[00:00:04] Speaker 00: Ms. [00:00:04] Speaker 00: Douglas Crowley, appellant versus joint from Committee on Judiciary Administration. [00:00:09] Speaker 00: Ms. [00:00:09] Speaker 00: El-Corey for the amicus cari, Mr. Daniel for the accolade. [00:00:15] Speaker 03: Ms. [00:00:15] Speaker 03: El-Corey. [00:00:23] Speaker 02: May it please the court, my name is Adele El-Corey and I am counsel for court appointed amicus. [00:00:28] Speaker 02: I'd like to reserve four minutes for rebuttal. [00:00:32] Speaker 02: The district court aired in Sue Espante dismissing Mr. Crowley's complaint on Rucker Feldman grounds. [00:00:37] Speaker 02: Rucker Feldman applies in only one situation, a case brought by a state court loser complaining of injuries caused by a state court judgment and seeking the federal court to review and overturn that judgment. [00:00:50] Speaker 02: It cannot apply here because Mr. Crowley is not challenging an adverse judgment at the D.C. [00:00:55] Speaker 02: courts, and any relief he might get in this suit would not affect a judgment of the D.C. [00:00:59] Speaker 02: courts. [00:01:00] Speaker 04: Counsel, just to start right at the beginning of any lawsuit, what are your injuries in fact for standing purposes? [00:01:09] Speaker 02: He's complaining that he was denied accommodations that he was entitled to under Title II of the ADA. [00:01:16] Speaker 02: Specifically, ma'am? [00:01:18] Speaker 02: That he was not given enlargement of time. [00:01:20] Speaker 02: Enlargement of time. [00:01:22] Speaker 02: And that he was not directed to clear policies and procedures when he was trying to navigate the court system. [00:01:29] Speaker 04: Oh, no, no. [00:01:30] Speaker 04: Specifically, what was the injury? [00:01:32] Speaker 04: I saw enlargement of time. [00:01:34] Speaker 04: What else? [00:01:35] Speaker 02: Well, the other injury, Your Honor, is that he called the court, and this is what he alleges, he called the court administration and complained that he wasn't being given disability accommodations. [00:01:48] Speaker 02: And rather than directing him to those procedures. [00:01:50] Speaker 04: No, but specifically, what specifically was he injured by? [00:01:54] Speaker 02: Well, he was injured by the fact that they couldn't direct him to any procedures. [00:01:57] Speaker 02: So, like, measure of damages. [00:01:59] Speaker 04: No, I'm still on it. [00:02:00] Speaker 04: Excuse me. [00:02:01] Speaker 04: I'm sorry. [00:02:02] Speaker 04: I'm still trying to get the injuries. [00:02:04] Speaker 04: I saw enlargement of time. [00:02:06] Speaker 04: What else happened? [00:02:08] Speaker 02: Well, Your Honor, I guess I'm not completely understanding what you're asking. [00:02:12] Speaker 04: But when any case for standing purposes, you have to point to injury. [00:02:16] Speaker 04: In fact, I'm trying to get clear. [00:02:19] Speaker 04: What are your injury? [00:02:19] Speaker 04: In fact, one was the denial of enlargement of time. [00:02:23] Speaker 04: I understand that that's an injury. [00:02:24] Speaker 04: In fact, what else? [00:02:26] Speaker 02: So and his what he is alleging as also being an injury is that he was [00:02:31] Speaker 02: not sent to the court's procedures, which the court was legally required to have. [00:02:37] Speaker 04: Well, you know what, you get a sense for procedures for what? [00:02:39] Speaker 04: I mean, you have to have some specific. [00:02:41] Speaker 02: For accommodating his disability. [00:02:43] Speaker 04: What specific accommodation? [00:02:46] Speaker 02: Whether it's whether, oh, I see what your honor is saying. [00:02:48] Speaker 02: So whether it's that he should have gotten a lawyer because of his disability or, you know, should have been granted some other special accommodation. [00:02:56] Speaker 04: Well, watch, but I'm trying to find out what injury he had. [00:03:01] Speaker 04: If there was no reason to accommodate him, then there wouldn't be an injury. [00:03:07] Speaker 04: What was the injury? [00:03:09] Speaker 04: Well, he's a severely disabled... Ma'am, I understand that. [00:03:12] Speaker 04: It was specifically injury in fact. [00:03:14] Speaker 04: You said enlargement of time. [00:03:16] Speaker 04: What was the next one? [00:03:19] Speaker 04: Your Honor, he did not... You know, for standing purposes, you have to point to injury in fact. [00:03:26] Speaker 02: Yes. [00:03:27] Speaker 02: I mean, his other injury is that he didn't receive his money for 13 years after he should have. [00:03:31] Speaker 04: I understand that. [00:03:32] Speaker 04: He didn't receive money. [00:03:34] Speaker 04: Okay. [00:03:36] Speaker 04: For 14 years. [00:03:37] Speaker 04: That's the second one. [00:03:38] Speaker 04: Anything else? [00:03:39] Speaker 04: No, your honor. [00:03:41] Speaker 04: So it's a he was denied enlargement of time and he didn't receive money for over 14 years. [00:03:48] Speaker 04: I understood there was both. [00:03:50] Speaker 04: Are there any other injuries and facts? [00:03:54] Speaker 04: I think that those are the core of his claims. [00:03:56] Speaker 04: Okay. [00:03:59] Speaker 04: Now the problem I have with that is, wasn't there a judicial ruling on both those issues? [00:04:05] Speaker 04: No, Your Honor. [00:04:06] Speaker 04: So, what Mr. Coo... Didn't the district judge deny him enlargement of time? [00:04:12] Speaker 04: Excuse me, the spirit court judge? [00:04:13] Speaker 02: In one instance, he was denied an enlargement of time, Your Honor. [00:04:16] Speaker 04: That's the one you're talking about. [00:04:18] Speaker 02: That is correct, Your Honor. [00:04:20] Speaker 04: Okay, so why isn't that a judicial ruling under Walker Feldman or judicial immunity? [00:04:26] Speaker 02: Yes, Your Honor, because his claim is that he has standing based on his injury, but what the injury showed him is that the court didn't have the proper procedures in place. [00:04:36] Speaker 02: He shouldn't have to request, through litigation, each and every time, each accommodation that he needs. [00:04:42] Speaker 02: What he is saying is that the court administration should have procedures in place. [00:04:46] Speaker 04: If the judge had granted him a large amount of time, he would not have had an injury on that case, right? [00:04:51] Speaker 02: Well, he still would have not received his money for 13 years after he was owed the money. [00:04:55] Speaker 02: Okay, that's right. [00:04:55] Speaker 04: Well, the second one is if the judge had granted him the money early on, he wouldn't have been injured, right? [00:05:05] Speaker 02: Well, he might still allege, I don't want to speculate too much about what he would allege in that situation. [00:05:11] Speaker 02: But in that hypothetical, he might still allege that. [00:05:14] Speaker 02: I'm just a simple judge. [00:05:15] Speaker 04: When there's a party before me, I look to see what was the injury. [00:05:20] Speaker 04: Injury in fact first. [00:05:22] Speaker 04: And what's troubling me now about this is that the injuries in fact, as you referred to, [00:05:27] Speaker 04: are all decisions of the Superior Court Judge or they could have been brought to the Court of Appeals. [00:05:36] Speaker 02: But they're not decisions of the Superior Court Judge, Judge Silverman. [00:05:40] Speaker 02: I would respectfully disagree with that. [00:05:42] Speaker 02: What he's saying is that had there been procedures in place or perhaps it's a lack of procedures, [00:05:47] Speaker 02: he would not have had to litigate on every occasion getting an enlargement of time, or getting counsel as a disabled litigant, or even having to go back to the court and request the funds. [00:05:59] Speaker 04: Suppose your agency that you're challenging, the administration of the courts group, had decided that you know what, all disabled people are different. [00:06:11] Speaker 04: And it's impossible to come up with a rule that would apply to everyone. [00:06:17] Speaker 04: So our rule will be district and superior court judges and court of appeals judges should be sensitive to the needs of the disabled and provide them ad hoc with those accommodations they need. [00:06:35] Speaker 02: Would that be legal? [00:06:36] Speaker 02: That might be right, Judge Silberman, but that's a question that goes to the merits and doesn't affect Ricker Feldman. [00:06:40] Speaker 04: Well, but it also goes to the specularness of the injury. [00:06:47] Speaker 02: Yes, your honor. [00:06:47] Speaker 04: But again, the remedy you're seeking, in other words, you're caught between a devil and the deep blue sea. [00:06:53] Speaker 02: Well, your honor, respectfully, again, I disagree. [00:06:56] Speaker 02: I think the injuries that he's complaining of weren't just that one enlargement of time. [00:07:02] Speaker 02: What he has alleged is that throughout this 2002 to 2014 period, he was on the phone with the D.C. [00:07:11] Speaker 02: court administration system saying these are funds that are owed to me. [00:07:15] Speaker 02: Where are they? [00:07:16] Speaker 02: Someone at the court told him they went to the Office of Unclaimed Funds. [00:07:19] Speaker 02: We see in the court docket that there was an entry saying they went to the US Treasury. [00:07:24] Speaker 02: So this money is being moved around. [00:07:27] Speaker 02: And he's complaining of those injuries as well. [00:07:30] Speaker 02: So it's not just that he incidentally had to go to the court. [00:07:34] Speaker 04: You could have appealed to the Court of Appeals with respect to the property question, couldn't you? [00:07:38] Speaker 02: No, Your Honor. [00:07:39] Speaker 02: So this is an entirely different lawsuit against a different defendant. [00:07:43] Speaker 02: He was still litigating his tort suit against the RNC and a private security guard. [00:07:49] Speaker 02: So even in 2014, this was a 13-year-long lawsuit, but the judgment had been entered in 2002. [00:07:54] Speaker 02: The District of Columbia and the Joint Committee were not defendants to that lawsuit, and he had a completely separate different claims. [00:08:01] Speaker 02: He was alleging a different injury. [00:08:04] Speaker 02: His initial injury had been that he was assaulted. [00:08:06] Speaker 04: He had no process available to the Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia? [00:08:14] Speaker 02: Not for these particular claims, Your Honor. [00:08:16] Speaker 04: Which claims? [00:08:16] Speaker 04: The claims about the property? [00:08:18] Speaker 02: Yes, the federal claims that he's raising in this dispute lawsuit. [00:08:21] Speaker 04: The claims for the property. [00:08:22] Speaker 04: The fact that the property was sitting there over a million dollars for 14 years. [00:08:28] Speaker 02: Correct. [00:08:29] Speaker 04: And he never appealed that. [00:08:31] Speaker 02: Well, there was nothing to appeal, Your Honor. [00:08:33] Speaker 04: Well, he asked the judge for an order on that, didn't he? [00:08:37] Speaker 02: Oh, yes. [00:08:39] Speaker 02: In 2008, he asked the judge for an order. [00:08:40] Speaker 04: And the judge sort of fumpered on it. [00:08:43] Speaker 04: So why didn't he appeal? [00:08:44] Speaker 02: That's right, Judge Silberman. [00:08:46] Speaker 04: That goes to your due process question. [00:08:48] Speaker 02: It goes to the due process question because he's alleging that he shouldn't have had to ask for that court order. [00:08:53] Speaker 02: With the proper procedures in place, there was a court order in 2002 under which he should have been given his funds. [00:08:59] Speaker 04: And I also- Yes, but whenever we look at a due process question, the issue is whether or not the plaintiff had processed. [00:09:09] Speaker 04: For one reason or another, he or she didn't use. [00:09:11] Speaker 04: And in this case, he had processed. [00:09:14] Speaker 02: Well, Your Honor, he's alleging that he didn't have process. [00:09:16] Speaker 02: And so, you know, he alleges that. [00:09:18] Speaker 04: You mean the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court of the, what is it, the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia hates him? [00:09:22] Speaker 04: They won't listen to him? [00:09:24] Speaker 04: No, I mean. [00:09:25] Speaker 02: No, Your Honor. [00:09:26] Speaker 02: So what he's saying is that when he was debating back and forth with the court administratively, when the funds were undisputed and sitting in the court registry, he called and said, where are my funds? [00:09:39] Speaker 02: And they told him, oh, we sent them to the Office of Unclaimed Funds. [00:09:42] Speaker 02: He went there. [00:09:43] Speaker 02: They weren't there. [00:09:43] Speaker 02: There's a docket entry showing they were also sent to the U.S. [00:09:46] Speaker 02: Treasury and then voided undeliverable. [00:09:48] Speaker 02: And so what he is challenging here, and this is what's important for Rooker Feldman purposes, is the procedures or lack of procedures in place by an administrative entity. [00:09:59] Speaker 02: The fact that he also litigated related issues in his tort litigation is not a bar for Rooker Feldman purposes. [00:10:09] Speaker 02: And this court has made that clear, and the Supreme Court has made that clear. [00:10:12] Speaker 02: It's not a Rooker Feldman issue. [00:10:13] Speaker 02: There might be other issues that come into play later, whether it's preclusion, but for Rooker Feldman purposes, you have to be asking the federal court to overturn a judgment of the DC court. [00:10:25] Speaker 02: And his judgment was entered in 2000. [00:10:29] Speaker 02: His money was owed to him in 2002. [00:10:30] Speaker 02: No one disputes this now. [00:10:33] Speaker 02: And so, just for purposes of the Rooker Feldman question, the fact that he could have raised this in the Court of Appeals is not a bar. [00:10:42] Speaker 04: I take Judge Solomon's point that I might- Well, it's also a judicial immunity problem. [00:10:48] Speaker 02: No, Your Honor, it's not a judicial immunity problem because he's suing the Joint Committee as an administrative entity. [00:10:54] Speaker 04: And so- I know the argument there. [00:10:57] Speaker 04: I have to say, the way the DC court system operated in this case is truly shameful. [00:11:06] Speaker 04: There's no question about that. [00:11:09] Speaker 04: If that was the [00:11:11] Speaker 04: issue before us, you would win. [00:11:14] Speaker 04: I would agree it was shameful. [00:11:18] Speaker 02: Your Honor, I would just say, yes, it was shameful. [00:11:21] Speaker 02: But again, he's raising here federal claims in an entirely distinct lawsuit. [00:11:27] Speaker 02: The sweeping Sue Espante-Rooker Feldman ruling was wrong. [00:11:30] Speaker 02: That is a very narrow doctrine, as this court has said. [00:11:33] Speaker 02: He's not challenging any judgment of the DC courts. [00:11:35] Speaker 02: And if he were to get relief in the form of compensatory damages here, it would not affect any judgment that he got. [00:11:42] Speaker 01: Under, this really goes to the merits, but under DC unclaimed property law, is he not entitled to the time value of the money that he was deprived? [00:11:54] Speaker 01: And he hasn't received that, has he? [00:11:55] Speaker 02: He has not, Judge Pillard. [00:11:56] Speaker 02: And in fact, the 14 years, his judgment included a 6% interest, annual interest component. [00:12:04] Speaker 02: And the defendants were permitted to pay the money into the court registry in 2002. [00:12:09] Speaker 02: He stopped getting interest at that point on the money. [00:12:13] Speaker 02: And so it's about $1 million worth of interest between 2002 and 2014 when it finally passed. [00:12:18] Speaker 04: In that case, that issue could go to the Supreme Court of Appeals too, couldn't it? [00:12:25] Speaker 02: But, Your Honor... You could, couldn't it not? [00:12:29] Speaker 02: Truthfully, I'm not sure, Your Honor, and that's important for Rucker-Feldman purposes, because the District of Columbia was not a defendant for purposes of that lawsuit. [00:12:38] Speaker 02: He would have to amend tort litigation against the RNC to add a totally different defendant for a totally different claim that had nothing to do with the substance of his litigation in the Superior Court and in the Court of Appeals in his tort. [00:12:50] Speaker 01: I realize it's actually a third litigation, I assume, but I just wondered whether he has pursued, and this may relate to the merits of the due process claim, whether he has pursued a claim under the abandoned property law, which basically, as I understand it, I recognize this hasn't been brief, but says if the district is holding your property, when you get it back, that you're entitled [00:13:14] Speaker 01: to the time value of that money. [00:13:16] Speaker 02: That's right, Judge Pillard. [00:13:17] Speaker 02: And to my knowledge, he has not pursued that. [00:13:22] Speaker 02: The federal court could exercise supplemental jurisdiction over that claim because it's sort of the same core of his federal constitutional due process claims. [00:13:31] Speaker 01: And if he were to recover under that, I mean, I'm curious about following up on Judge Silverman's questions, the measure of [00:13:42] Speaker 01: his damages. [00:13:44] Speaker 01: I assume that having no procedures for getting him his award promptly, the measure of the damages would be that time value of money. [00:13:54] Speaker 01: I think that would be the most reasonable calculation. [00:13:56] Speaker 02: It's a little bit speculative because we would be thinking about compensatory damages, and that can encompass a lot of things. [00:14:03] Speaker 02: Actual loss to the plaintiff, it can also encompass emotional distress. [00:14:08] Speaker 02: These aren't things that [00:14:09] Speaker 02: We know right now it would be a question to go to the jury, but who owes him on the time value of the money? [00:14:17] Speaker 02: The Joint Committee or the district the District of Columbia. [00:14:21] Speaker 04: Yes District of Columbia owes him for the time value of the money because what he's alleging He alleged that's his injury [00:14:33] Speaker 02: He's alleging, yes, he alleges as his injury that he didn't receive his money for 13 years. [00:14:39] Speaker 04: But I didn't see that he had demanded the time value of the money. [00:14:42] Speaker 02: Oh, he doesn't say that specifically, Your Honor. [00:14:45] Speaker 02: No, no, no. [00:14:45] Speaker 02: But he does say damages as this court would see fit. [00:14:49] Speaker 02: And he's a pro se plaintiff, I think, reading the complaint more than fairly. [00:14:54] Speaker 02: He's pleaded for all types of damages. [00:14:56] Speaker 04: So if we were to prevail, if you were in this court or the district court below, [00:15:01] Speaker 04: There would be an order from this court to the District of Columbia, to the mayor, was it, paying him the time value of money? [00:15:11] Speaker 02: No, I'm not sure exactly what form it would take, but if he were to prevail... Well, who would pay? [00:15:16] Speaker 02: The District of Columbia. [00:15:17] Speaker 04: So you're talking about the government of the District of Columbia would have to pay him the time value of money? [00:15:22] Speaker 02: In the form of compensatory damages, if that's the calculation that the court determined was the correct one. [00:15:28] Speaker 02: He's entitled to compensatory damages for both his Title II claims and his 1983 claims. [00:15:35] Speaker 02: And so, you know, whether you think about it as compensatory damages under those claims or perhaps the time value of money under the D.C. [00:15:43] Speaker 02: unclaimed funds law, if that's what it turns out to be. [00:15:45] Speaker 04: But he never sought that in the Court of Appeals. [00:15:48] Speaker 02: Because it was entirely separate litigation, Judge Silverman. [00:15:51] Speaker 04: Well, he could have brought such a suit, right? [00:15:54] Speaker 02: He could have, but that's not a bar for under Worker Feldman. [00:15:57] Speaker 04: Just because he could have. [00:15:59] Speaker 04: Is it a bar for other concepts? [00:16:01] Speaker 02: I mean, so the district court, no one has really briefed concepts like preclusion. [00:16:07] Speaker 02: I need sort of a few paragraphs here on this minimal briefing. [00:16:10] Speaker 02: But the question would be whether he could have. [00:16:13] Speaker 02: The district was not a defendant, so issue preclusion wouldn't be a problem. [00:16:16] Speaker 01: So as I understand it, [00:16:18] Speaker 01: Once the RNC paid, the original defendants paid to the DC Superior Court. [00:16:26] Speaker 01: And at that point, any appeal in that case is sort of ineffectual for purposes of getting the time value of that money from that point until the ultimate payment 14, 15 years later. [00:16:40] Speaker 01: So it's a different defendant that has caused the delay from the defendant that [00:16:51] Speaker 01: with the judgment in the first case. [00:16:53] Speaker 04: Quite true. [00:16:53] Speaker 04: Quite true. [00:16:54] Speaker 04: But your client could have brought a mandamus against the trial judge, right? [00:17:01] Speaker 02: But that, again, is not a Rooker Feldman problem. [00:17:04] Speaker 04: I know it's not a Rooker Feldman problem, but why isn't it precluded for a whole host of other reasons? [00:17:09] Speaker 04: Well, he could have... It eliminates your due process claim, doesn't it? [00:17:14] Speaker 02: No, not necessarily, Your Honor, because... You have process. [00:17:18] Speaker 04: You could have brought a mandamus. [00:17:20] Speaker 04: And I can't imagine the Supreme Court of, excuse me, the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia not granting you relief immediately. [00:17:28] Speaker 02: Well, on the merits, Your Honor... Your client. [00:17:30] Speaker 02: Relief immediately. [00:17:31] Speaker 02: On the merits, Judge Silverman, and this does, I think, go to the merits, I would even... So the voided, undeliverable docket entry, the idea that the... Well, no, this goes to your due process claim. [00:17:41] Speaker 02: Yes, the merits of the due process claim. [00:17:44] Speaker 02: Yes. [00:17:44] Speaker 02: So what I'm saying is the, and this is cited in our briefs, Jones v. Flowers, the Supreme Court has said there might be additional process required even if you have a process in place to alert someone that their property is going to be taken or held by the government. [00:18:01] Speaker 02: If you get, for example, in that case, a receipt back saying this was undeliverable, then you have to take additional measures for due process purposes to make sure that that person has noticed that that's happening. [00:18:13] Speaker 02: And there's no indication in the record that that happened here. [00:18:16] Speaker 02: We just have the one docket entry. [00:18:18] Speaker 02: It's in our appendix at page 88 saying, [00:18:21] Speaker 02: that these funds were transferred to the U.S. [00:18:24] Speaker 02: Treasury, voided undeliverable. [00:18:26] Speaker 02: And that wasn't per any court order or any judgment of a court. [00:18:29] Speaker 02: And as Judge Pillard said earlier, that litigation substantively had concluded, and the court had permitted those defendants to place the money into the court registry. [00:18:39] Speaker 04: No, I agree. [00:18:40] Speaker 04: You don't have a cause of action against the defendants in that original case. [00:18:48] Speaker 03: Okay, now I have some questions. [00:18:52] Speaker 03: So I'm trying to figure out which are the claims. [00:18:57] Speaker 03: I think you've done a some ways creative job in reformulating, which is part of the job with respect to a pro se claimant, but I need to figure out sort of which claims are actually being made here in order to make a determination about the fulfillment. [00:19:15] Speaker 03: So with respect to the [00:19:19] Speaker 03: property-taking claims, however that would be characterized, due process, repellent, any of those arguments. [00:19:26] Speaker 03: So as I'm following the docket entries, the money is ordered into the registry of the court because there is an attorney's lien, right? [00:19:42] Speaker 03: Correct. [00:19:42] Speaker 03: Okay, so that, you're not challenging that. [00:19:45] Speaker 03: That's a judgment of a court, Judge Winstead, right? [00:19:47] Speaker 03: He's not challenging that. [00:19:50] Speaker 03: So the next thing that happens is in 2001, the attorney's lien is granted in part. [00:20:02] Speaker 03: And then the next thing that happens is in 2002 is the motion for authority to deposit judgment proceedings. [00:20:11] Speaker 03: the defendant's permitted to put it in there because the defendant, I guess, didn't want to be fighting about who gets the money, right? [00:20:17] Speaker 05: That's correct. [00:20:18] Speaker 03: And that's also a judgment of a court, Judge Weber. [00:20:21] Speaker 03: And so that is Rooker Feldman Bard, if you were to challenge that particular event, right? [00:20:27] Speaker 02: Right. [00:20:27] Speaker 02: That's not what it's talking about. [00:20:29] Speaker 03: Okay. [00:20:29] Speaker 03: All right. [00:20:29] Speaker 03: So now the next thing that I see happening is [00:20:41] Speaker 03: In 2002, they're permitted, I take it that the defense, at some point here, the lawyers get the money, right? [00:20:51] Speaker 03: And that's also by a judgment of the court. [00:20:54] Speaker 02: So Mr. Crowley filed a motion to disburse the money that was in the court registry once the litigation over the attorney's lien had concluded. [00:21:03] Speaker 02: The court granted that motion and then the court issued a check to the attorneys. [00:21:09] Speaker 03: Which entry is that? [00:21:11] Speaker 03: What day is that? [00:21:13] Speaker 02: It's on page 88. [00:21:16] Speaker 02: and it's on April 2002, I'm sorry, page 87 at the very bottom of February 2002 entry and then going over onto page 88, the April 2002 entry. [00:21:26] Speaker 03: All right, but that's just the distribution of the money pursuant to the attorney's lien. [00:21:31] Speaker 02: Well, I think because Mr. Crowley filed the motion, it's a little bit unclear how it's styled when you look at the name of the motion, but it's a motion to disburse funds that are in the court registry. [00:21:42] Speaker 03: In the amount of $115,000. [00:21:45] Speaker 02: That's what the court orders. [00:21:46] Speaker 02: There was a registry to put out right. [00:21:49] Speaker 02: I think Mr. Corley's motion was requesting, fairly right, was requesting disbursement of the entire funds. [00:21:54] Speaker 03: Right, but that's not granted. [00:21:56] Speaker 03: That part isn't granted. [00:21:57] Speaker 03: All the court orders is that the money be paid to the lawyer. [00:22:00] Speaker 02: Well, he grants Mr. Corley's motion, and then it says, [00:22:05] Speaker 02: Further ordering this to be distributed from the court registry. [00:22:10] Speaker 02: So it's a little bit It's a little strange that he grants the motion, but then only directs that money to be distributed from the court So what is the nature is there a complaint about this entry then? [00:22:20] Speaker 02: No, your honor. [00:22:21] Speaker 03: Okay, then there's this mysterious money sent to the Treasury and money sent back and this is [00:22:30] Speaker 03: the basis or somehow connected to the telephone call in which he's told that the money's been transferred to the Treasury, is that right, or what? [00:22:38] Speaker 02: That is not, so yes, so he alleges, and he doesn't give us a specific time period for that allegation, but he alleges that sometime during that period, he called, they told him at one point that it went to the D.C. [00:22:51] Speaker 02: Office of Unclaimed Funds, and then at another point that it went to the U.S. [00:22:55] Speaker 02: Treasury. [00:22:55] Speaker 03: So this is complaints about behavior of the clerk's office, not about the behavior of any judge, is that right? [00:23:00] Speaker 02: It's not clear that it's about the clerk's office, Your Honor. [00:23:03] Speaker 03: Then who's it about? [00:23:04] Speaker 02: I'm not sure. [00:23:04] Speaker 02: I think just court administration generally. [00:23:07] Speaker 02: I'm not sure whether he was on the phone with the clerk's office and it's not clear that the clerk's office at that point was the one controlling the funds or where the funds went. [00:23:16] Speaker 03: Okay. [00:23:16] Speaker 03: Now with respect to the, he then moves to the return the money. [00:23:22] Speaker 03: Um, and I take it, and that order is denied by Judge Green, right? [00:23:27] Speaker 03: In 2008. [00:23:29] Speaker 03: Right. [00:23:30] Speaker 03: And that would be, [00:23:33] Speaker 03: That was a denying motion to return money paid to court register and turned on the docket. [00:23:37] Speaker 03: What does that mean? [00:23:39] Speaker 02: It's not clear and that's the only information we have about that entry. [00:23:43] Speaker 03: I'm not sure if he was asking... Was that a motion to get the lawyer's money back into the court or something else? [00:23:49] Speaker 02: It reads like it was a motion to order his money back into the court. [00:23:53] Speaker 02: And it could be because they told him that it had gone somewhere else that he filed that motion. [00:23:59] Speaker 02: But I just don't want to say for sure that it wasn't a motion to pay it from the court registry because he sort of styles the motions differently. [00:24:05] Speaker 02: But I agree with you, Chief Judge Garland, that it reads more like a order to pay the money back into the registry. [00:24:11] Speaker 03: And then the next thing of importance doesn't happen until 2014 when there's the proceedings that eventually lead to the distribution of the money. [00:24:18] Speaker 03: Now, up until that point, what is it with respect to the money that his complaint is complaining about? [00:24:27] Speaker 02: Up until the 2014? [00:24:28] Speaker 03: Well, I take it, starting in 2014, he eventually wins and he gets his money back, right? [00:24:35] Speaker 03: And that is pursuant to a judgment of a court, Judge Motley, right? [00:24:39] Speaker 02: An order of the court. [00:24:40] Speaker 03: A Rupert Feldman judgment, right? [00:24:43] Speaker 03: That is, he can't challenge Judge Motley's determination. [00:24:47] Speaker 02: Well, what I would say about that, Chief Judge Garland, is that you can't challenge his determination for Rooker Feldman purposes. [00:24:54] Speaker 02: You can't review and overturn the judgment. [00:24:56] Speaker 02: But what is not barred under Rooker Feldman is a challenge to rules or procedures that the court applied or construed. [00:25:05] Speaker 02: And so Skinner v. Switzer cited in our briefs goes to this point where the plaintiff in that case had lost in Texas court under [00:25:15] Speaker 02: a Texas statute for DNA post-conviction testing, he then brought a claim saying this statute is unconstitutional as the courts have construed it. [00:25:22] Speaker 02: And the Supreme Court said, that's not a Roker-Feldman problem, because you're not asking us to overturn the decisions. [00:25:28] Speaker 02: You're simply challenging as unconstitutional the statute that they authoritatively construed. [00:25:34] Speaker 02: So even if it's true that the court was applying some procedures, and we don't know that here, in dispersing the money, [00:25:41] Speaker 02: That isn't something that would be barred by Roker Feldman. [00:25:43] Speaker 03: I agree with you, Chief Judge Garland, that if he was saying... Well, I'm not following exactly what... My understanding from reading Judge Motley's both opinion and from the hearing is Judge Motley said, I can give you all the money that's in the register. [00:25:57] Speaker 03: I can't give you any more, right? [00:25:59] Speaker 03: And if you want to do something, sue the district court. [00:26:03] Speaker 03: So what is the nature of the complaint? [00:26:06] Speaker 02: The nature of the complaint is that [00:26:08] Speaker 02: had there been the proper procedures in place that complied with due process and separately the proper procedures for accommodating mentally disabled litigants, then he would have gotten his money 14 years earlier. [00:26:22] Speaker 02: He wouldn't have had to go back to the court over and over again to seek in particular litigation [00:26:28] Speaker 02: accommodations or the money to be dispersed because in 2002... Well, then you're not objecting to Judge Motley's order at all. [00:26:35] Speaker 02: No, Judge Motley's order... He's not challenging Judge Motley's order. [00:26:38] Speaker 02: He's not... He won in Superior Court. [00:26:40] Speaker 02: It took a long time. [00:26:41] Speaker 03: What I wasn't understanding was, I have to say from reading the briefs on the property side, it looks like he's objecting to specific things that happen, not to policies. [00:26:51] Speaker 03: I don't see the word policy anywhere in the complaint. [00:26:54] Speaker 03: Well... I do see it with respect to the ADA issues. [00:26:57] Speaker 03: but not with respect to the property. [00:26:59] Speaker 03: And just hold for one second so I can tell you how I'm reading it and you can tell me why I'm wrong. [00:27:05] Speaker 03: I'm reading the property complaints as being, I'm going to use clerk's office in general, but I don't know what the actual office is. [00:27:13] Speaker 03: failure to give him the money, misleading him as to where the money is, that sort of thing. [00:27:21] Speaker 03: Very specific things. [00:27:23] Speaker 03: And I agree that those are not Booker Feldman-ish. [00:27:28] Speaker 03: They're not covered because they're not a judgment by any court that says he can't do any of those things. [00:27:32] Speaker 03: But I'm not seeing a claim about policy. [00:27:36] Speaker 03: Do you want to point me to where that is or where you get that idea from? [00:27:40] Speaker 02: Yes, your honor. [00:27:41] Speaker 02: So two important paragraphs for the whole complainer paragraphs five and six, because that's where he sets forth what the Joint Committee is and makes clear that it's an administrative entity that is responsible for setting policies. [00:27:54] Speaker 02: And he says at the end of paragraph five that when he uses the phrase DC. [00:27:59] Speaker 03: What page are you on? [00:28:00] Speaker 03: It's the complaint at paragraph five and it's... Defendant Joint Committee is the policymaking body? [00:28:06] Speaker 03: Is that the paragraph you're talking about? [00:28:07] Speaker 02: It's the policymaking body, yes. [00:28:09] Speaker 03: And where is the sentence that says... [00:28:11] Speaker 02: And so if you look to the end of that paragraph, he says, and he says, this is what it does. [00:28:17] Speaker 02: These are all of the entities that it encompasses. [00:28:20] Speaker 02: And the last sentence says these components comprise the District of Columbia courts here and after referenced as DC courts. [00:28:27] Speaker 02: So that's his shorthand throughout the complaint for referring to the joint committee as an administrative entity. [00:28:33] Speaker 02: And so if you look to paragraph 19, which is, [00:28:38] Speaker 02: Part of his property related claims and especially paragraph 19 D. This is page four of the complaint. [00:28:46] Speaker 02: This is where he said references back to the DC courts as I've written next to it, not a policy. [00:28:52] Speaker 03: That's a good point. [00:28:53] Speaker 03: So it says courts, the DC court persistently misled him. [00:28:58] Speaker 03: and as attorneys, falsely advised, and those are all those specific things. [00:29:03] Speaker 03: I'm not sure why it matters. [00:29:04] Speaker 03: I mean, I'm not sure from your point of view that it would be better to make an argument about policy than specific things. [00:29:09] Speaker 03: But I don't see anything here about policies. [00:29:12] Speaker 02: Not policies, but I do think the grabbiment of it is a lack of procedures. [00:29:18] Speaker 03: And so whether it's procedures or lack of procedures. [00:29:22] Speaker 03: Not clearly, you couldn't amend the complaint if we send it back to add that. [00:29:26] Speaker 03: But I don't see anything about a lack of procedures. [00:29:28] Speaker 03: I see this about very specific things that were done to him, not by a judge, but by an administrative agency, misleading him, giving him wrong information, telling him his lawyer's false things so that he can't get his money. [00:29:44] Speaker 03: I'm not seeing any lack of, he's very specific about lack of policies with respect to disability issue. [00:29:51] Speaker 03: I'm not seeing it here. [00:29:53] Speaker 02: Your Honor, again, I think reading it generously, and you're right, he could amend, and the joint committee has said it will file a motion to dismiss, it hasn't even done that yet. [00:30:02] Speaker 02: He can request leave to remand, and these issues can all be worked out in the district court, and that is the right answer here. [00:30:09] Speaker 02: But I think reading it generously, what he is trying to say is that [00:30:14] Speaker 02: The the district of Columbia court system. [00:30:18] Speaker 02: Whether it's by procedures that were in place and we don't know what they are because there's been no development of this or a lack of procedures rather than. [00:30:26] Speaker 02: you know, cleanly directing him to where his money was, they were misleading him here and there. [00:30:31] Speaker 03: I assume I can't read it that way. [00:30:32] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:30:33] Speaker 03: And the only way I can read it is a series of unfortunate events. [00:30:36] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:30:37] Speaker 03: Perhaps intentionally unfortunate events, but nonetheless a series. [00:30:41] Speaker 03: Isn't your argument that those two are not precluded, those, those, those proceed, those actions by the clerk, again, by the clerk's office, wherever it is who is telling him these things, [00:30:52] Speaker 03: our administrative determinations, basically a failure to give the money that the court has already said belongs to him and to tell him it's in a different place and that those things are not covered either by judicial immunity because they're administrative or by Rucker Feldman for the same reason. [00:31:12] Speaker 04: Yes, that's absolutely correct. [00:31:13] Speaker 04: All right, let me take you on for that point. [00:31:20] Speaker 04: That is correct. [00:31:21] Speaker 04: Your response to Judge Garland. [00:31:25] Speaker 04: Your legal claims for this are twofold. [00:31:30] Speaker 04: One, a violation of due process, right? [00:31:35] Speaker 02: That's right, Judge Limerick. [00:31:36] Speaker 04: A violation of due process because your property, Mr. Coley's property was taken. [00:31:42] Speaker 02: The joint committee has also phrased it as a takings claim. [00:31:46] Speaker 04: No, I was about to say it's also a takings claim. [00:31:49] Speaker 02: Potentially, yes. [00:31:50] Speaker 04: Those are the two property claims. [00:31:52] Speaker 04: Is that correct? [00:31:52] Speaker 02: At this stage, yes. [00:31:54] Speaker 03: What do you mean at this stage? [00:31:56] Speaker 03: You have a pleven and conversion and wrongful withholding of money. [00:32:01] Speaker 02: Under local law, yes, and the DC unclaimed funds law. [00:32:04] Speaker 02: But I thought Judge Silverman was asking about the constitutional claims. [00:32:07] Speaker 03: I don't know, maybe he was. [00:32:09] Speaker 04: Oh, OK, Joe. [00:32:11] Speaker 04: Yeah. [00:32:11] Speaker 04: I want to get all your claims. [00:32:13] Speaker 04: But violation of due process, there was, in fact, process available, was there not? [00:32:22] Speaker 02: Well, he alleges that it was insufficient. [00:32:28] Speaker 04: Insufficient, why? [00:32:31] Speaker 04: If this is brought to the Court of Appeals, this problem? [00:32:36] Speaker 02: You mean through mandamus or some other action? [00:32:38] Speaker 04: Yes. [00:32:39] Speaker 02: He... Your Honor, he could have done that, but there... If that is available, that's a problem for due process, is it not? [00:32:49] Speaker 02: On the merits, it might be, but it might be that, you know, because- Well, you have to have an allegation here that- Yes, yes. [00:32:56] Speaker 04: Judge Silberman- An allegation to the merits. [00:33:00] Speaker 04: Now, on the takings, you don't have a takings claim here, do you, really? [00:33:07] Speaker 04: Because for takings, you have to have taking it for public purposes. [00:33:12] Speaker 04: There's no such taking. [00:33:13] Speaker 02: Well, there are fact questions, I think, that would have to be developed on that. [00:33:17] Speaker 04: that this was a taking? [00:33:18] Speaker 04: You know, we can read the allegation. [00:33:21] Speaker 04: All right, and on the Duke process, back to the Duke process question, was there ever deprivation? [00:33:28] Speaker 02: Well, he was deprived of the funds that he was owed. [00:33:31] Speaker 04: No, but I meant for constitutional purposes. [00:33:32] Speaker 04: You know the line of cases starting with Parrott, in which Judge Wink was subsequently switched, that negligence is not a taking. [00:33:45] Speaker 02: But he's not alleging that this was negligent. [00:33:48] Speaker 02: He's alleging that they falsely misled him. [00:33:50] Speaker 04: Deliberately took his money. [00:33:52] Speaker 02: Yes, as to the status of his funds. [00:33:54] Speaker 04: Who got it? [00:33:55] Speaker 04: Then the federal, then the D.C. [00:33:56] Speaker 04: government got the money? [00:33:59] Speaker 04: This was a deliberate effort on the D.C. [00:34:01] Speaker 04: government to take his money? [00:34:02] Speaker 02: Well, this is a factual question. [00:34:04] Speaker 04: No, I'm just getting your allegation. [00:34:06] Speaker 04: Is that your allegation? [00:34:07] Speaker 02: His allegation is that the D.C. [00:34:09] Speaker 02: government had his money, and for a point, the U.S. [00:34:13] Speaker 02: Treasury had his money. [00:34:14] Speaker 04: And it was a deliberate taking? [00:34:16] Speaker 02: Yes. [00:34:17] Speaker 04: Deliberate? [00:34:19] Speaker 02: Yes. [00:34:19] Speaker 02: He says that they... I didn't see that allegation. [00:34:24] Speaker 02: Well, Your Honor, he says that they intentionally misled him as to the status of his funds. [00:34:31] Speaker 02: I'm sorry, as to the location of his funds. [00:34:35] Speaker 03: Through intentional acts to create and maintain the above described charade to obscure its continuing possession of plaintiff's property. [00:34:44] Speaker 03: That's paragraph 20. [00:34:45] Speaker 03: That's not negligence. [00:34:47] Speaker 05: Correct. [00:34:53] Speaker 03: And the argument is that this is a 1983 claim. [00:34:57] Speaker 03: They acted under color of law. [00:34:58] Speaker 03: It's laid out in paragraph 20. [00:35:01] Speaker 03: deprived plaintiff of his constitutional right to his property. [00:35:04] Speaker 02: Yes, he styles it as a 1983 claim. [00:35:07] Speaker 04: But of course, if he had process available, then he doesn't have a due process claim. [00:35:14] Speaker 04: So how does that relate to the takings claim? [00:35:17] Speaker 04: If you have due process, if you have process available, you don't have a due process claim. [00:35:22] Speaker 04: If you have process available, does that affect the taking claim? [00:35:28] Speaker 02: Well, Your Honor, not necessarily if they... I'm trying to think of cases on this. [00:35:33] Speaker 03: Wouldn't the answer be that if you have to think this hard about it, this is not something we should decide on appellate review where there's been no briefing? [00:35:39] Speaker 02: Yes, there's been no briefing on this. [00:35:41] Speaker 02: We've looked into it enough to be able to respond to the couple of paragraphs of briefing in the Joint Committee's brief, but none of this has been aired below. [00:35:48] Speaker 02: The district court, Sue Espante, dismissed this, and so it was a sweeping jurisdictional judgment, and we simply don't have anything. [00:35:56] Speaker 02: That's substantial on the record. [00:35:59] Speaker 03: Can you help me with the ADA claims, disability claims however described. [00:36:07] Speaker 03: What is, so one claim is that the spirit court has an obligation to self-assess whether or not they do or not depends on whether there's a private cause of action here. [00:36:22] Speaker 03: And what benefit would he have gotten from self-assessment? [00:36:25] Speaker 03: This was a question that Judge Silverman began with. [00:36:29] Speaker 02: So he alleges that, fairly read, that the benefit he would have gotten is an enlargement of time, per se, as a disabled litigant. [00:36:37] Speaker 02: That had they assessed their policies and procedures, they wouldn't have... Isn't that entirely speculative? [00:36:42] Speaker 04: And that goes to a standing question, doesn't it? [00:36:45] Speaker 04: Entirely speculative? [00:36:46] Speaker 04: What kind of [00:36:48] Speaker 04: policies would have been adopted. [00:36:51] Speaker 04: What about my hypothetical? [00:36:52] Speaker 04: Suppose the policy adopted was every judge should make careful consideration of disabled plaintiffs and give accommodations as appropriate. [00:37:06] Speaker 04: That would have been response to the statute assuming [00:37:11] Speaker 04: there is a legal obligation. [00:37:12] Speaker 04: Wouldn't that be a legitimate response? [00:37:16] Speaker 04: And therefore, isn't it entirely speculative as to what [00:37:20] Speaker 02: I don't think it is that speculative, Judge Silverman, because the self-assessment requires you to self-assess to figure out what you need to do to give litigants meaningful access. [00:37:34] Speaker 02: And so I don't think it's speculative to say that one of the things they might have come up with for disabled litigants is to, you know, put in a policy in place that they per se get more time. [00:37:46] Speaker 03: This is, I take it you're making a procedural standing claim. [00:37:51] Speaker 03: You had a procedural right, a right to have them self-assess in the same way that somebody who challenges a rule making says there was a right to have notice and comment proceedings before going forward. [00:38:06] Speaker 03: The plaintiff can never prove in those circumstances that he will get the rule he wants. [00:38:12] Speaker 03: But we always say that that is an injury to not at least have the process necessary. [00:38:20] Speaker 03: And I take it that that's the claim here. [00:38:21] Speaker 03: Your claim is that there was a process required, that the agency had to do a self-assessment. [00:38:28] Speaker 03: And you don't know how it would have come out. [00:38:29] Speaker 03: Maybe it would have helped him. [00:38:30] Speaker 03: Maybe it wouldn't. [00:38:32] Speaker 03: But you have every reason to believe that if they went forward with a good faith process, there would be accommodations for people with disabilities. [00:38:39] Speaker 03: Isn't that the argument you're making? [00:38:42] Speaker 02: That is the argument. [00:38:43] Speaker 02: And I would just add as well that under Section 35107 of the Title II ADA regulations, they should have put into place published grievance procedures. [00:38:54] Speaker 02: That's one thing that entities are [00:38:56] Speaker 02: required to do and he says that he alleges that he asked the court to direct him to those procedures and that they told him they didn't direct him to any such procedures. [00:39:07] Speaker 03: So he didn't know as a disabled person how to go forward to get his money back? [00:39:11] Speaker 03: Correct. [00:39:12] Speaker 03: And he's saying that those would be the kind of procedures that would have been in place and he would have then looked at them and that would have helped him? [00:39:18] Speaker 03: Correct. [00:39:21] Speaker 03: Okay, further questions? [00:39:24] Speaker 03: We'll hear from the other side. [00:39:25] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:39:44] Speaker 06: please the court, Adam Daniel for the Joint Committee on Judicial Administration. [00:39:48] Speaker 06: Mr. Crowley's injuries all flow from local court orders that he feels were wrongly decided. [00:39:54] Speaker 06: Finding error and restoring his judgment is a function of appellate review. [00:39:59] Speaker 03: Which court order said he wasn't to receive his money until, I don't know, 2017 or wherever it was he got it? [00:40:06] Speaker 06: In 2008, he requested the money from the court. [00:40:10] Speaker 06: The court found that he had not established his entitlement to it, and he waited another six years before asking again. [00:40:17] Speaker 03: Where is that order? [00:40:19] Speaker 06: You look at the docket, Your Honor. [00:40:22] Speaker 03: Do we actually have the order or only the docket? [00:40:26] Speaker 06: We have the order in filing that Mr. Crowley made. [00:40:30] Speaker 06: It wasn't included in either of the appendixes. [00:40:33] Speaker 03: The order itself... Maybe I should put it another way. [00:40:38] Speaker 03: Do I have the order? [00:40:40] Speaker 06: Through Pacer, you may, Your Honor. [00:40:43] Speaker 03: If you are a party to the court, you're supposed to provide the court with the joint appendix, which would have everything we need. [00:40:50] Speaker 03: were not required or even expected to go looking through PACER on another court's docket to find it. [00:40:57] Speaker 03: Do we have it in front of us? [00:40:59] Speaker 03: No, you do not. [00:41:01] Speaker 03: What is it then? [00:41:02] Speaker 03: What does it say? [00:41:03] Speaker 03: The order... Could you hand it up for a minute? [00:41:07] Speaker 03: Yes, I do. [00:41:07] Speaker 03: Could you hand it up to me? [00:41:08] Speaker 03: Yes, sir. [00:41:11] Speaker 03: If you're going to rely on this, it seems like this would be something you want to provide in advance of oral argument. [00:41:17] Speaker 03: Yes, sir. [00:41:19] Speaker 03: This says the court cannot discern on the motion presented that the moving party is entitled to the funds. [00:41:29] Speaker 03: This says return of money paid to court register. [00:41:34] Speaker 03: Which docket number is this? [00:41:35] Speaker 06: Yeah, which order is this? [00:41:37] Speaker 06: This is the disbursement denial on the docket at page 88, February 6, 2008. [00:41:44] Speaker 03: It's order denying motion to return money paid to court registry. [00:41:48] Speaker 03: Is that it, Judge Green's? [00:41:51] Speaker 03: Yes, let me just read it once. [00:42:31] Speaker 04: Counsel, is there any question that this order could have been appealed? [00:42:36] Speaker 04: Not to my knowledge, sir. [00:42:39] Speaker 01: Do we know when the money was being held by the court, where it was, whether it was in an interest-bearing account, what happened to the time value of that money during that period? [00:42:54] Speaker 06: Under DC Rule 67, which placed the money on the court registry, there's not a requirement for it to go on to the interest bearing account. [00:43:01] Speaker 01: And do we know whether it was an interest bearing account? [00:43:04] Speaker 06: That we don't know. [00:43:08] Speaker 06: However, after Judge Motley granted Mr. Crowley the money, he could have appealed to address that question. [00:43:23] Speaker 06: We believe all of the, there are five orders we've identified which are being challenged here. [00:43:32] Speaker 06: The disbursement denial there, the enlargement denial in 2014, but also the discovery sanctions order that was upheld by the DCCA, the attorney's lien or the granting of his attorney's lien, as well as the registry order actually placing the money on the registry, which Mr. Crowley received a copy of and had notice as to where the money was. [00:43:53] Speaker 06: Say that again. [00:43:55] Speaker 06: The registry order is public record, Your Honor. [00:44:00] Speaker 06: That did what? [00:44:02] Speaker 06: That placed the money on the court registry. [00:44:05] Speaker 06: And what was the date of that? [00:44:07] Speaker 06: That date was January 16, 2002. [00:44:14] Speaker 06: It's on the docket, Amicus's appendix, page 87. [00:44:22] Speaker 01: So he may, in fact, have forfeited various rights obtainable through direct appeal. [00:44:30] Speaker 01: And it may be that his current litigation against the Joint Committee is less likely to bring him full relief. [00:44:38] Speaker 01: But I don't see that as counting for Rooker Feldman purposes. [00:44:43] Speaker 01: I mean, he has a different defendant here. [00:44:46] Speaker 01: He's raising a distinct claim. [00:44:49] Speaker 01: And I understand your position that had he appealed, had he obtained, for example, the time value of that money, it might have mitigated or even mooted his property-based claims, his due process claim and his taking claim. [00:45:05] Speaker 01: I also understand that it's an uphill battle to succeed in those claims on their merits. [00:45:10] Speaker 01: But I don't see from what you've told us how the Rooker Feldman doctrine correctly bars his suit from going forward. [00:45:19] Speaker 06: everything that he is challenging, every injury flows, his injuries certainly on the broad constitutional claim, flow from court orders. [00:45:30] Speaker 01: Well his position is that they don't, that he could have lived with those court orders had the court system, the administrative system of the court helped him to access [00:45:42] Speaker 01: his rights within the court, that he doesn't have a quibble, actually, with what the judges did. [00:45:49] Speaker 01: He has a quibble with his own inability to penetrate the thicket of the court system, given his disability. [00:45:55] Speaker 06: On that reading, Your Honor, there's not a Rook or Feldman issue. [00:45:58] Speaker 06: We don't read the complaint that way. [00:46:03] Speaker 03: Can I just ask whether opposing counsel has this, and if not, could you give it to them? [00:46:21] Speaker 06: We see in, broadly construed, we see five headings that result into claims. [00:46:30] Speaker 06: Under each heading, we see it as being a challenge to one of those court orders. [00:46:37] Speaker 06: We see the Rooker-Feldman issues coming to play and being a bar to this as a de facto appeal of all of those measures. [00:46:46] Speaker 06: Also made several arguments on the merits. [00:46:48] Speaker 03: Can we go back for a second? [00:46:49] Speaker 03: If the clerk's office falsely gave him information. [00:46:55] Speaker 03: Is that a Rooker Feldman issue? [00:47:00] Speaker 06: There would not be a court order involved with that. [00:47:02] Speaker 06: I don't know what claim he would be stating with that, but that would not be Rooker Feldman. [00:47:08] Speaker 06: Rooker Feldman would relate to each of the court orders, placing the money on the registry, telling him that he couldn't have it, and then the second time, Judge Motley doing the right thing and making sure that he got his money. [00:47:20] Speaker 03: So I don't, I don't, I, they don't seem to be, they seem to agree with you that they're not challenging Judge Motley's order in that respect. [00:47:28] Speaker 03: But the complaint does say that he was repeatedly falsely told by the, not by judges, that the money was in different places. [00:47:39] Speaker 03: And those who agree are not barred by Rucker Feldman. [00:47:42] Speaker 03: So there are at least parts of this that both sides seem to agree are not barred. [00:47:49] Speaker 03: Is that one, what I just said? [00:47:52] Speaker 06: To the extent that the court reads a, [00:47:57] Speaker 06: but reads a claim based on what the court does, yes, that would not be Rockefeller. [00:48:02] Speaker 03: So paragraph 19, for example, says, until approximately 2013, defendant's bureau court falsely denied possession of plaintiff Crowley's property. [00:48:14] Speaker 03: In furtherance of this falsehood, created a charade to obscure its continuing possession. [00:48:20] Speaker 03: The unlawful charade consisted of what was not limited to the following acts, and they include [00:48:28] Speaker 03: I'm only looking at D is the one that I'm focusing on. [00:48:33] Speaker 03: DC courts persistently misled, this is the one I read before, Crowley and his various attorneys as to the location and status of the plaintiff's Crowley's property. [00:48:42] Speaker 03: It falsely advised, it conveyed the property to DC Office of Unclaimed Funds and other times it falsely advised that it conveyed plaintiff's property to U.S. [00:48:52] Speaker 03: Treasury. [00:48:53] Speaker 03: So everybody is in agreement, then that's not barred by Rupert Felton. [00:48:58] Speaker 03: Specifically, but we don't read that in isolation, Your Honor. [00:49:06] Speaker 03: on the face, expressly. [00:49:08] Speaker 03: I'm not actually giving him any credit, I'm just saying. [00:49:10] Speaker 03: It says, DC courts persistently, sometimes DC courts falsely advise that it conveyed its property to the DC Office of Unclaimed Funds. [00:49:20] Speaker 03: There's no court order. [00:49:22] Speaker 04: Would you just get directly to the point, do you agree that certain aspects of the allegations do not implicate Walker-Feldman? [00:49:30] Speaker 06: Yes, specifically what you just read, Your Honor, that that piece does not. [00:49:33] Speaker 04: All right, so we can establish that. [00:49:36] Speaker 04: How, what is your response to those matters which are not included by Welker and Feldman? [00:49:43] Speaker 06: We believe those matters will clearly fail on the merits and the support made. [00:49:47] Speaker 06: Look at it and rule on that position as it would be pointless to return it. [00:49:54] Speaker 06: What, let's be specific. [00:49:56] Speaker 06: Specifically as to the false charge there, Mr. Crowley only asked the court for the money once. [00:50:04] Speaker 06: It was found on the registry, and there is a docket entry saying... How do you know he only asked once? [00:50:11] Speaker 06: In turn, he only asked the court for it once, and the court put the money in the registry. [00:50:14] Speaker 03: Oh, you don't know how many times he called on the telephone and spoke to you? [00:50:16] Speaker 06: That I do not know, Your Honor. [00:50:17] Speaker 03: All right, so that would, and nobody knows that because we haven't had a, we haven't gotten past the bear complaint, right? [00:50:24] Speaker 03: So you haven't taken discovery, you don't know what he means by persistently misled, right? [00:50:29] Speaker 03: No, Your Honor. [00:50:30] Speaker 03: Okay. [00:50:30] Speaker 03: So we can hardly resolve that on the face of the complaint, can we? [00:50:34] Speaker 03: Do you agree we can't resolve that on the face of the complaint? [00:50:37] Speaker 03: That specifically, no, Your Honor. [00:50:39] Speaker 03: Yes, I agree with you, Your Honor. [00:50:40] Speaker 03: There's no sovereign immunity for that. [00:50:43] Speaker 03: There's no... I don't know what... There's nothing until we know what the actual facts are, correct? [00:50:52] Speaker 03: Correct. [00:50:52] Speaker 03: All right. [00:50:53] Speaker 03: Now, on the... [00:50:55] Speaker 03: ADA complaint. [00:50:59] Speaker 03: What about that? [00:51:00] Speaker 03: He says that there is an obligation of the courts to accommodate disabilities as a general matter, not just in this case, right? [00:51:14] Speaker 03: And that obligation, he says, the courts have not met. [00:51:18] Speaker 03: Now, maybe the answer is that they have. [00:51:20] Speaker 03: I don't know the answer to that because we don't have any fact development yet. [00:51:24] Speaker 03: If they haven't, and if he has a private right of action, either under the regulation or under the ADA, which everybody seems to agree you can sue the Superior Court under the ADA, is that right? [00:51:38] Speaker 04: What was that? [00:51:40] Speaker 04: I didn't hear what you said. [00:51:41] Speaker 04: I didn't hear what you just said. [00:51:42] Speaker 03: Is it right that the Superior Court can be sued as an administrative agency? [00:51:48] Speaker 06: We do not disagree that the ADA applies to the Superior Court. [00:51:53] Speaker 06: We disagree that the regulation provides a private right of action. [00:51:56] Speaker 04: You disagree that there's a private right of action, is that what you said? [00:52:00] Speaker 03: As to the regulation that he cited, yes, sir. [00:52:02] Speaker 03: But not as to the statute. [00:52:04] Speaker 03: Not as to the statute. [00:52:05] Speaker 03: So for example, if the Superior Court refused to provide elevators or any of a number of other architectural changes, you would agree that they can be sued? [00:52:14] Speaker 06: Yes, so that would fall squarely within lay. [00:52:15] Speaker 03: Right, all right. [00:52:16] Speaker 03: So now his argument is that either specifically under the regulation or otherwise, that they should have policies [00:52:30] Speaker 03: which would allow disabled people as a matter of course to have extensions of time. [00:52:36] Speaker 03: Not extensions of time that are jurisdictionally barred, but extensions of time. [00:52:42] Speaker 03: That is not a Rucker-Feldman problem, right? [00:52:46] Speaker 06: We read this as a Rooker-Feldman problem because he did take advantage of process. [00:52:53] Speaker 06: He moved for the court to grant him an enlargement of time. [00:52:57] Speaker 06: The court denied that. [00:52:59] Speaker 03: But his argument is the court denied it in a particular circumstance, right? [00:53:05] Speaker 03: Under the circumstances of that case, the court didn't say you never get enlargements of time or [00:53:11] Speaker 03: I'm not giving disabled people enlargements of time. [00:53:16] Speaker 03: The court just denied an enlargement of time, just like we might say you're a minute and 22 seconds left. [00:53:22] Speaker 03: And if you go further, we're not going to give you any more time, right? [00:53:25] Speaker 03: Yes, sir. [00:53:25] Speaker 03: All right. [00:53:26] Speaker 03: So what about his argument as a general matter that disabled people need more time? [00:53:33] Speaker 03: For example, there are court cases about taking the SATs in which the court has said that the SAT has to provide an additional time. [00:53:43] Speaker 03: He clearly makes that general policy-like argument. [00:53:47] Speaker 03: You would agree that that's not covered by Rucker-Feldman? [00:53:50] Speaker 00: Yes, sir. [00:53:50] Speaker 03: Okay. [00:53:51] Speaker 03: And that's also not covered by sovereign immunity, correct? [00:53:55] Speaker 03: Because it's decided in the administrative role of the court. [00:54:07] Speaker 06: We haven't briefed or looked at the sovereign immunity aspects. [00:54:11] Speaker 06: I'm simply not prepared. [00:54:12] Speaker 01: I think maybe we're referring to judicial immunity. [00:54:16] Speaker 03: I'm sorry, judicial immunity. [00:54:18] Speaker 03: My bad. [00:54:18] Speaker 03: Sorry. [00:54:19] Speaker 06: Judicial immunity. [00:54:21] Speaker 06: In the administrative rule to promulgate the regulation that is being approached, not as we've brought judicial immunity. [00:54:29] Speaker 03: All right. [00:54:29] Speaker 03: So then what is your next argument about why? [00:54:32] Speaker 04: Let me just step back to Judge Garland's question. [00:54:37] Speaker 04: The judge in the order that you referred to specifically dealt with the claim that the plaintiff needed more time. [00:54:49] Speaker 04: Isn't that correct? [00:54:54] Speaker 04: He asked for more time. [00:54:55] Speaker 06: He asked for more time and he was denied. [00:54:57] Speaker 04: That's what I'm saying. [00:54:58] Speaker 04: Now, that is a judicial ruling. [00:55:02] Speaker 04: There's no question about that. [00:55:05] Speaker 04: His argument, I gather, is if there was this procedure, that ruling would have been modified. [00:55:15] Speaker 04: If there had been this procedure beforehand, whereby there had been a discussion, then that judicial decision would have been modified. [00:55:27] Speaker 04: Is that correct? [00:55:29] Speaker 04: Do I understand? [00:55:30] Speaker 04: Judge Garland's dialogue with you. [00:55:32] Speaker 03: I suppose probably asking you that question is not very fruitful. [00:55:35] Speaker 06: We don't read his complaint that way. [00:55:36] Speaker 06: If you read his complaint that way. [00:55:38] Speaker 06: No. [00:55:40] Speaker 04: My point is that I can't disassociate the request for this procedural right of conferencing from the judge's ruling. [00:55:52] Speaker 04: Because I guess the theory is if there was this [00:55:56] Speaker 04: meeting of various judges in this administrative committee, they would have come out with some kind of rule that would have modified the judge's decision in this case. [00:56:07] Speaker 04: That's what I understand the complaint to allege. [00:56:11] Speaker 04: At best you can come, but that seems to me to be a worker, I can never pronounce it properly, worker Feldman issue. [00:56:21] Speaker 04: It's as if the district judge, Superior Court judge, excuse me, [00:56:25] Speaker 04: in making that decision, denying him extension of time, misread a statute. [00:56:35] Speaker 04: Yes. [00:56:36] Speaker 04: Suppose, for instance, there had been a meeting pursuant to this claim in which the judges had gotten together and said disabled people should get X amount of time. [00:56:50] Speaker 04: And the district judge had nevertheless denied that. [00:56:55] Speaker 04: And the plaintiff was challenging that. [00:56:58] Speaker 04: That would be a Walker-Feldman issue, would it not? [00:57:01] Speaker 06: Yes, Your Honor. [00:57:03] Speaker 06: We agree. [00:57:03] Speaker 04: So that's why that leads me right back to the judge's order as the key. [00:57:08] Speaker 04: That was the injury, and that is what we are asked to review. [00:57:14] Speaker 04: Yes, Your Honor. [00:57:14] Speaker 04: That's how we read the complaint. [00:57:15] Speaker 04: The plaintiff's argument is, well, if there had been this meeting, the order might have come out differently, which I think is very speculative. [00:57:24] Speaker 04: even if you take it, it's nevertheless a challenge to that order. [00:57:29] Speaker 06: That is exactly what we read in the complaint, yes, Your Honor. [00:57:32] Speaker 04: Is there any other order that the plaintiff looks at that couldn't have either been, that isn't a challenge to the judge's order or for purposes of due process, couldn't have been appealed to the Court of Appeals? [00:57:49] Speaker 06: Also in paragraph 34, subparagraph B, there's 14 further subparagraphs. [00:57:59] Speaker 06: All of those seem to refer to the discovery sanctions ordered by the DCCA. [00:58:03] Speaker 04: Now, there's one thing that does trouble me, and I was troubling Judge Garland, too. [00:58:09] Speaker 04: What about actions by the clerk's office, not the judges themselves? [00:58:14] Speaker 04: It is your argument in the brief, as I recall, that that was [00:58:18] Speaker 04: That's all covered by judicial immunity. [00:58:21] Speaker 04: Wasn't that your argument? [00:58:23] Speaker 06: That was our argument in the brief yesterday. [00:58:25] Speaker 04: Well, I'm not sure. [00:58:26] Speaker 04: But you would agree it's not Walker-Feldman. [00:58:32] Speaker 06: As to the clerk's actions, absolute order agreed, not Rooker-Feldman, yes. [00:58:36] Speaker 04: So what is the grounds on which the complaint should be denied for that aspect? [00:58:45] Speaker 06: If your honors read a stated claim on that ground, that would not be a worker felt. [00:58:55] Speaker 04: Is there any other ground on what should be dismissed? [00:58:57] Speaker 04: Are you conceding, therefore, the case should be remanded? [00:59:02] Speaker 04: We're suggesting that... Are you conceding that the case should be remanded because those issues were not discussed? [00:59:10] Speaker 04: No, we believe you can reach the merits and find immunity for the clerk's office. [00:59:14] Speaker 04: Immunity for the clerk's office as part of judicial immunity. [00:59:19] Speaker 04: And your authority on that is what? [00:59:21] Speaker 06: In our brief, yes, we said to a number of cases referring to how that would be developed. [00:59:27] Speaker 06: How what? [00:59:28] Speaker 06: How that would be developed. [00:59:33] Speaker 06: Developed by discovery, developed by...? [00:59:36] Speaker 06: How judicial immunity for the clerk's office would exist. [00:59:41] Speaker 03: Which claims are you talking about, then? [00:59:44] Speaker 06: Specifically, we're referring to the claims of the clerks that leave under the constitutional claim. [00:59:52] Speaker 04: You mean on the property claim or the due process? [00:59:55] Speaker 04: What are we talking about? [01:00:00] Speaker 06: Any takings claim has its origin in a court order. [01:00:03] Speaker 06: I believe we're talking about if we're to interpret a due process claim in the constitutional claim. [01:00:11] Speaker 04: Now you got me a little confused. [01:00:15] Speaker 04: Your basic argument that the clerk's behavior or misbehavior is covered by judicial immunity. [01:00:24] Speaker 04: That's your fundamental argument, if I understand it. [01:00:27] Speaker 00: Yes, sir. [01:00:28] Speaker 04: With respect to any claims, constitutional or whatever. [01:00:33] Speaker 04: Is that correct? [01:00:37] Speaker 06: No? [01:00:37] Speaker 06: That's how we briefed it. [01:00:37] Speaker 06: Yes, sir. [01:00:39] Speaker 01: And I think our confusion is that you tie your judicial immunity claim to the Rooker Feldman claim in so far as you say, by the same token that the Rooker Feldman claim stands on. [01:00:52] Speaker 01: your characterization that plaintiff is attacking the orders, so too if the plaintiff is attacking the orders, those are judicial orders and immunity applies. [01:01:01] Speaker 01: But I think where we are is saying, well, assuming that we disagree and that he's not attacking the orders, or at least that his complaint can be read, [01:01:11] Speaker 01: to be attacking administrative proceedings apart from the court orders, you don't have any claim of immunity against that, the claim so framed, do you? [01:01:24] Speaker 06: I don't believe so, Your Honor. [01:01:27] Speaker 04: So you would concede that a claim against the clerk's office by itself is not covered by judicial immunity. [01:01:34] Speaker 04: If we should have a clerk that was on a frolic of her own, [01:01:40] Speaker 04: and turned down complaints that were filed by men with red hair. [01:01:48] Speaker 04: And we were sued. [01:01:49] Speaker 04: Would that be covered by judicial immunity? [01:01:53] Speaker 06: I don't believe so, Your Honor. [01:01:56] Speaker 04: No. [01:01:56] Speaker 04: So then you're giving up on that part. [01:01:59] Speaker 04: So why should we affirm the district judge throwing out a claim against the clerk's office on Walker Felden? [01:02:10] Speaker 04: Aren't you conceding we should not, we should remain? [01:02:14] Speaker 06: Constructively complain that way. [01:02:15] Speaker 06: We don't disagree that that would be Ricker Felton. [01:02:20] Speaker 04: Why shouldn't we pursue the complaint? [01:02:23] Speaker 06: We read the complaint as specifically trying to get at those orders. [01:02:28] Speaker 06: The judge's orders? [01:02:29] Speaker 04: Yes. [01:02:30] Speaker 04: One wasn't directed against the clerk's office? [01:02:36] Speaker 06: In terms of, I believe we were talking about 19D, is that Judge Garland? [01:02:43] Speaker 06: That read alone, there's no court order associated with that. [01:02:46] Speaker 04: Yes. [01:02:48] Speaker 06: Okay. [01:02:51] Speaker 04: Further questions? [01:02:54] Speaker 03: Okay. [01:02:55] Speaker 03: Time left for the other side. [01:02:57] Speaker 03: We'll give you another couple minutes. [01:02:58] Speaker 03: You want to talk about that document that was just passed to you? [01:03:00] Speaker 03: And also, if you could give the court after the argument three copies of the document. [01:03:08] Speaker 03: We'll provide it to everyone. [01:03:08] Speaker 06: Thank you, Your Honor. [01:03:20] Speaker 02: On the document, which as we're seeing now for the first time, but if you look past the first sentence, which says cannot discern on the motion presented that the moving parties entitled to the funds, he later says on this motion, the court cannot find. [01:03:36] Speaker 02: it has jurisdiction to order any return of funds that may now be in possession of the United States Treasury. [01:03:43] Speaker 02: So if you just read a little further down in the order, this is precisely the problem that Mr. Crowley had, is that it's the same thing that Judge Motley told him in 2014, which is that the court's authority ends at its ability to disperse those funds. [01:03:56] Speaker 02: To the extent that they were in the US Treasury, the court told him that that's not something [01:04:01] Speaker 02: that he could deal with in this lawsuit, and that's why we're here. [01:04:04] Speaker 02: That's why he's suing the joint committee separately. [01:04:05] Speaker 04: Counsel, let me go back to one series of questions between going back to Judge Garland and myself. [01:04:13] Speaker 04: Let's assume the D.C. [01:04:18] Speaker 04: counsel had passed a statute effectuating the statute, the rehabilitation statute, [01:04:29] Speaker 04: or that the group had met beforehand, the group that you would, the administrative group had met beforehand, and come out with a series of standards by which Superior Court judges should behave with disabled. [01:04:46] Speaker 04: And the district judge in this case had misapplied those, clearly misapplied those. [01:04:56] Speaker 04: Would we have jurisdiction? [01:04:58] Speaker 04: to consider that. [01:05:00] Speaker 02: Your honor, if it was a challenge to the constitutionality of that rule or to the lawfulness of that rule wholesale, yes, you would have jurisdiction. [01:05:09] Speaker 04: Even though even though the district court ruled on it and got it wrong. [01:05:13] Speaker 02: Yes. [01:05:14] Speaker 04: We can review directly the district court's misapplication of the statute and constitution. [01:05:19] Speaker 04: Well, what you are why isn't that directly counter to Welkert Pellman? [01:05:23] Speaker 02: Well, the court said, again, and Skinner v. Switzer cited in our briefs, that a court could have applied the rule that you are challenging wholesale, whether it's under the Constitution or under some other legal provision. [01:05:34] Speaker 04: No, the rule was perfectly sound. [01:05:36] Speaker 04: It's the district judge who got it wrong. [01:05:41] Speaker 02: Oh, I see, Your Honor. [01:05:41] Speaker 02: You're saying if he's not challenging the rule, he's only challenging the district judge. [01:05:46] Speaker 04: He's challenging the district judge's application of the rule. [01:05:49] Speaker 04: The district judge ignored the rule. [01:05:51] Speaker 04: that was adopted by the committee. [01:05:54] Speaker 02: Yes, that would be closer, I think, to the Rooker-Feldman line if the district court had it. [01:05:57] Speaker 02: It would be clearly Rooker-Feldman. [01:05:59] Speaker 02: Yes, Your Honor, but that's not what's happening here. [01:06:01] Speaker 04: Well, I'm not sure there's a distinction. [01:06:04] Speaker 04: You can challenge... You're saying this should have happened, and if it happened, the district judge would have behaved differently. [01:06:11] Speaker 02: He's challenging the constitutionality and legality of the court's administrative procedures and also of the clerks or whatever office it was sitting in, the funds sitting there for 14 years. [01:06:26] Speaker 02: He's not challenging any application of any procedure that a court applied. [01:06:31] Speaker 04: Let me go back to the property for 14 years. [01:06:34] Speaker 04: What's your theory on that? [01:06:36] Speaker 04: I'm sorry, 13 years. [01:06:37] Speaker 04: Whatever. [01:06:38] Speaker 04: In 2002. [01:06:39] Speaker 04: What is your legal theory for? [01:06:41] Speaker 04: You're suing the clerk's office, though, at that point. [01:06:46] Speaker 04: Who is being sued? [01:06:49] Speaker 02: He's suing the Joint Committee as an administrative entity, the policy-making entity for the D.C. [01:06:54] Speaker 02: courts. [01:06:55] Speaker 04: Because the property was sitting for 13 years. [01:06:59] Speaker 04: Correct. [01:07:02] Speaker 04: And your theory is if they come out with some kind of rule dealing with disabled people, [01:07:10] Speaker 04: it would have had an impact on that decision. [01:07:14] Speaker 02: Well, separating for a second the property... Again, they have the problem. [01:07:19] Speaker 04: If they'd come out with a rule saying you've got to be very careful with disabled people concerning property that's sitting in court, you should expedite procedures for this, and the judges just neglected to do that. [01:07:37] Speaker 04: Well, he's not... If that had happened, if that had happened, that hypothetical, would that be Walker Feldman? [01:07:44] Speaker 02: If the court had, if there was a procedure in place saying disabled litigants should not get their money? [01:07:51] Speaker 04: No, no. [01:07:52] Speaker 04: If there was a procedure in place that said you should be very careful to make sure disabled people get money, right? [01:08:00] Speaker 04: And the district judge had not, the Superior Court judge, I keep making that mistake, the Superior Court judge had not followed that. [01:08:08] Speaker 04: Would that be Rooker Feldman? [01:08:12] Speaker 02: That would be closer to the Rooker Feldman line if what he's asking you to do is overturn that judgment. [01:08:22] Speaker 02: Review that judgment. [01:08:23] Speaker 02: Correct. [01:08:24] Speaker 02: But again, he could challenge, which is what he's doing here, he could challenge the rule. [01:08:30] Speaker 02: He could challenge the rule more broadly, even if the courts had applied the rule in a way in the case that he thought was wrong. [01:08:38] Speaker 03: Really? [01:08:39] Speaker 03: Can I ask some questions about this? [01:08:41] Speaker 03: So on the question Judge Silverman is asking you, he's assuming that the Superior Court judge would have ignored the rule. [01:08:50] Speaker 03: But let's start from what I understand you're asking. [01:08:53] Speaker 03: You thought that the court as a whole, as an administrative body, should ever rule saying disabled people, for example, always get more time, okay? [01:09:06] Speaker 03: The spirit court judge did not rule on any such rule. [01:09:10] Speaker 03: So you're entitled to assume that if they had that rule, the court would have followed the rule. [01:09:17] Speaker 03: We don't normally begin with the theory that spirit court judges will ignore a rule. [01:09:22] Speaker 03: So your argument is they should have had a rule that would always give disabled people a [01:09:30] Speaker 03: extension of time. [01:09:31] Speaker 03: And it's not speculative to believe that spirit court judges would have followed the rule and therefore he would have gotten additional time. [01:09:39] Speaker 02: That's precisely what he's alleging. [01:09:40] Speaker 03: So that's the injury in that sense. [01:09:42] Speaker 03: Now, the other question I have is in the cases that you've given examples of, like the DNA testing in Switzer and like the attack on the bar rules, [01:10:00] Speaker 03: Um, the reason that an additional reason in some of those circumstances, but that's the principle reason is that those people still have further things that they can do. [01:10:10] Speaker 03: Right. [01:10:11] Speaker 03: That person, um, in the Supreme court case could now apply again. [01:10:16] Speaker 03: for a admission without a bar, even though he'd been denied in the past. [01:10:23] Speaker 03: And if that rule is unconstitutional, he has a chance in the future to get it. [01:10:30] Speaker 03: And likewise, in the DNA circumstance, totally separate from the criminal case, he can demand his DNA evidence. [01:10:37] Speaker 03: Is there an allegation here that Mr. Crowley is going to continue to litigate in Superior Court, and so he needs these in the future? [01:10:48] Speaker 03: Because there is a statement that says all the way up until the present. [01:10:53] Speaker 03: And I'm not sure, has there been any development of this with respect to standing? [01:11:01] Speaker 02: No, not that we know of, Your Honor. [01:11:03] Speaker 02: And when he said up until the present, that was in February 15 when he filed the federal complaint, and that was immediately after Judge Motley told him, this case is closed. [01:11:14] Speaker 03: So he's not making an argument that he wants policies in the future. [01:11:17] Speaker 03: He's making an argument that there should have been those policies in the past and that odds are he would have benefited. [01:11:24] Speaker 03: But the consequence is not to give him another shot at the defendants in his court case, but rather a shot at the treasury of the district of the severe court. [01:11:35] Speaker 02: That's exactly right, Chief Judge Garland. [01:11:37] Speaker 02: It's an entirely different defendant, a different set of legal claims. [01:11:41] Speaker 02: The joint committee was not involved at all. [01:11:42] Speaker 02: This was just tort litigation that started in 1985. [01:11:45] Speaker 02: And the funds then sat there for 13 years after 2002, which the district now admits that they didn't have any claim to those funds. [01:11:52] Speaker 02: So they should have gone to him at that point. [01:11:54] Speaker 03: And your argument about this particular document is that the judge understood from whatever representations were made to her that the money was no longer there and therefore she couldn't do anything about it. [01:12:09] Speaker 03: Is that what you're saying? [01:12:10] Speaker 03: And the problem is that whoever moved the money did it without a judge's authority. [01:12:15] Speaker 02: I'm just looking at it for the first time now, but it does say on this motion, the court cannot find it has jurisdiction to order any return of funds that may now be in possession of the United States Treasury. [01:12:26] Speaker 03: And there isn't any docket entry from a judge to directing that the money be sent to the U.S. [01:12:30] Speaker 03: Treasury. [01:12:30] Speaker 02: No, that's where we have that 2005 docket entry, which is at page 88 that just says, and it wasn't by any order of the court, it just says court escrow funds transferred to the U.S. [01:12:42] Speaker 02: Treasury voided on deliverable. [01:12:44] Speaker 02: That's all we have with respect to that transfer. [01:12:46] Speaker 04: I think I understand now because of your dialogue with Judge Garland. [01:12:50] Speaker 04: Your argument basically is that if the committee had acted, the district, [01:12:58] Speaker 04: orders of the superior court judge would have been different. [01:13:03] Speaker 04: That's your basic argument. [01:13:06] Speaker 02: They certainly might have been different. [01:13:07] Speaker 04: No, no, that's your argument. [01:13:09] Speaker 04: That's why you're injured. [01:13:10] Speaker 04: That's why you're injured. [01:13:11] Speaker 04: Because if that group had met and come out with rules and policies, these orders that caused injury would have been different. [01:13:21] Speaker 02: Correct, but I think even more broadly what he's saying is what he's alleged... Yes, Your Honor, I think that's right. [01:13:28] Speaker 02: That's what I thought. [01:13:29] Speaker 02: Or wouldn't have been necessary because the situation wouldn't have gotten to that point. [01:13:33] Speaker 02: That's exactly right. [01:13:34] Speaker 02: I didn't want to go down the rabbit hole again, but yes. [01:13:38] Speaker 02: It's not a rabbit hole. [01:13:39] Speaker 02: He says very clearly in his allegations... You're making some progress here. [01:13:43] Speaker 02: He says very clearly in his complaint and the allegations in his complaint that [01:13:49] Speaker 02: If these procedures were in place as a baseline matter, litigants in his position would not have to litigate this over and over again. [01:13:57] Speaker 02: As an administrative matter, he would have had the disabilities. [01:14:01] Speaker 04: So the orders would have been different. [01:14:03] Speaker 04: The orders from the Superior Court judges would have been different. [01:14:07] Speaker 02: Yes, and the actions, it wasn't just orders of the Superior Court. [01:14:10] Speaker 02: The actions he alleges he was calling, those would have been different too. [01:14:13] Speaker 04: Yes, there are other things, right. [01:14:15] Speaker 04: Right. [01:14:15] Speaker 04: OK. [01:14:16] Speaker 03: Okay, looks like we've given a large extension of time for everybody here and we're going to now take a break while facilities required for this case are taken out and the next group moves up. [01:14:31] Speaker 03: Thank you.