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Case number 17-5269, Angel Edds, a limited appellate versus United States of America.

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may please the court your honor's George Chalice on behalf of Appellant Angel X. This is a case that comes to this court as one of first impression and it is a challenge to the reasonableness of the Coast Guard's actions in detaining a vessel in the port of Norfolk.

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back in April of 2013.

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Almost five years to the day, the vessel was released following a failed prosecution of the vessel's ship's owner, the appellant here, Angel X, and the ship's contractual manager, a company called Cassian Maritime Navigation Agency.

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Now in that matter, the dispute arose because the government detained the vessel

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in exchange for a variety of demands on the owner and the operator of the ship, which included a financial bond as well as non-financial terms.

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The question of whether the Coast Guard could make those demands is not before the court.

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That was here in a case called Watervale.

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And at the time, this circuit, as well as the Fourth Circuit said, the Coast Guard has the authority to do these demands.

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But what Watervale left open, as the Fourth Circuit left open, is the question of is the action reasonable?

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Because both courts recognized that 1904H provides an after-the-fact remedy.

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to an aggrieved owner, such as the appellant in this case.

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Now we submit that the district court got it wrong because the district court said that it did not need to address the reasonableness of the terms.

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The district court got it wrong because it said that the max fine of the owner and the operator is, as a matter of law, reasonable.

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But the district court missed the ball, and I'd say missed the boat in this case, because the only asset, what we're talking about,

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is the ship.

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And the only ownership interest in the ship belongs to Angel X. Can we go back a moment?

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In assessing the reasonableness of what the Coast Guard insisted upon, don't we have to look at what the record shows us as to what the boat

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owners presented to the Coast Guard.

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I agree Your Honor.

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And what do we have in the record supporting the claim of an indebtedness which engulfed the value of the ship itself?

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The Coast Guard at the time when this matter was pending before the Eastern District of Virginia before Judge Dumar, the Coast Guard asked for and were provided financials of the ship owner, Angel X. The question is, are any of those in the record of this case?

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Sure, absolutely not.

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Absolutely.

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In fact, part of our gripe with the District Court's decision is- Where in the record?

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Where are they?

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It's from the district court case.

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It's from the administrative record.

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It's from all those things, which... Can you point us to the Joint Appendix?

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Is there a Joint Appendix site or you weren't able to find him?

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I don't believe it was included in the Joint Appendix, but it was certainly evidence and is evidence before the court in the district court.

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The district court didn't think so.

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Yeah, that's what one of the errors the district court made.

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The district court also said that as far as it was concerned, the question of reason... What exactly was provided when you say the financials?

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I don't remember the details.

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I know for sure it was unaudited financial statements, balance sheets, profit and loss.

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There were some emails describing what the financial statements would say.

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No, the emails, Your Honor, were a description of the vessel's mortgage indebtedness.

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There is a mortgage that was recorded in the Coast Guard.

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Would you agree that if these financial statements are not in the record,

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That's fatal to your argument here.

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I don't agree, Your Honor, because we would have presented testimonial evidence at trial for the owner of the ship and representatives of the owner of the ship who would have come in and testified.

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Now, the government can't take advantage of the fact that it didn't call any witnesses for deposition.

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We identified at least eight witnesses.

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We identified documents and subjects that they would have testified about.

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I mean, the Coast Guard identified... You had a duty to come forward with evidence of factual disputes at the summary judgment stage, did you not?

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Yes, we do, of course we do.

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And so the admissible evidence that you came forward with was what?

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The administrative record that was before the court in the Eastern District of Virginia and the Fourth Circuit and all of which would have been... That's awfully big and vague.

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Is there anything more specific?

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On the topic of financials or inability, there certainly would have been evidence as to the company's financial position.

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There would have been the charter party, which would explain what the vessel's earning capacity was.

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There was the mortgage indebtedness, which is a matter of public record.

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It can be found through the vessel's flag state registry and there would have been testimonial evidence from representatives of the ship owner who would have come in and explained very clearly that this ship was upside down and by not being able to trade it was almost a near near death for the company.

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You say in your brief that the district court erred because there are several disputed issues of material fact.

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But as I look at those, all the ones that you list are about process.

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who actually made the decision, what they actually considered, what they were thinking.

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But why is that relevant?

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The question is whether the agency's action was reasonable.

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And I don't see anything in the statute that imposes any process requirements.

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It's just objective reasonableness.

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So why are any of those even relevant?

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Right, so the statute talks to an unreasonable delay.

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And so I agree that the statute and the regs don't provide a process which the Coast Guard must follow.

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In fact, I would agree with the government that the statute generally defers to the Coast Guard on what process that they would use.

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But where I disagree with the government in this regard is

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that 1904H, after the fact remedy, is the safeguard or backstop, if you will, that the processes, or however you would say it in the plural, that are employed must be reasonable.

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Wait, wait, I lost you there.

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I was with you up until your last sentence.

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I thought at the beginning that you and I were in agreement.

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the statute doesn't impose any process.

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Specific or express process.

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Correct, right.

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So now how do you get to getting process back in?

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So 1904H provides a standard for which the decision-making process must follow.

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And that that standard is one of reasonableness.

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And it would be unreasonable, and that's the way the statute's written in terms of unreasonable,

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It would be unreasonable not to look at the totality of the circumstances, and we point out specific incidents where the government or Coast Guard, in this case, put their head in the sand and did not do things that would have been reasonable, such as they asked for financials, they did no analysis.

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They imposed the maximum fine as their calculation, but they did it

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for both the vessel owner, Angel X, and the non-party who has no ownership or equity interest in the vessel.

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So that's unreasonable because there's no in rem right or quasi in rem right against the vessel for any fine or penalty that might be imposed against the operator or an individual or anybody else.

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It's the property of Angel X and only Angel X.

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At what point in time are we supposed to measure the reasonableness of the government's actions in delaying the ship?

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under 1904H use sort of 20-20 hindsight, or do we look back at the time they made the decisions to impose the bond that they did and say, given the information they had, the information they didn't have, was it reasonable?

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Which time frame do we use?

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In this case, I think it's a distinction.

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In this case, under the statute, under 1904H, in all cases, what time frame do we use?

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Yeah, so I think that it has to be a contemporaneous snapshot and follow the evolution of the case.

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In this matter, I think that the question of whether it's 2020 hindsight or doing that process that we just spoke about is a distinction without a difference.

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The Coast Guard did not.

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Do you agree that we look, when you say contemporaneous, you mean at the time they actually made the decision, the decision to impose the bond and the amount of the bond?

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Right, but Your Honor, our complaint goes beyond that.

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It's not a snapshot of when they took the decision.

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It's the failure to continue to reassess the decision throughout the nearly six months that the vessel sat.

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Has the government allowed, at this sort of pre-prosecution stage, to disbelieve evidence that's submitted by the ship owner?

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I think they are, but there's no dispute that the only company that has an ownership or equitable interest in the Antonis G. Papadakis vessel was Angel X. Yes, but could they disagree about, put it in a hypothetical case, not this one, could they disagree with ship owners assertions of innocence or lack of knowledge or lack of affiliation with someone else's bad activities?

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In another case, could they disagree?

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if differing minds could reasonably agree to disagree, yeah.

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But again, the standard's reasonable.

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Your Honor, I know my time is up, but I'd like to point the panel to Joint Appendix at page 390.

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And what's important about that is, that's the captain of the port, Captain John Little's testimony.

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And he, by DOJ designation and by admission of other Coast Guard, more senior Coast Guard representatives, said that Captain Little,

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was the individual with the authority to decide what's satisfactory and unsatisfactory, what's reasonable and what's unreasonable.

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And Little himself testified, and you find it in Joint Appendix 390, that the bond conditions that Judge Dumas imposed, the $1.5 million bond, which is the equivalent of the maximum fine against the ship owner,

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was reasonable.

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He says it was not unsatisfactory to him.

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So if he is the individual tasked with the authority to decide what's reasonable and what's unreasonable, what's satisfactory and what's unsatisfactory, and he says that $1.5 million on the financial terms was a reasonable, satisfactory figure, plus other things, which we haven't spoken about in this argument, isn't it unreasonable to demand something more than that?

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When the man with the authority

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His decision was reversed by the Fourth Circuit.

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It wasn't reversed.

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It was basically vacated on the finding, that he didn't have subject-matter jurisdiction.

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Yeah, so if he had no subject-matter jurisdiction, he had no authority to make any determination with respect to the reasonableness of this.

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That may be right.

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He was without jurisdiction.

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That may be right, but it doesn't mean he was wrong.

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Let me ask you a slightly unrelated question with respect to the non-monetary provisions.

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Am I right?

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Do I read this record correctly that at the time Judge Dumon made his decision, your client didn't object to any of the non-monetary?

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Angel X agreed.

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The owner of the ship agreed.

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Well, that's the only party before us here, right?

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That's correct.

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Okay, so then how under this statute can you challenge it?

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Because obviously the actions of the agency didn't cause

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And he lost you.

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No, it did, Your Honor, and I'll explain why.

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Because you're talking about one pile of money, and the money can be paid to you, it can be paid in part to Judge Williams, it can be paid in part to Judge Malay.

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But I can't give it all to you and still give a little bit to the other judges, right?

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So in this circumstance, when you lump it all together, it was too much.

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With the reduced bond, which had to be secured dollar for dollar, the company was able to... Didn't the district court find that your client stated that even without the non-monetary conditions, they could not supply the bond?

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That's right.

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That's 100% correct.

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But the point is... Doesn't that resolve that point then?

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It does not.

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It doesn't really make any difference, right?

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Because your client is on record saying,

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even without the non-monetary conditions, it could not have satisfied demand.

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No, that misses the point completely, and I'll explain why if I may.

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Sure.

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Willing to agree to something when the gun is against your head is very different than making it reasonable.

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The test isn't whether you can beg, borrow, and steal, and make this deal to get your ship back in service.

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What it says here is that they, our client, was working very hard to meet the government's demands because it was facing almost a short extinction if they didn't.

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They went out and the record would show, if we had more of an opportunity to develop the factual record, that they secured lending to put up the bond and they secured funding to cover the expenses which largely would have come from the ship's continual trade.

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It would have been basically a little bit behind, but as they would have earned monies and fees from the ship trading, they would have been able to cover the housing, the hotels, the costs, and so forth.

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But without getting the ship into service, without getting a bond that was reachable, without being able to earn

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future income, the whole deal fell apart.

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So it's incorrect to look at them as two separate and distinct obligations that if it was good enough under this circumstance, it would be good enough under that circumstance.

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That goes one step too far and misstates what the fact, the contemporaneous facts were at the time.

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Thank you.

[00:15:40] Speaker 05:
Thank you.

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We'll hear from the government.

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May it please the court and Murphy for the United States.

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Your Honor, I'd like, if I might, to just describe the statutory scheme a little bit, and that will explain why Cassian.

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It was also reasonable for the government to demand a bond that would include money that represents Cassian's potential liability.

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Under section 1908e,

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the government has to refuse or revoke the vessel's clearance if there's a reasonable cause to believe that the pollution laws were violated.

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And this Court in Watervale recognized that under the statutes, the government can simply hold the ship until the criminal proceedings are completed.

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That's reasonable and I don't believe that it's disputed.

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It's also undisputed that here it was reasonable for the government to initially withhold the clearance.

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So as the district court recognized here, when you get to the part where the secretary may grant clearance, it doesn't, she doesn't have, he or she doesn't have to, but may grant clearance, the government's entitled to a set of conditions that put the government in a no worse position than it would be in if it had kept the vessel.

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Do you accept the idea that that's subject to review for reasonableness?

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We do accept that in this separate subsequent action, it is subject to review for reasonableness, yes, Your Honor.

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So as the district court recognized, any condition that makes the agreement an effective substitute for the presence of the vessel is going to be reasonable.

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And here, Cassian's liability is cleared just from the statute.

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Under subsection A, it makes it a criminal penalty for a person to violate Marpol.

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Subsection E, you can withhold clearance if the vessel's owner, operator, or person in charge is liable.

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And then the liability in rem precision makes the ship liable for any fine imposed without regard to whether it's against the owner, the operator, or anyone else.

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So how do we review the satisfactory to the secretary decision under 1908 later, under 1904 age?

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How are we supposed to determine whether in any given case the decision either not to grant a bond at all or to grant a bond that was too large for them to meet is unreasonable?

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How would that ever be reviewed?

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I think you just have to look at the statutory scheme.

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You have to look at the Secretary's interest in prosecuting the vessel.

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And to the extent that it's within the Secretary's discretion, that the Coast Guard acted within its discretion, I think that's going to be reasonable.

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What would be an example of an unreasonable?

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What would be outside the discretion?

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Since you say they don't have to give a bond at all.

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Well, let's say that in this case, the owner and the operator had said, OK, you caught us.

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We were polluting.

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We are willing to put out the full amount of all of the criminal penalties and agree to the non-financial conditions.

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And the secretary said, I've changed my mind.

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I don't think I'm going to let you go.

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You veer into a point that struck me about the district court opinion.

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And that was the idea that the maximum chargeable fines were, if so facto, reasonable.

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But we know that Congress often sets penalties way in excess of what it expects.

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judges or other authorities to levy.

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And so it seems to me a stretch to think that any fine specified in the statute automatically represents the floor for reasonableness.

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We're on a couple of points on that.

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First of all, the bond and the penalty and the maximum fine also involve charging discretion by the Coast Guard.

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So, for example, here, the Papadakis... Yes, but suppose it's plain, the Coast Guard looking at all the facts then available to it.

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can see that this is a case that is not going to produce the maximum fine.

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Right?

[00:20:13] Speaker 00:
But Your Honor, at the time that the decision's being made... I'm talking about at the time.

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Right.

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At the time, nobody knows how the criminal trial is going to progress.

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I mean, at the time the initial decision was made, there was only one violation charged, and events kind of moved.

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And I think what the... You're going beyond the district judge.

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You're suggesting that

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All kinds of additional charges might develop, presumably, with all kinds of new maximums.

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But what's relevant, Your Honor, is at the time that the discussions over the bond demand are going on, I think the district court was absolutely right.

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At that time, nobody knows what the conviction is going to look like, or even if there's going to be a conviction.

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Because remember, the point is to leave a substitute for the presence of the vessel.

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The government needn't be any worse off than it would be if it had the ship.

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Was there any duty to revisit that judgment as facts develop?

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Imagine you set the bond and then as you investigate it turns out the ship was hijacked and it was the pirates who were dumping all the gunk into the sea.

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Do we still just look back, as you said, at the time of the initial decision?

[00:21:27] Speaker 00:
No, Your Honor.

[00:21:28] Speaker 03:
Well, how often do we revisit?

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I mean, how do we assess the reasonableness of this whole thing?

[00:21:32] Speaker 00:
Well, eventually, there's either going to be a security agreement or we're going to keep the vessel.

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So here, it's a little bit difficult to assess because there was never actually final office.

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The negotiations were still ongoing.

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when Angel X's council went to court and started litigation in the Fourth Circuit.

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And then after the Fourth Circuit made its decision, there was another effort by the government to reach out to Angel X, and that's at JA 418, to see if we could have another negotiation.

[00:22:04] Speaker 00:
So at any point, there's going to be some doubt perhaps about if there's no Syria agreement is reached about quite what the offers were.

[00:22:14] Speaker 00:
So I think all you can do at this point is since the vessel didn't leave and the question is was it reasonable for the Coast Guard to keep it is to look at that set of circumstances in this case.

[00:22:27] Speaker 03:
So your test of reasonableness is as long as it leaves the government in the same position it would be if the ship were there.

[00:22:32] Speaker 00:
Correct.

[00:22:33] Speaker 03:
Which then has no adjustment for overcharging

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penalties that are way higher than anybody really thinks they're ever going to seek, let alone recover.

[00:22:45] Speaker 03:
As long as they charge it up high, they're good.

[00:22:48] Speaker 00:
But that's not clear that, I mean, it's not clear that that's what happened.

[00:22:51] Speaker 03:
I'm asking about your legal tests for unreasonableness and that keep them in the same position as if the boat were there, sort of is going to insulate you from everything.

[00:23:03] Speaker 00:
What the district court said was you need something objective that you can tell right at the beginning because don't forget these are normally taking place really over hours and days because the ship wants to go on its way and the government wants to protect its interest in prosecuting the crimes.

[00:23:18] Speaker 00:
So I'd also like to add this is the only case that we're aware of in which there was an inability to reach an agreement.

[00:23:25] Speaker 03:
I'm just trying to understand what the test for unreasonable delay is when the unreasonableness is trying to measure whether something was reasonably satisfactory to the secretary at some prior time.

[00:23:38] Speaker 03:
And as you said, I get that upfront, in the first immediate moments,

[00:23:44] Speaker 03:
It might be hard, but you agreed that you don't just stop and then over that you have to reevaluate the reasonableness of the bond over time as the investigation develops.

[00:23:54] Speaker 03:
So what is the test?

[00:23:55] Speaker 00:
But I think that just the facts of what's going to happen here is

[00:24:01] Speaker 00:
Either there will be a security agreement or there won't.

[00:24:04] Speaker 00:
So say, for example, we held the vessel and facts came to light that showed that, you know, Angel X was not going to be a viable defendant, but Cassian would.

[00:24:15] Speaker 00:
Then, you know, the reasonableness of asking for, you know, a bond to secure financial penalties against Cassian would go away.

[00:24:22] Speaker 00:
or angelics, whichever.

[00:24:24] Speaker 00:
So then you'd need to negotiate on the basis of the lower amount.

[00:24:28] Speaker 03:
But how are courts supposed to do this after the fact?

[00:24:30] Speaker 03:
Because what will happen is they'll say, hey, we gave you evidence that we were innocent.

[00:24:34] Speaker 03:
And the government will go, well, we didn't know.

[00:24:36] Speaker 03:
We were still investigating.

[00:24:38] Speaker 03:
And nothing's going to be certain enough to keep the government in the same position it would be as if the ship were there until things are actually proved at trial, are they?

[00:24:46] Speaker 00:
Well, I mean, here we

[00:24:50] Speaker 00:
I think that's why the district court said

[00:24:53] Speaker 00:
We know the government can keep the ship, so it's reasonable for the government not to put itself in a worse position.

[00:25:00] Speaker 03:
But we don't know the government can reasonably keep the ship, do we?

[00:25:03] Speaker 00:
Yes, we do.

[00:25:04] Speaker 00:
I think we know that just from the statute, because the statute says that the government has to revoke the clearance.

[00:25:11] Speaker 00:
That's not even optional for the secretary.

[00:25:14] Speaker 00:
We know that the government may give the departure clearance, and we know from Waterville that there's very broad discretion over that.

[00:25:21] Speaker 03:
And the other thing to note is that we know that after the fact, we can evaluate the reasonableness of that decision not to give a bond.

[00:25:29] Speaker 03:
Are you saying, it sounds like your argument that we don't, that you can always keep the ship.

[00:25:33] Speaker 03:
We can always keep the ship.

[00:25:37] Speaker 03:
By nature, I mean that any bond will always be reasonable because it'll be better than keeping the ship.

[00:25:46] Speaker 00:
It doesn't mean that any bond will be reasonable, but the district court was correct that any bond up to the amount of the maximum penalties is going to be reasonable.

[00:25:54] Speaker 00:
And the reason we know we can keep the ship, Your Honor, is because under Section 1908D, it provides for liability in rem for the fine imposed.

[00:26:04] Speaker 00:
And by the time the fine's imposed, there's been a criminal trial, and the statute presupposes that the vessel is still there.

[00:26:11] Speaker 00:
So I think the district court is just correct.

[00:26:13] Speaker 00:
that we can keep the vessel.

[00:26:16] Speaker 00:
The statute requires us to at least keep the ship for an amount of time.

[00:26:21] Speaker 00:
And if we can't come to terms, then it is reasonable for the government to protect its entire interests.

[00:26:26] Speaker 03:
I'm just trying to understand how Congress could have had a statutory provision for unreasonable delay or detention, unreasonable detention, if, under your theory, detention is inherently allowed and reasonable.

[00:26:38] Speaker 00:
Well, I assume that there's no issue about the detention in this case, but I'm assuming that a ship could come in and say, you should never have detained me because there was no Marpol violation.

[00:26:51] Speaker 00:
That's not an issue in this case.

[00:26:54] Speaker 00:
And the reason that the statute is in here, I can't actually answer that question.

[00:26:57] Speaker 00:
It's a requirement of Marpol.

[00:27:00] Speaker 00:
I believe it's Article 7.

[00:27:01] Speaker 00:
that one of the things that the country's legislation has to have is a remedy for unreasonable detention or delay.

[00:27:10] Speaker 05:
You said in response to a question that this was the only case where the parties weren't able to reach an agreement about the bomb.

[00:27:19] Speaker 05:
Correct.

[00:27:20] Speaker 05:
Is that in the record?

[00:27:23] Speaker 05:
Is that information in the record?

[00:27:24] Speaker 05:
I mean, how many such cases are there and besides, what difference does that make in this case?

[00:27:31] Speaker 00:
I don't think it's in the record, but it seems like I would have to ask the Coast Guard exactly.

[00:27:42] Speaker 05:
Do you know how many times ships are prevented from departing and bonds negotiated?

[00:27:49] Speaker 00:
I know it's a significant number.

[00:27:52] Speaker 00:
And the closest thing I have is the testimony of Commander Grant, which is around page J416, where he had negotiated seven with them.

[00:28:04] Speaker 00:
And we did put a footnote in our brief trying to address this issue of how many cases there are.

[00:28:10] Speaker 05:
And suppose you're right that this is the only one and that there are many.

[00:28:13] Speaker 05:
Does that make any difference in how we dispose of this case?

[00:28:18] Speaker 00:
I think it should comfort, Your Honor, that generally it is a reasonable process, that generally the government acts reasonably, vessels are willing to put up the money.

[00:28:32] Speaker 00:
They don't say things like, oh, I'm not giving you any information from the operator because you can't reach its assets.

[00:28:39] Speaker 05:
All right.

[00:28:40] Speaker 05:
OK.

[00:28:40] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:28:42] Speaker 05:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:28:44] Speaker 05:
Thank you.

[00:28:45] Speaker 05:
Did counsel have any time left?

[00:28:49] Speaker 05:
You can take a minute.

[00:28:50] Speaker 01:
Your honor, the bond demand in the other terms beyond the financial terms don't put the government or the Coast Guard in the same position as if the ship sat there.

[00:28:59] Speaker 01:
If the ship sat there, the ship only answers for the fine against its owner, Angel X. It doesn't create personal jurisdiction of a foreign manager or an operator.

[00:29:09] Speaker 01:
The Second Circuit case law, which we cited in the Katelyn case with the vessel called the Angel N, that makes clear that that doesn't create

[00:29:17] Speaker 01:
There is no jurisdiction over a foreign ship manager or operator.

[00:29:21] Speaker 01:
There was no continuing investigation.

[00:29:23] Speaker 01:
Not one single Coast Guard or DOJ employee went to the vessel after about the 19th of April, so the ship sat another five months plus.

[00:29:31] Speaker 05:
And why is that relevant?

[00:29:33] Speaker 01:
Because the government's contention is that the vessel sitting there and the bond, financial and non-financial terms, put the government in the same position as if the vessel sat there.

[00:29:47] Speaker 01:
What I'm arguing is it doesn't at all.

[00:29:49] Speaker 01:
It puts the government in a better position.

[00:29:51] Speaker 01:
By sitting there, the vessel doesn't require records custodians that come from foreign offices.

[00:29:58] Speaker 01:
It doesn't require either the owner or the manager to pay for it.

[00:30:02] Speaker 01:
Again, Your Honor, this court, this circuit court, wrote in the border valve that if the government asserts in the appellant's agree that the financial terms of a bond referred to in the act cover the ultimate liability of a ship owner,

[00:30:16] Speaker 01:
Here, the government's asking for the ultimate liability of a ship owner and somebody else.

[00:30:20] Speaker 01:
You don't need to do a very complicated mathematical analysis or forensic accounting.

[00:30:25] Speaker 03:
What about if in a different case, the government's theory was that

[00:30:29] Speaker 03:
The ship owner hired the operator, put the operator up to this.

[00:30:34] Speaker 03:
This is all part of their conspiracy together.

[00:30:37] Speaker 03:
And again, in a different case, they're both convicted.

[00:30:40] Speaker 03:
Can the government then, at the end of the criminal trial, seize the ship?

[00:30:47] Speaker 01:
Not the ship.

[00:30:48] Speaker 01:
The government can certainly seize, assuming there's an unpaid fine by the operator, there are other means available to the government to seize assets in the traditional way.

[00:30:59] Speaker 03:
They can't use the ship as an asset.

[00:31:00] Speaker 01:
No, Your Honor.

[00:31:02] Speaker 01:
I'd like to leave the Court, if I may, with just a few rhetorical questions that frame the issue.

[00:31:06] Speaker 05:
You need to finish up.

[00:31:07] Speaker 05:
You had one minute, so you don't have time for a few rhetorical suggestions.

[00:31:12] Speaker 01:
Okay.

[00:31:16] Speaker 01:
How is it reasonable to hold the ship and say that it's necessary for the prosecution if no one goes to the ship?

[00:31:23] Speaker 01:
All the witnesses are off.

[00:31:24] Speaker 01:
How is it reasonable to hold the ship as security for a fine when there's no equity in the vessel because of the mortgage, which by black letter US maritime law, trumps any claim the government may have?

[00:31:37] Speaker 01:
All right.

[00:31:38] Speaker 01:
Thank you very much.

[00:31:39] Speaker 01:
The case is submitted.