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States Court of Appeals for the ninth circuit.

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Hear ye, hear ye.

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All persons having business with the honorable United States Court of Appeals for the ninth circuit, I will now draw near.

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Give your attention and you will be heard.

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God save these United States and this honorable court.

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Please be seated.

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Good morning.

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I would like to begin by thanking the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and Dean Leeds for hosting this session of the Ninth Circuit this morning.

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It's our pleasure to be here.

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We'll begin then to hear argument in the first case on calendar for this morning, which is 24-5653, 24-7348, Bruce E. Huffman v. Goodman Law Group and J.P.

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Morgan Chase Bank.

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And we will hear first from Mr. Woods.

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You may proceed.

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Morning, your honors.

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May it please the court.

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My name is Sean Woods with Mills and Woods Law.

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My colleague Robert Mills is to my left, and I represent the appellant Bruce E. Huffman in the two.

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Can you get a little bit closer to the microphone?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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I represent the appellant Bruce E. Huffman in these 2 matters, the 24-5653 and 24-7348.

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The issues presented in this case are whether or not the district court aired

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in finding that any violations of the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act on the part of Goodman Holmgren Law Group were the result of bona fide error.

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I think that's the biggest issue for today.

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There are other issues in whether or not the district court erred in granting summary judgment to both Chase

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to chase on both the unjust enrichment claim and the conversion claim.

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One of the things that I think we need to be clear on is the specific conduct to which Goodman's bona fide error defense applies.

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So can you please specify

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What conduct you think that we're even talking about?

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Are we talking about the filing of the application for the writ?

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Are we talking about the attorney's argument at the hearing?

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Are we talking about the communications with Chase or seeking enforcement?

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What conduct is it that you're indicating that we have to analyze under the bona fide error?

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Thank you, Your Honor.

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There's a lot of it.

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Our argument would be that Goodman Law and the attorneys there should have known as being a debt-collecting practice for 20 years that Social Security benefits and funds are not garnishable.

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So Council, did Mr. Huffman ever provide notice to Chase that the bank account was specifically opened to hold the Social Security funds?

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It's a good question.

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Later on in the in the proceedings to after he filed the motion for reconsideration and the court ruled granting that motion for reconsideration.

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That was at the point when we can pinpoint specifically that he told Chase that these are social security monies and this was a deposit account created for that purpose.

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And do you have a citation to the record for that

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of reference that you gave me for when the notice was provided?

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Yeah, that is, give me just a minute here.

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There's emails that started right after the ruling came out to Chase and those would be 2-ER-72 to 81.

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And can you go back to my question, which was the conduct?

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What you said, there's a lot.

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Just give me

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The original would be actually filing the application for rid of garnishment.

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There's also mention in the record, and I'll find that here in a minute for you, that they knew that there were Social Security monies in there.

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So at the point they filed it?

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Yes, absolutely.

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Piling of the request for a hearing by Mr. Huffman on the application for rent a garnishment specifically listed that it was invalid rent because of the fact that it's only Social Security monies in there.

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They went to the hearing, and at the hearing, Mr. Huffman represented himself and misquoted the statute governing the exemption status of all Social Security funds.

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He quoted it as 42 USC 207.

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It was actually 42 USC 407.

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I mean, to get technical, it's Section 207 of the Social Security Act, which is classified to Section 402 of the unenacted title.

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of the U.S.

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Code.

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So, I mean, it seemed to be a good faith error because practitioners will sometimes refer to those kinds of statutes by the underlying section number.

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I mean, that's not evidence of bad faith, is it, that he called it 207, then 407?

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I think maybe we're confusing the issue there.

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It was actually Bruce Huffman, the appellant, that actually misquoted the statute to the court at that time, not the Goodman law firm.

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So the court then issued a writ garnishing that account.

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And Mr. Huffman filed a motion for reconsideration on that after he obtained counsel and let the court and Goodman know that it's actually 42 USC 407 that was applicable here that states that the funds, the social security funds are exempt from any garnishment.

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Well, what about their argument that, hey,

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We're absolved of any of this because we have these policies and procedures in place.

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And we assume that those were followed here, et cetera, et cetera.

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And therefore, good faith.

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That's also a good question.

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It's his burden to prove that those policies and procedures in the law firm are reasonable.

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address that specific issue and there there is no testimony other than self-serving affidavits and an expert report that Reached a legal conclusion and the district court properly found that expert report could not get to that point, but addressing that expert report The list of

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The list of procedures and policies that the law firm had were very generic.

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And if you look at the record at 2-ER-203, you'll see the list that the expert came up with on the different policies and procedures at that law firm.

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And they're very broad and not tailored specifically to a situation related to governmental benefits and whether or not those are garnishable.

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And the case law says that if you don't have those specific procedures that are reasonably tailored to this specific type of situation, that those procedures are not appropriate.

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And that's the third element on the bona fide air attack defense.

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So I take your argument that it is the defendant's burden to show that the violation was unintentional.

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But I'm struggling with this particular element because I'm not

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It seems difficult to prove a negative.

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So you argue in your brief that it's not your burden to be able to show that it was intentional.

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It's their burden to show that it was unintentional.

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And they argue that there is nothing in the record to show that their conduct was intentional.

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So how does one prove a negative?

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Another very good question.

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I think you have to look at the totality of the circumstances and the conduct that was taken by Goodman Law during this whole proceeding.

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even after receiving notice, first of all, receiving notice that it was Social Security money and that Social Security money is exempt, receiving the motion for reconsideration, properly citing the case law saying, yeah, the CFR that you're citing exists, but that is simply there as a regulation for banks to follow when they receive a rate of garnishment.

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It is not the substantive law on whether or not Social Security money is exempt.

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And Goodman law was presented with that.

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in their response to their motion for reconsideration or the motion for reconsideration, they don't even address 42 USC 407.

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They just sidestep that completely and only address the CFR saying, oh, we have a good faith belief that the CFR is what controls here.

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But as any first-year law student would know, hornbook law is statutes going to govern over a regulation.

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If a statute is clear and it is enacted and it doesn't have any limitations

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It's going to govern over the CFR.

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42 USC 407 would govern that situation.

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They knew that.

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They still pursued the CFR argument.

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Time went by, regardless of knowing that.

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No action was taken by Goodman law to say, you know what?

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You're right, as any competent attorney would do when presented with irrefutable law.

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would say, I can't pursue this anymore.

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There's an actual code that prevents me from doing that.

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That never happened.

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Instead, they doubled down at oral argument and still tried to pound to the court, this CFR is what is controlling, and we have a good faith belief that this is what is controlling.

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And I think the idea that they're saying they have a good faith belief is that the underlying context is that they knew they didn't.

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and it becomes more of a factual inquiry.

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The statute under the bona fide error defense, it's strict liability and there's no mens rea sort of component.

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There are exceptions for mistake of fact versus mistake of law.

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But we believe that even if somehow this is a mistake of fact between the two different statutes, that

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That's still a factual inquiry that the jury has to get to a jury for the fact finder to decide on.

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So with that said, we believe that all the elements of the bona fide error defense are not met.

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Again not not to be the dead horse, but or seven to be able to establish that they are they're not that you're just need to establish that there is an issue of fact That's correct.

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Your honor.

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That's correct Moving on there were a couple of other arguments and and I apologize your honors I forgot to ask to reserve some time at this point I'll reserve if I can I'd reserve two minutes.

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Absolutely

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We're also here on the motion for summary judgment on unjust enrichment and conversion against Chase.

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We feel like the case law that we've cited and the arguments that we've advanced in the briefing are good.

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And if you had any questions related to that, there was a contract.

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The contract, though, didn't govern the specific issue.

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There was no provision really to

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bring a breach of contract on, our client didn't receive the benefit of his bargain of the contract, which is you deposit money, that money's available.

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Even assuming that there was a valid court order, which it turned out to be erroneous, even assuming that and giving chase the benefit of the doubt up until January 11, 2022 when the most reconsideration was granted.

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Chase received that information, and instead of making his deposits available as they were required to, they just dragged their feet for lack of a better term.

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You could see those emails.

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You could see that Mr. Huffman was getting increasingly upset about, hey, I need access to my $60,000 that's being held by Chase that's exempt money.

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And again, Chase dragged their feet.

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In the record, again, there is a

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Council, I guess I'm wondering if Chase simply froze the funds in compliance with the writ, what benefit did they receive?

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What benefit did Chase receive?

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I understand that part.

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Yeah, the argument there is that banks obviously don't keep the cash on hand.

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I mean, we're at that time in history where money is transferred back and forth digitally.

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That money is used by Chase

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to apologies.

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That money is used by Chase to earn interest or invest.

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And that would be the argument that there was some unjust enrichment there.

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If you look at 2-ER-117, there's a March 2, 2022 letter from Chase that specifically states that they received the ruling on February 14, 2022.

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But monies weren't freed up.

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The hold wasn't freed up until February 28, 2022.

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the monies weren't actually given to Bruce until March 26th, 2022.

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So even assuming now we're taking away the January 11th, they still had the letter confirms that they knew the motion for reconsideration was granted and the writ was invalid as of February 14th, 2022.

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And with that, I'll reserve the remaining of my time.

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Thank you, Your Honors.

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Thank you, Counsel.

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And we'll hear next from Ms.

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Jankaitis.

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Did I pronounce that correct?

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That was perfect.

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Thank you, Your Honor.

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May it please the Court?

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My name is Kelly Jankaitis.

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I'm here with Broning Oberwoodson-Wilson, representing Mr. Goodman and Goodman Law.

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I'd like to jump right into the unintentional prong of the bona fide error defense.

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Again, the question here is not whether there's proof that Goodman acted unintentionally.

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It's whether there's a genuine issue of material fact in the record regarding

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whether the conduct was intentional or unintentional.

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So I'm going to ask you the same question I asked your friend on the other side, which is it seems to me that there needs to be something more than simply pointing to the allegation.

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The allegation in the complaint is that this is an intentional violation.

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The burden is on the defendant to show that it was unintentional.

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Can you simply

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say as you did in your summary judgment motion that there's nothing to show that it was intentional therefore I don't have to do anything more.

[00:15:56] Speaker 01:
I think that the answer is yes in order to get to the second step of the summary judgment process which is for then the plaintiff to come forward with evidence.

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that the jury could find otherwise.

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And that's what the defect is in this case, is that it's undisputed that Goodman's going to testify at trial that they did not intentionally violate the FDCPA.

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That gets us to the second step.

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There is no contrary evidence to suggest that they, in fact, acted intentionally and that this was just contrived.

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Hold on, hold on.

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This is a law firm that has practiced in this area of law, is that correct?

[00:16:39] Speaker 01:
Yes.

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And has practiced in this area of law for umpteen number of years, correct?

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Yes.

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And so you all know that you're not supposed to garnish these benefits, correct?

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The evidence in this record is that these attorneys had never had a situation where they garnished an account where there was more than what was withheld by the bank that could be subject to an exemption and that they- That's a wonderful answer to a different question, but my question was whether or not you all knew that you weren't supposed to take funds that were these federal benefits from an account.

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You all knew that, correct?

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That evidence is not in this record.

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That's a conclusion that the plaintiff is asking you to infer from the fact that they are asserting that these attorneys knew or should have known a fact.

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And what they're arguing is that reasonably competent attorneys.

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He was contending that it was.

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And you know, going to my colloquy with counsel, he gave the unenacted code number.

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He said that they were social security funds.

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So at what point does the evidence get to a state where, given what you've been put on notice of, an inference of intentionality could be drawn by a rational prior effect?

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Sure.

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Well, first, there's no authority cited that suggests that you can infer intent from a lesser meant state like negligence.

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Secondarily, there isn't any evidence in this record of negligence.

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The claim is that a reasonably competent attorney, and it's exactly what counsel said earlier, a competent attorney would have done X, Y, and Z, and that's negligence.

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Surely we all- But the burden is on you all to present evidence, right?

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Isn't the burden on you all to present that we had a good faith, belief?

[00:18:31] Speaker 01:
The burden is on the defendant to present evidence that leads to that conclusion, which we did.

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There's evidence in the record that our attorneys will testify that they didn't act intentionally, that the attorneys researched.

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Isn't that the textbook definition of a fact, just issue, a genuine issue of fact?

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that there are these two competing views about whether or not the violation was intentional?

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Sure.

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The difference is that there's evidence to support our position and there's only argument to support the plaintiff's position.

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The question that is going to go to the jury is what a reasonably competent attorney would have done.

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Everybody in this room has an opinion about what my clients should have known because we're all lawyers or we're going to be lawyers.

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But this case is going to go to a jury

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Well, Counsel, even your first argument, though, I mean, I guess even that would raise a question of fact that we, I think you argued that, oh, we've never found a situation where, you know, there was this large amount of money, larger than the normal deposits or whatever.

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But why not let a jury decide that?

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That's a factual dispute that you would claim, hey, we've never had a situation where this has happened before.

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So we were not really on notice that there would be these federal benefits there.

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That seems to be a dispute of fact.

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It's only a disputed fact if there's some evidence to the contrary.

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And there's no evidence to the contrary in this case.

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You don't think an allegation of the complaint at some judgment stage suffices?

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An allegation of the complaint is definitely not evidence.

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And counsel has argued about what the attorneys knew or should have known.

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But a jury needs evidence to make that decision.

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This room is not a typical jury pool.

[00:20:18] Speaker 01:
My dad is a roofer, my mom is an administrator in a mine.

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After almost 20 years of going to dinner with them after being an attorney, they still grill me on whether I'm sure that they don't have to consent to a search during a traffic stop.

[00:20:30] Speaker 01:
They have no idea what attorneys knew or should know.

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They don't know what a horn book is.

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They don't know whether it's ever acceptable to make an argument that expands or extends horn book law, whether.

[00:20:44] Speaker 03:
In Goodman's motion for summary judgment, it asserted that it believed, quote, in good faith, end quote, in its theory that some of Mr. Huffman's social security benefits were subject to garnishment.

[00:20:56] Speaker 03:
But that's a legal error, correct?

[00:20:58] Speaker 03:
I mean, as just sort of an objective matter of law,

[00:21:03] Speaker 03:
some of those Social Security funds were not garnishable, correct?

[00:21:07] Speaker 01:
Sure, and that is the collateral legal determination that the bona fide error extends to.

[00:21:13] Speaker 03:
What I'm getting at is how can that be a good faith belief if it is legally erroneous and it is something that lawyers who do this kind of work

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actually should know, not my mom or your mom or somebody who has nothing to do with the legal profession.

[00:21:31] Speaker 03:
But these are lawyers who do work in this area.

[00:21:34] Speaker 01:
Sure.

[00:21:34] Speaker 01:
And the point I'm not getting to is that the juror doesn't know, the average juror doesn't know what debt collection attorney should know.

[00:21:43] Speaker 03:
I'm asking if that argument that Goodman made, that it acted in good faith, but its good faith belief was premised on an illegal pair.

[00:21:53] Speaker 01:
The existence of a legal error isn't determinative of whether someone acts in bad faith.

[00:21:59] Speaker 01:
I'm here today making a legal argument that I might lose.

[00:22:02] Speaker 01:
And it would not be fair for you to find that I made these arguments in bad faith just because I'm not successful.

[00:22:08] Speaker 03:
It's between bad faith and good faith.

[00:22:10] Speaker 03:
I'm not talking about bad faith.

[00:22:13] Speaker 03:
I'm talking about the argument that was presented to rebut the allegation that the violation was intentional.

[00:22:21] Speaker 03:
And that argument that was made in summary judgment was that Goodman acted in good faith because it believed some of the social security funds could be garnished.

[00:22:30] Speaker 03:
And you agree with me as you stand here today that that is wrong.

[00:22:34] Speaker 01:
That does appear to be wrong.

[00:22:35] Speaker 01:
But this is not an area of the law I practice in.

[00:22:37] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:22:37] Speaker 03:
So the question that I have is, how can that be made in good faith if it is legally wrong and made by lawyers who practice this area of the law?

[00:22:50] Speaker 01:
It can be in good faith if it's not intentional.

[00:22:54] Speaker 01:
They were didn't intentionally misrepresent.

[00:22:58] Speaker 01:
The law.

[00:22:59] Speaker 03:
Okay, so your answer is that if it wasn't in bad faith, then we can infer good.

[00:23:03] Speaker 01:
Well, we don't even have to infer good faith or bad faith.

[00:23:06] Speaker 01:
The standards intentional or unintentional, and it's a subjective standard for the bona fide error defense.

[00:23:12] Speaker 01:
Whether they actually had an intent of NS and its specific intent to had an intent to violate the FTCPA.

[00:23:24] Speaker 01:
So going back to this issue of negligence, it remains our position that an attorney can't just come to a jury and say, of course, they should have known this.

[00:23:31] Speaker 01:
There needs to be evidence in the record.

[00:23:32] Speaker 01:
If this was a malpractice case, obviously there'd be an expert to testify.

[00:23:35] Speaker 01:
This is what's reasonably expected of an attorney under these circumstances.

[00:23:39] Speaker 01:
There is not evidence of that in this record.

[00:23:41] Speaker 01:
There is only argument from counsel which isn't evidence.

[00:23:48] Speaker 01:
We continue to believe that there's no issue of fact regarding this being a bona fide error that qualifies for the defense.

[00:23:56] Speaker 01:
Council's real objection is whether it was intentional or not.

[00:23:59] Speaker 01:
This is the legal determination about whether an exemption applies that doesn't have to do with the interpretation and application of the FDCP itself, which is what German and then Kaiser say as far as eligibility.

[00:24:12] Speaker 01:
And there's also no contrary evidence about the reasonableness of the procedures that were in place.

[00:24:18] Speaker 01:
There's a whole list of formal and informal procedures that Goodman Law had enacted to ensure that its lawyers were educated on the law.

[00:24:29] Speaker 01:
They're not required to be perfect.

[00:24:31] Speaker 01:
They're not required to be 100% successful.

[00:24:33] Speaker 01:
I think that opposing counsels reading it too narrowly, whether these were specifically

[00:24:41] Speaker 01:
excuse me, intended to prevent errors in the garnishment of federal benefits, but what they were specifically intended to do was to avoid errors like the one that occurred here where a legal argument was made that was unsuccessful and incorrect.

[00:24:59] Speaker 01:
We'd ask you to affirm the summary judgment.

[00:25:01] Speaker 05:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:25:03] Speaker 05:
We'll hear now from Mr. Sherwood.

[00:25:18] Speaker 00:
May it please the court, Elliott Scherker on behalf of JP Morgan Chase.

[00:25:23] Speaker 00:
It's become clear this morning how reduced Huffman's case against Chase has become.

[00:25:29] Speaker 00:
The broad allegation of over a year during which his monies were improperly held causing three common law torts has become a matter of weeks, if not a matter of days when he supposedly was unable to access his funds at the bank.

[00:25:47] Speaker 00:
The summary judgment on unjust enrichment was based on the fundamental principle that there's no recovery for unjust enrichment if the party's rights and obligations are covered by a valid contract.

[00:25:59] Speaker 00:
Here, the deposit agreement, the DAA, governs the legal relationship between Chase and Huffman.

[00:26:06] Speaker 00:
Now, to be sure, there's some softness in Arizona law on whether the unjust enrichment claim will lie if a valid contract exists, but the plaintiff has not received what is due under the contract.

[00:26:17] Speaker 00:
And the question, frankly, has been batted back and forth between the Arizona District Court and the Arizona State Courts.

[00:26:23] Speaker 00:
But the law is not.

[00:26:25] Speaker 00:
and cannot be that a plaintiff who proves a breach of contract also can get relief for unjust enrichment.

[00:26:33] Speaker 00:
The issue is, if not resolved, at least harmonized in the State Court trust mark decision.

[00:26:41] Speaker 00:
The Arizona Court of Appeals, in that case, affirmed a JMOL

[00:26:45] Speaker 00:
for the defendant on an unjust enrichment claim, quoting, because contractual documents govern the relationship of the parties, the trial court properly.

[00:26:54] Speaker 06:
Yes, sir.

[00:26:56] Speaker 06:
I take their argument earlier to mean that, at the very least, Chase knew that, at the time of the motion to reconsider, that we were talking about social security funds.

[00:27:06] Speaker 06:
You were informed that they were there, that they should not be released.

[00:27:12] Speaker 06:
Their argument is that, at that point,

[00:27:14] Speaker 06:
not releasing them, I understand that point to be, that not releasing them at that point is the unjust enrichment from gaining interest, et cetera, for that period of time.

[00:27:24] Speaker 00:
That's, I think, what they are.

[00:27:26] Speaker 00:
The funds were still frozen after that hearing.

[00:27:30] Speaker 00:
It was after the order was entered and when Chase received the order, at some point thereafter, and then the funds were unfrozen.

[00:27:40] Speaker 00:
It wasn't that the funds were frozen,

[00:27:43] Speaker 00:
that whole period of time.

[00:27:44] Speaker 00:
It's that Huffman on his own hook demanded cash upfront and didn't get it right away.

[00:27:50] Speaker 00:
And that's really the longest period of time that's involved here.

[00:27:54] Speaker 00:
Because otherwise it's a matter of days and weeks that he wasn't able to access the money, he says.

[00:28:00] Speaker 00:
The time between Chase receiving the order and unfreezing the funds

[00:28:04] Speaker 00:
But once the funds went frozen, he had full access to that.

[00:28:07] Speaker 00:
And if you look at his responses on interrogatories, he says, well, I was going to use the money for ordinary things as I needed it.

[00:28:16] Speaker 00:
Maybe I was going to buy a car.

[00:28:17] Speaker 00:
Well, he could have easily done that with money in the account.

[00:28:20] Speaker 00:
He didn't need to have $60,000 in cash to accomplish his goals.

[00:28:25] Speaker 00:
So that's the unjust enrichment we're supposedly talking about.

[00:28:30] Speaker 00:
And there's no allegation that that short period of time caused the vast damages that he pleads, for example, on intentional infliction of emotional distress.

[00:28:42] Speaker 00:
It wasn't even a matter of months.

[00:28:46] Speaker 00:
Now, a plaintiff can recover on unjust enrichment where there is a contract.

[00:28:53] Speaker 00:
if there's a payment for services rendered despite the plaintiff losing the breach of contract claim.

[00:28:59] Speaker 00:
No such allegation here, and it didn't happen here.

[00:29:01] Speaker 03:
So your view is that the contract claim... Absolutely, Your Honor.

[00:29:05] Speaker 00:
He knew that we could freeze the money.

[00:29:07] Speaker 00:
He knew that he couldn't get cash immediately.

[00:29:09] Speaker 00:
That's the contract.

[00:29:11] Speaker 00:
And that governs the conversion claim as well, because there was no question here of a right to immediate possession of identifiable monies.

[00:29:18] Speaker 00:
Under Arizona law,

[00:29:20] Speaker 00:
Funds in a bank account can be subject to a claim for conversion only if the funds are, quote, described, identified, or segregated, and an obligation to treat the funds in a specific manner is established.

[00:29:33] Speaker 00:
Now, Your Honor just noted that it wasn't until the reconsideration hearing in state court that there's any evidence in this record that Chase knew about the funds being Social Security monies.

[00:29:44] Speaker 00:
So during the entire, almost the entire period of time that's alleged in the complaint, there's no evidence that we knew those monies had to be treated in any specific way.

[00:29:54] Speaker 00:
And Huffman doesn't come forward with any evidence that he instructed us to create a separate social security fund or anything like that.

[00:30:01] Speaker 00:
And as he said, he was just going to use those monies for ordinary expenses.

[00:30:05] Speaker 00:
As the district court found,

[00:30:09] Speaker 00:
Huffman, quote, failed to point to any evidence in the record that Chase had an established obligation to treat that money in a specific manner and, quote, failed to point to any provisions in the DAA or elsewhere that showed Chase was obligated to treat this money any differently than a general deposit agreement.

[00:30:26] Speaker 00:
Finally, on the intentional infliction of mental distress, emotional distress, I think I've made our position on that clear.

[00:30:32] Speaker 00:
And I note only, again, that we're dealing with this very, very short period of time now during which supposedly vast emotional distress was inflicted on Mr. Huffman when we never knew until the reconsideration hearing that those were Social Security monies and he had access to them, merely he didn't have access to $60,000 in cash immediately.

[00:30:56] Speaker 00:
We'll rely on our brief for the other issues.

[00:30:57] Speaker 00:
Thank you very much.

[00:30:58] Speaker 05:
All right.

[00:30:58] Speaker 05:
Thank you, Council.

[00:30:59] Speaker 05:
We'll hear rebuttal now.

[00:31:12] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Your Honors.

[00:31:13] Speaker 02:
Just would like to address a couple of quick points.

[00:31:16] Speaker 02:
In relation to the Goodman intentional versus unintentional argument and the bona fide error defense,

[00:31:24] Speaker 02:
There are two controlling United States Supreme Court cases on the exemption of Social Security funds.

[00:31:31] Speaker 02:
And the first one was decided over 60 years ago.

[00:31:35] Speaker 02:
And the second one cites to that case and was decided 50 years ago.

[00:31:40] Speaker 02:
And those are, those are the Phil Pot and the Porter cases.

[00:31:49] Speaker 06:
I know you want to cite those and you can in a sec, but I guess her argument is that, look, there was an absence of evidence that you presented.

[00:32:01] Speaker 06:
They have these declarations saying, you know, hey, we didn't know or something to that effect.

[00:32:07] Speaker 02:
There's an email chain in response to that in the record, starting at 2-ER-062.

[00:32:15] Speaker 02:
And it runs to 2-ER-067.

[00:32:21] Speaker 02:
In that email chain, the Goodman Law Supervising Paralegal and Ashley Moscarello, the attorney, are discussing Bruce Huffman's assets.

[00:32:39] Speaker 02:
with their private investigator.

[00:32:41] Speaker 02:
And they're talking.

[00:32:41] Speaker 02:
And on July 7, in 2-ER-064, Ashley, the attorney, actually says, the debtor is claiming that the funds in the account are exempt social security, but I doubt the full amount is exempt.

[00:32:54] Speaker 02:
That was on July 7, two and a half weeks before the motion for reconsideration was filed.

[00:33:01] Speaker 02:
I'm at my time.

[00:33:02] Speaker 02:
Unless you have any questions, I would ask that you reverse the district court's decision and allow this case to move forward.

[00:33:09] Speaker 05:
All right, thank you, counsel.

[00:33:10] Speaker 05:
Thank all counsels on both sides for the helpful arguments in this case.

[00:33:16] Speaker 05:
And the case just argued will be submitted.