
Underhill still involved?

[00:23:51] Speaker 00:
Nobody represents her here, but is she an appellee in this case?

[00:23:57] Speaker 03:
Your Honor, I believe that she is.

[00:23:59] Speaker 03:
I do not believe she has counsel for the appeal.

[00:24:03] Speaker 03:
I do not represent Ms.

[00:24:04] Speaker 03:
Underhill.

[00:24:05] Speaker 03:
I only represent Mr. Bigger for purposes of the appeal.

[00:24:10] Speaker 03:
And of course, Mr. Bigger is not a state actor.

[00:24:13] Speaker 03:
You know, he was communicating

[00:24:15] Speaker 03:
with his client, Ms.

[00:24:17] Speaker 03:
Underhill.

[00:24:18] Speaker 03:
And with that, Your Honor, unless the court has any questions, I would submit.

[00:24:23] Speaker 04:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:24:25] Speaker 04:
All right.

[00:24:25] Speaker 04:
Mr. Voskowitz.

[00:24:36] Speaker 02:
The only facts this courthouse before it are those alleged in the Second Amendment complaint.

[00:24:41] Speaker 02:
You got nothing else.

[00:24:43] Speaker 02:
There's been no discovery.

[00:24:44] Speaker 02:
There's been no trial.

[00:24:45] Speaker 02:
I don't even think there was an answer.

[00:24:48] Speaker 02:
So when counsel gets up here and say, here's what these doctors did, if they read that order this way and not that way, where does that come from, other than the imagination of counsel?

[00:25:02] Speaker 02:
There's no testimony.

[00:25:03] Speaker 02:
There's no evidence of that.

[00:25:05] Speaker 02:
It might have happened.

[00:25:07] Speaker 02:
If a doctor gets on the stand and testifies the way he said, we're going to ask for an order from the

[00:25:13] Speaker 02:
trial court interpreting the document, the specific controls the general.

[00:25:18] Speaker 02:
It's a standard rule of contract interpretation.

[00:25:21] Speaker 02:
There's one provision about surgery.

[00:25:26] Speaker 02:
That controls over the general ones over the other ones.

[00:25:30] Speaker 02:
Okay?

[00:25:31] Speaker 02:
But it doesn't matter.

[00:25:32] Speaker 02:
At this point in the litigation, for all we know, a doctor's going to go up and testify, I don't care anything about those Contra Costa orders.

[00:25:43] Speaker 02:
I believe in conversion surgery, and I'm going to do it anyway.

[00:25:50] Speaker 02:
That could happen.

[00:25:51] Speaker 02:
Or it could not happen.

[00:25:52] Speaker 02:
We have no idea.

[00:25:53] Speaker 04:
All right.

[00:25:54] Speaker 04:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:25:56] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:25:56] Speaker 04:
Thank you to all counsel.

[00:25:58] Speaker 04:
We appreciate your argument this morning.

[00:25:59] Speaker 04:
The matter is submitted.