[00:00:01] Speaker 00: Case No. [00:00:01] Speaker 00: 19-7157, Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ vs. Preeminent Protective Services Inc. [00:00:09] Speaker 00: Abellent. [00:00:10] Speaker 00: Ms. [00:00:11] Speaker 00: Gaines for the Abellent, Mr. Anderson for the Abelly. [00:00:16] Speaker 05: Good morning, Ms. [00:00:17] Speaker 05: Gaines. [00:00:17] Speaker 03: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:00:19] Speaker 05: Please proceed. [00:00:21] Speaker 03: And may it please the court. [00:00:22] Speaker 03: My name is Eden Brown Gaines, and I'm advocating on behalf of Preeminent Protective Services, Incorporated, one of the many small minority owned businesses in the District of Columbia, which serves the city and employs a number of the city's citizens. [00:00:36] Speaker 03: I think this case illustrates some of the concerns that are inherent with very large and very powerful unions and some of the flaws that can be inherent in the arbitration process. [00:00:49] Speaker 03: While unions certainly serve an important function in our society, I think that in this case, this union has become abusive. [00:00:58] Speaker 03: I think while the arbitration process can play a critical role in reducing the backlog of court cases and assisting parties in expediently resolving conflicts, I think this case illustrates part of the issues with the arbitrators desire to ensure income, [00:01:16] Speaker 03: and making that focus the primary focus of the process rather than the merits of the actual issue. [00:01:24] Speaker 05: Before we get to the merits here, there've been some substantial questions raised about jurisdiction. [00:01:33] Speaker 05: So can you walk us through why you think that [00:01:39] Speaker 05: the order compelling arbitration and the contempt order are before us, because you didn't appeal those orders within the 30-day time period. [00:01:48] Speaker 03: Sure. [00:01:49] Speaker 03: Under the, the district court assumed jurisdiction pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act. [00:01:56] Speaker 03: And under the act, section, non-USC section 16B, an appeal may not be taken from an interlocutory order under the act directing arbitration to proceed. [00:02:10] Speaker 03: And so preeminent was not in a position to appeal the court's order directing that it go to arbitration at the time that the court entered the order. [00:02:19] Speaker 05: Except that green tree says that an order like that is not interlocutory under B4, it's final under A3. [00:02:33] Speaker 03: Well, I don't think that the order directing them to arbitration just under the plain language of the Federal Arbitration Act statute. [00:02:41] Speaker 03: would have been directly appealable at that time. [00:02:45] Speaker 03: I mean, typically when the order ensues, the parties must be directed to go to arbitration. [00:02:52] Speaker 03: And then at the close of the case, when the case is finally dissolved or disposed of by the court, then at that time, the parties are in a position to be able to appeal whether or not the order [00:03:05] Speaker 05: How is this order compelling arbitration different from the one that was held to be final and appealable in the Green Tree case? [00:03:16] Speaker 03: Because in this case, the court retained jurisdiction and continued to exercise its authority throughout this proceeding. [00:03:24] Speaker 03: If the court recognizes the fact that when? [00:03:27] Speaker 05: How do you get that? [00:03:30] Speaker 05: If you look at the arbitration order he just [00:03:36] Speaker 05: grants summary judgment and compels arbitration. [00:03:41] Speaker 05: And the order on its face just grants summary judgments. [00:03:47] Speaker 05: It seems like the district court was dissociating himself from the case. [00:03:54] Speaker 03: I think we can look at what occurred after the judge's order to direct the parties to arbitration. [00:04:02] Speaker 03: I mean, the case was not closed by the court. [00:04:05] Speaker 03: the appellees were able to file a motion for contempt of that order. [00:04:11] Speaker 03: And the proceedings continued as if it was the same case, not the reopening of a new case, not in the posture of a case that had been closed and an order being revisited. [00:04:25] Speaker 03: And so, I mean, I think this case falls within the context of an interlocutory order under the Federal Arbitration Act statute, meaning that [00:04:34] Speaker 03: preeminent would not have been in a position. [00:04:36] Speaker 03: If we had filed an appeal at that time, then the court would not have had jurisdiction and we would have been sent back to go through the proceedings until the case was finally concluded. [00:04:46] Speaker 03: Would you also like me to address the issue with respect to the Civil Contempt Order? [00:04:50] Speaker 03: Yes, please. [00:04:51] Speaker 03: With respect to that, the course of Health and Civil Contempt Order is not typically deemed interlocutory and thus not appealable. [00:05:00] Speaker 03: This district has generally taken that position. [00:05:04] Speaker 03: And then there is a well-entrenched Supreme Court case law that essentially stays the same. [00:05:10] Speaker 03: And it describes the rule as well-settled. [00:05:13] Speaker 03: And so again, this. [00:05:17] Speaker 05: Your case for the contempt order being interlocutory seems very intuitive to me. [00:05:26] Speaker 05: There are sanctioned, there are attorney's fees issues that are still pending and the contempt order looks conditional on its face, but [00:05:45] Speaker 05: We have Budinich, which seems to tell us that the pendency of fee issues doesn't defeat finality. [00:05:54] Speaker 05: And we have a case from our court called Armstrong, which says that if an order is conditional in the sense of it says, here's what you have to pay unless you cure a contempt, we said that was a final contempt order. [00:06:11] Speaker 05: So how do you get around Budinich and Armstrong? [00:06:14] Speaker 03: Well, I think this case is a little different because the court did not say, here's what you have to pay when initially issuing the order of civil contempt. [00:06:22] Speaker 03: The appeal came within 30 days of the time in which the court finally said, here's what you have to pay. [00:06:29] Speaker 03: And it would be nonsensical in the sense that preeminence arguments concerning the propriety of the sanction, meaning whether or not it was punitive in nature, [00:06:41] Speaker 03: meaning that it should be treated like civil contempt, whether or not they had the ability to pay it. [00:06:47] Speaker 03: All of those arguments aren't ripe, actually, until the parties know what the actual sanction is going to be. [00:06:55] Speaker 03: And so it was conditional contempt, meaning that if preeminent didn't take some act in the future, then the court would take [00:07:02] Speaker 03: certain acts and those acts didn't happen when the court initially entered the civil contempt order and then of course we didn't know what the court was going to order preeminent to pay finally until November and then preeminent appealed that order within 30 days. [00:07:19] Speaker 02: Ms. [00:07:20] Speaker 02: Gaines, if I could ask you a question about the order. [00:07:23] Speaker 02: So there's a conditional contempt order. [00:07:26] Speaker 02: It seems that the district court's order of that date does two separate things. [00:07:31] Speaker 02: It imposes a conditional contempt on preeminent, which actually gets purged because preeminent does arbitrate within one month of that order. [00:07:41] Speaker 02: So preeminent is actually never held in contempt. [00:07:45] Speaker 02: But I think that order does also a separate thing, which is impose attorney's fees irrespective of the contempt. [00:07:53] Speaker 02: I mean, the attorney's fees at that point are not connected to the contempt. [00:07:58] Speaker 02: The contempt is purged, but the attorney's fees continue. [00:08:03] Speaker 02: So it seems if you think of the order as doing those two distinct things, [00:08:09] Speaker 02: then the order saying that there will be attorney's fees is final and appealable as of the June order because it's a final determination that there will be attorney's fees awarded and the only thing left is to figure out the amount. [00:08:27] Speaker 03: Well, let me answer that in two ways with the court's indulgence. [00:08:32] Speaker 03: The first issue was that there was some difficulty in determining exactly what it is the court was doing. [00:08:37] Speaker 03: If the court recalls from the record, the court actually, I believe in the first hearing, the court said, I'm not going to hold you in contempt at this point. [00:08:45] Speaker 03: And then, you know, more things happen. [00:08:46] Speaker 03: We get to the court in January. [00:08:48] Speaker 03: And then the court says, I'm going to order attorney's fees, but isn't clear under what authority the court is making that order in January, because that the court doesn't actually make a contempt finding. [00:08:59] Speaker 03: And so there's this question as to whether the award of fees at that time was pursuant to the court's inherent authority. [00:09:05] Speaker 03: you know, some statutory mechanism. [00:09:09] Speaker 03: And so we've raised that issue in the brief. [00:09:12] Speaker 03: And I think it was the responsibility of the court to be clear under which method, whether it be contempt or pursuant to contempt proceedings or the court's inherent authority as to how, you know, these attorney's fees awards were going to be issued. [00:09:27] Speaker 03: But then to answer the second part of your question, again, I think it's what I'm saying earlier about how this award is manifested. [00:09:38] Speaker 03: Preeminent would not have been able to appeal [00:09:42] Speaker 03: The issues with the contempt award, meaning whether this award was punitive or compensatory in nature and none of those things were readily apparent until the final amount Of the award was in place. [00:09:55] Speaker 03: And so preeminent concerns obviously were were with the fact of the award and the court wasn't very clear on on on how it was issuing this award because as as you've correctly noted preeminent [00:10:05] Speaker 03: was found in civil contempt by the order, but obviously they were able to, it was conditional and they were able to meet the conditions, you know, that the court had imposed by going to arbitration, but the rest of the aspect of the order was still kind of in the air until the court actually [00:10:23] Speaker 03: heard the party's positions and then entered. [00:10:26] Speaker 02: Is it in the air, though, under Budinich and Armstrong, as Judge Katzis had mentioned, though? [00:10:31] Speaker 02: Because those cases do seem to suggest that when there's an order saying that there shall be the payment of attorney's fees, that is a final and appealable order. [00:10:40] Speaker 03: But I think, as Judge Katzis pointed out, it said what the party would pay. [00:10:46] Speaker 03: And in this case, it was broken out. [00:10:48] Speaker 03: There wasn't quite the determination [00:10:50] Speaker 03: as to what the party would actually pay. [00:10:55] Speaker 05: You're right about that, but the order that we held to be final in Armstrong, it was a coercive civil contempt like this one, and it said, [00:11:09] Speaker 05: It said to the executive office of the president that you will be sanctioned X dollars per day unless you purge the contempt by coming into compliance by some future date certain. [00:11:26] Speaker 05: And sounds awfully contingent to me, but we said it was final. [00:11:32] Speaker 03: Well, there are two parts to our order, though, that's a little different than what you described. [00:11:36] Speaker 03: Yes, the court here did say you'll pay X dollars per day unless you do something in the future, but then the court also said you're going to pay X dollars for some unknown amount to be determined. [00:11:49] Speaker 03: Because of on the fees. [00:11:52] Speaker 03: That's right. [00:11:53] Speaker 03: Your contempt or, you know, the it's hard to tell from the court's orders, whether the attorney's fees is a is a penalty under contempt or it's, you know, the court's inherent authority to supervise, you know, it's it's [00:12:06] Speaker 03: its orders, whether the judge issued this attorney's fees amount by its inherent authority or whether it was pursuant to the contempt. [00:12:15] Speaker 03: But in either case, this is a little different. [00:12:17] Speaker 02: Ms. [00:12:18] Speaker 02: Gaines, the order does say that the fees are to, the order says, to compensate the plaintiff for the defendant's contemptuous and dilatory tactics and regardless of any subsequent purgation of the defendant's contempt. [00:12:31] Speaker 02: which seems to me to decouple the contempt from the attorney's fees, right? [00:12:37] Speaker 02: So even if you were to purge the contempt, the court is making clear that there will be attorney's fees awarded. [00:12:43] Speaker 03: It's still tied, Your Honor, back to what happened in January, because if the court recalls, the district court actually said in January that you're going to have to pay attorney's fees, require the parties to put in petitions, [00:12:55] Speaker 03: and didn't say exactly what those fees would be. [00:12:58] Speaker 03: And so then when we move forward to the point where the court is issuing the conditional contempt order, it's also bootstrapping in the conduct, the attorney's fees, everything that had occurred, at least from January going forward to the future. [00:13:13] Speaker 03: And so it just isn't at the point of making the statement that you're in civil contempt. [00:13:18] Speaker 03: The court initially just said, hey, I'm going to make you pay these attorney's fees because [00:13:23] Speaker 03: I don't like what you did, or you're kind of in contempt. [00:13:27] Speaker 03: And then the court moved forward after the arbitration broke. [00:13:30] Speaker 03: I'm sorry. [00:13:31] Speaker 03: Did I interrupt someone? [00:13:32] Speaker 05: No, I just. [00:13:34] Speaker 03: OK. [00:13:35] Speaker 05: Go ahead. [00:13:36] Speaker 05: I'm sorry. [00:13:37] Speaker 03: No, no, it's OK. [00:13:39] Speaker 03: After the arbitration broke down with Arbitrator Johnson, then the court moves forward to say that this is a conditional attempt order and states the issue as you've said it. [00:13:50] Speaker 03: But again. [00:13:51] Speaker 05: Go ahead. [00:13:53] Speaker 03: The attorney's fees, it's no problem, Your Honor, I got it. [00:13:55] Speaker 03: The attorney's fees is tied to the court's concern, I suppose, for lack of a better word, with its belief that preeminent had failed to follow its orders, whether by the letter in spirit and moving forward to proceed to arbitration. [00:14:15] Speaker 03: So I mean, I think that I think the court has jurisdiction because I think both orders were of the nature that had preeminent appeal. [00:14:21] Speaker 03: The first order when it occurred, this court would have said we don't have jurisdiction. [00:14:24] Speaker 03: We're going to send you back because of the Federal Arbitration Act. [00:14:27] Speaker 03: And I think had we appealed the contempt order before the attorney's fees had been known, not only would preeminent have been in a position where they couldn't have made the arguments because they wouldn't have existed yet, they wouldn't have known what the fee was going to be and what the problems were going to be. [00:14:42] Speaker 03: In fact, again, preeminence argument is that this isn't even civil contempt. [00:14:47] Speaker 04: Let me ask you about your understanding of the FAA. [00:14:50] Speaker 04: The order to arbitrate is final unless stayed under the FAA. [00:14:57] Speaker 03: Yes, sir. [00:14:58] Speaker 04: It wasn't stayed here. [00:14:59] Speaker 04: That's correct. [00:15:01] Speaker 04: That's correct. [00:15:02] Speaker 04: So it's final. [00:15:04] Speaker 04: It's interlocutory in the- No, under the FAA, it's final unless stayed. [00:15:11] Speaker 03: I don't know that I'd read the language of the FAA in that way. [00:15:16] Speaker 03: I mean, it simply just says an appeal may not be taken from an interlocutory under order directing arbitration to proceed. [00:15:23] Speaker 03: And I'm not sure that the statute speaks to [00:15:26] Speaker 03: whether or not the parties requested or the judge decided to stay the order. [00:15:30] Speaker 03: I mean, I think preeminent did have to continue to arbitration based on the court's directive and then await the final conclusion, whether the arbitration award was confirmed or whether it was vacated or altered in some way pursuant to the statute before it could ultimately appeal the court's decision. [00:15:48] Speaker 03: And I think that is actually what preeminent ultimately did and in so doing that this court is able to take jurisdiction over the matter. [00:15:58] Speaker 02: Can I just ask you one question on the merits if we were to reach them about the arbitrability question? [00:16:04] Speaker 02: The collective bargaining agreement that includes the arbitration clause is between preeminent and the union, right? [00:16:17] Speaker 02: Yes. [00:16:18] Speaker 02: Right. [00:16:19] Speaker 02: Not between the individual employees, right? [00:16:22] Speaker 02: A collective bargaining agreement is by definition between preeminent and the union. [00:16:26] Speaker 03: Yes. [00:16:29] Speaker 03: Yes, I think the problem with the collective bargaining agreement in this instance was whether this was the applicable collective bargaining agreement. [00:16:39] Speaker 03: So I think the issue that ultimately had to be determined was not whether you could grieve or go to arbitration on a termination grievance. [00:16:46] Speaker 03: I think the issue was whose [00:16:48] Speaker 03: collective bargaining agreement was applicable because preeminence argument is that it was not the employer of the grievance preeminent couldn't even say other than reading emails that it received from the District of Columbia, why the grievance had even been terminated and ultimately when the arbitration went for the grievance testified that they'd never [00:17:06] Speaker 03: you know, been terminated by a preeminent that it hadn't been communicated by them. [00:17:10] Speaker 03: So that fundamental issue was just that whether it was the district court to determine it and its preeminence position that that was the responsibility of the district court rather than the arbitrator because this was not an issue of whether, you know, the parties were [00:17:27] Speaker 03: arbitrating a proper grievance or whether it was an interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement. [00:17:34] Speaker 03: But instead, it was the very issue of whether the contract even applied, whether this was the appropriate mechanism to be able to force the parties into arbitration. [00:17:43] Speaker 03: Even the arbitrator, the initial arbitrator believed that as well. [00:17:47] Speaker 03: And that's why he stopped the arbitration and dismissed it because he believed there was a jurisdictional question that actually should have been resolved by the district court. [00:17:56] Speaker 03: And in this case, the district court thought the other way. [00:17:58] Speaker 03: The parties proceeded to arbitration because they were following the district court's orders. [00:18:04] Speaker 03: And ultimately, we're here because that overall issue from the beginning needs to be looked at too. [00:18:11] Speaker 03: But I think more importantly, even if the court didn't feel that it could take jurisdiction or discuss whether or not the district court should have made the ultimate determination, [00:18:24] Speaker 03: I think in looking at the contempt order, I think this case still has to be reversed because the law is very clear that a contempt order has to be very specific. [00:18:33] Speaker 03: It's got to tell a party what they should and shouldn't do. [00:18:36] Speaker 03: And there just isn't any evidence in this record that suggests that preeminent, whether actually or even in spirit, was in contempt of the district court's order. [00:18:48] Speaker 03: Preeminent went to arbitration each time, I don't think [00:18:52] Speaker 03: that saying that a second separate agreement wasn't necessary as Contra Mesa's conduct. [00:19:00] Speaker 03: I think the court did in fact order preempt to pay the fees, but we just kind of never got to that issue. [00:19:06] Speaker 03: It took a long time to even get to the decision. [00:19:08] Speaker 03: as to whether preeminent was the appropriate employer. [00:19:11] Speaker 03: So there's just never any evidence of a bill that wasn't paid or an arbitration fee that was due or owed by preeminent that didn't occur. [00:19:20] Speaker 03: We didn't get to it until ultimately the parties went to the final arbitration. [00:19:25] Speaker 03: And then the arbitrator made ultimately a determination in preeminent's favor. [00:19:28] Speaker 03: And at that time, he sent an invoice as is the usual process. [00:19:32] Speaker 03: And based on the court's orders, preeminent paid that invoice. [00:19:38] Speaker 03: And just to speak really quickly to the issue of just the attorney's fees in general. [00:19:45] Speaker 03: And I think this is very important for the court as well. [00:19:47] Speaker 03: And it highlights the nature of the punitive nature of the sanction rather than the compensatory nature. [00:19:55] Speaker 03: A civil contempt order is supposed to be compensatory in nature. [00:19:59] Speaker 03: It's supposed to compensate or repay or make whole a party for what they lost. [00:20:04] Speaker 03: And in this case, we never even [00:20:06] Speaker 03: received a bill in the record demonstrating what the union actually paid for the conduct that the court considered consummation or against [00:20:16] Speaker 03: it's orders. [00:20:19] Speaker 03: And the only evidence submitted in the record was the evidence of the market rate by another union official who said what the typical rate in the Washington metropolitan area should be. [00:20:29] Speaker 03: So the fees that the court awarded far exceeded what is typical in the market rate, which the law says the court must consider. [00:20:37] Speaker 05: And it's a very long line of cases [00:20:44] Speaker 05: involving fee shifting statutes, which allow use of market rates, to USC 1988, for instance. [00:20:59] Speaker 05: There's no suggestion in any of those cases that a market-based fee award is a criminal sanction. [00:21:10] Speaker 05: Those awards are routinely applied through civil processes. [00:21:20] Speaker 03: So the point here, Your Honor, is that it wasn't a market-based sanction. [00:21:24] Speaker 03: there was an affidavit that preeminent submitted again by a union official that stated what the market rate or the range for the market rate was in the Washington metropolitan area. [00:21:34] Speaker 03: That was the only evidence that was actually presented in the record of the market rate. [00:21:39] Speaker 03: And it was about $200 less than what the union was relying on for fees. [00:21:44] Speaker 03: They used the Lathe matrix. [00:21:46] Speaker 03: And I think it was the US attorney's Lathe matrix. [00:21:48] Speaker 05: Which is some attempt to approximate market rate [00:21:55] Speaker 05: Well, we cited... And your theory, as I understand it, is the outer bound of the sanction has to be not the market rate, but what the union actually paid in legal services. [00:22:12] Speaker 05: Yes, sir. [00:22:13] Speaker 05: The reason you say that is if you go up to market rates, that makes the sanction [00:22:20] Speaker 05: that makes the fee award criminal in nature? [00:22:24] Speaker 03: Not quite. [00:22:25] Speaker 03: Yes, absolutely, on the point that it wasn't what the union actually paid, but not with respect to going up to market rate, because in this case, we didn't just go up to market rate, we exceeded the market rate. [00:22:37] Speaker 03: We went well and above the market rate. [00:22:39] Speaker 03: So yes, the premise is that it has to be compensatory in nature. [00:22:43] Speaker 03: And it really just should have been what the union paid, absolutely. [00:22:47] Speaker 03: But even if the court were to contemplate that the market rate was a fair rate and it was reasonable, this wasn't a market rate case. [00:22:54] Speaker 03: This was a case where the Laffey matrix was applied. [00:22:57] Speaker 03: And we cited case law in the brief that this court has determined that the Laffey matrix isn't applicable to every circumstance. [00:23:04] Speaker 04: Isn't the assumption here that the union council is the equivalent of a public interest attorney who can claim market rate? [00:23:14] Speaker 04: Isn't that what was going on? [00:23:16] Speaker 03: No, that's not what happened. [00:23:17] Speaker 03: Even if the court were to determine that based on the union service as kind of a public interest attorney that they could claim market rate, they didn't claim the market rate. [00:23:26] Speaker 03: The market rate was $200 to $350 an hour. [00:23:33] Speaker 03: They received a rate that was about $220 in excess of that. [00:23:37] Speaker 03: And the Laffey matrix is not the market rate. [00:23:40] Speaker 03: So that's the other part of preeminence argument that the court applied the Laffey matrix. [00:23:44] Speaker 03: There's case law in the circuit that says that that isn't the market rate for these kinds of cases. [00:23:49] Speaker 04: And then these kinds of cases, what do you mean? [00:23:52] Speaker 03: A union case, the market, the Laffey matrix and this circuit is applicable to employment discrimination cases. [00:23:59] Speaker 03: And then the court has a body of case law that just speaks to [00:24:02] Speaker 03: the rate being something that is commensurate with the work in the industry, the level of experience, et cetera. [00:24:11] Speaker 04: Is there some specific case you have in mind that says a union rate can't be the Laffey rate or can't be the market rate? [00:24:19] Speaker 03: The case doesn't, I'm sorry, your honor, I could go to it if I could look at my brief, but I'm afraid I'm going to make the zoom drop off. [00:24:28] Speaker 03: But we cited to the case in the brief and the case actually says that the Laffey matrix is for employment discrimination. [00:24:35] Speaker 03: It's not cast in the way that you just stated it, that it cannot be used for union cases, but it says specifically it's for the employment discrimination. [00:24:43] Speaker 03: And it has another statement that gives kind of like a generalization for cases. [00:24:48] Speaker 03: But I believe here the market rate is determined by the other body of case law that we cited in the brief from the DC Circuit that speaks to the prevailing market rate for the industry, the attorney's level of experience, et cetera. [00:25:00] Speaker 03: And again, the only information that's even in the record is what preeminent presented from another disinterested union official that basically said what the market rate is for attorney's fees gave a range. [00:25:12] Speaker 03: in this area. [00:25:13] Speaker 03: So the fact that the fees awarded in this case exceeded even the market rate makes it even more clear that this sanction was more punitive in nature rather than compensatory and that of course preeminent wasn't afforded the protections that are inherent when issuing a punitive or criminal like contempt sanction. [00:25:34] Speaker 05: I thought the Laffey index was a device for estimating market rates. [00:25:42] Speaker 03: I wish I could do that in every case because it would be quite a bit at this point. [00:25:47] Speaker 03: But no, it isn't. [00:25:48] Speaker 03: The case that we cited in the brief makes plain that the Laffey matrix isn't necessarily the benchmark for determining the market rate. [00:25:57] Speaker 03: And I think inherent in that when they speak to employment discrimination cases, I think that [00:26:03] Speaker 03: The courts are probably considering just how you get to a certain point. [00:26:07] Speaker 03: Employment discrimination cases are typically contingency-based cases, the risk that is inherent in the case. [00:26:13] Speaker 03: If you look at the regular laffy matrix in D.C., an attorney for 20 years is about $890, and the U.S. [00:26:20] Speaker 03: attorney's matrix [00:26:22] Speaker 03: you know, it's closer to $700. [00:26:25] Speaker 03: So that's based on risk, etc. [00:26:28] Speaker 03: In this case, we know what the market rate is for union attorneys, because there's an affidavit in the record that says what the market rate is for union attorneys, and it was essentially undisputed. [00:26:40] Speaker 05: And so when you say union attorneys, do you mean just the in-house counsel, or do you mean the outside lawyers as well, the law firm as well? [00:26:52] Speaker 03: The outside lawyers, the evidence that we submitted spoke to outside lawyers. [00:26:56] Speaker 03: I mean, I think there is case law that supports the concept that in-house counsel, that they're ours if they keep them accurately and in the manner and way that the courts typically acknowledge that they can recover for some of the work they do despite the fact that they're salaried and they're paid in-house. [00:27:13] Speaker 03: But this is the prevailing rate for outside counsel and just as [00:27:17] Speaker 03: The court has acknowledged their union attorneys are often considered a public interest attorney. [00:27:23] Speaker 03: The rates are typically reduced. [00:27:26] Speaker 03: But again, because of the nature and the clear case law and civil contempt that it must be compensatory, meaning it's just gotta basically be what you paid, what you lost. [00:27:35] Speaker 03: There really isn't supposed to be a windfall or that can convert it to a criminal. [00:27:40] Speaker 05: That's an argument about [00:27:43] Speaker 05: civil contempt being different from fee shifting statutes. [00:27:49] Speaker 05: I'm having trouble understanding your argument about why union council as opposed to company council or somebody else should be treated differently. [00:28:04] Speaker 03: Well, I wouldn't focus on who it is. [00:28:06] Speaker 03: I would focus on the industry, the work that's being done. [00:28:08] Speaker 03: I mean, you can have the same attorney take on a case on behalf of the union and perhaps do a merger acquisition, and the rates could be different because of the nature of the case. [00:28:17] Speaker 03: But the market for work within the industry, grievances, determinations of collective bargaining agreements, arbitrations, that kind of [00:28:31] Speaker 03: Work has a certain market rate that unions when they seek counsel typically outside counsel pay in the Washington metropolitan area and it isn't the laughing matrix there there there's evidence that unions aren't paying [00:28:46] Speaker 03: what the rates are in the Laffey matrix. [00:28:48] Speaker 03: I suppose if the union had put on evidence that this is what the Washington metropolitan area requires for unions, then we'd be having a different conversation, but they didn't do that. [00:28:57] Speaker 03: The only evidence in the record is actually just the affidavit that says that this is what unions typically pay for this kind of work. [00:29:04] Speaker 03: in the arbitration context, and that is what the court is supposed to look to. [00:29:09] Speaker 03: And then I can't see my time, but just to briefly mention, another just concern for my client is the court kind of ignoring the evidence about preeminence ability to pay, because this could turn into a situation where you have business officials being jailed or held in contempt [00:29:30] Speaker 03: when they act, they absolutely don't have the means or the ability to purge themselves of it and obviously contempt should be something that someone can pay in order to deter, you know, and effectively administered [00:29:43] Speaker 05: Isn't it your burden? [00:29:44] Speaker 05: If you want the sanction reduced based on inability to pay, I would think it's your burden to show that. [00:29:51] Speaker 03: Yes, sir. [00:29:51] Speaker 03: I believe that's true. [00:29:53] Speaker 05: District Court didn't ignore the evidence, looked at the evidence and found that you hadn't discharged your burden. [00:30:01] Speaker 03: I mean, I think the courts review of the evidence was erroneous I mean preeminent put in their their financial statements that showed a clear loss this permanent demonstrated that they were no longer a contractor on the DC citywide contract and that that was 90% [00:30:19] Speaker 03: of their revenue as a company. [00:30:22] Speaker 03: They also showed that they had been the victim of fraud and that they had lost $750,000 and that this was an issue that was actually being prosecuted by the U.S. [00:30:30] Speaker 03: Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of Virginia. [00:30:33] Speaker 03: They showed that they had a negative income position. [00:30:36] Speaker 05: So, I mean, so your position is that his finding on that point is clearly erroneous. [00:30:43] Speaker 03: Yes, sir, based on the evidence that was presented in the record. [00:30:47] Speaker 05: Judge Rao, any other questions? [00:30:50] Speaker 05: No. [00:30:50] Speaker 05: Judge Edwards? [00:30:52] Speaker 05: No. [00:30:52] Speaker 05: Thank you, Ms. [00:30:53] Speaker 05: Gaines. [00:30:54] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:30:55] Speaker 05: Mr. Anderson. [00:30:57] Speaker 01: Good morning, and may it please the court on Michael Anderson for the service employees local 32BJ. [00:31:05] Speaker 01: I'd like to begin with the appellate finality questions here. [00:31:10] Speaker 01: The May 9, 2018 order of compelling arbitration was a final order under the FAA 9 USC section 16A3. [00:31:21] Speaker 01: And Judge Katches is correct that the Green Tree case qualifies an order like that as a final and appealable order. [00:31:31] Speaker 01: This was not a case where the union brought multiple causes of action, where the arbitration only went to one of the claims, where there were other non-arbitrable claims that were awaiting final judgment. [00:31:44] Speaker 01: In this case, the order-compelling arbitration was the sole relief the union sought in its petition, so that the district court's order granting summary judgment on the only merits claim and granting the only relief the union sought was final and appealable. [00:32:01] Speaker 05: What would fall under 16B4, which says that an order directing arbitration to proceed under A4, which is the provision, I'm sorry, under section four of the FAA, which is the provision we're talking about here, is interlocutory. [00:32:26] Speaker 01: True, because that's in the context of there being other claims in the mix which had not reached final judgment. [00:32:34] Speaker 01: But as the Supreme Court held in Green Tree, if the only relief the plaintiff is asking for is an order compelling arbitration, then that's a final appealable order. [00:32:46] Speaker 01: And the losing party doesn't get to claim that the finality is somehow postponed until the arbitration is complete. [00:32:54] Speaker 05: And then what do we do with the fact that while the order compelling arbitration seems final in the way you describe the district court didn't close the docket on 1716 79 and when all of these enforcement and contempt issues came up. [00:33:18] Speaker 05: they picked up in the same case rather than in a different enforcement case. [00:33:27] Speaker 01: Because all district courts continue to have jurisdiction to enforce final orders through contempt proceedings. [00:33:34] Speaker 01: So for example, if preeminent had brought a timely appeal immediately after the May 2018 order, the union would not have prevailed on a motion to dismiss the appeal just based on the argument that there might be some future noncompliance with the order that might trigger further orders to show cause and contempt applications. [00:33:58] Speaker 01: A district court's inherent power to enforce its own final orders through contempt proceedings does not detract from the finality of the underlying order. [00:34:08] Speaker 01: If it did, then parties and contempt proceedings would always be able to circle back and tell the appellate court, well, we shouldn't have been enjoined in the first place. [00:34:18] Speaker 01: And that's what's clear that parties and contempt proceedings are not allowed to do. [00:34:24] Speaker 01: OK. [00:34:26] Speaker 05: What about the contempt order? [00:34:27] Speaker 01: The contempt order, the distinction that matters for purposes of the court's decision here is between pre-judgment civil contempt orders, which are interlocutory and are governed by the final judgment rule, versus post-judgment orders. [00:34:46] Speaker 01: That's the distinction that shows up in the cases that the parties have cited in competing briefs. [00:34:52] Speaker 01: In the cases cited in the preeminence reply brief, Bird versus Reno and Machinists versus Eastern Airlines, the contempt orders had issued prior to a final judgment on the merits of litigation. [00:35:07] Speaker 01: In Bird, it was a discovery order, compelling production of audio tapes in a Title VII action. [00:35:13] Speaker 01: In Machinists, it was contempt of a preliminary injunction [00:35:17] Speaker 01: even as the parties continue to amend the complaint and proceed to a final judgment on the underlying merits. [00:35:26] Speaker 01: In this case, however, if I've persuaded the court that the May 9, 2018 order was a final, appealable order on the merits, the subsequent contempt citations are post-judgment civil contempt orders. [00:35:40] Speaker 01: And that brings them within the scope of Armstrong and Gwin [00:35:44] Speaker 01: the two DC Circuit cases I cited in the briefs. [00:35:48] Speaker 01: And there's a long string of appellate authority that draws this distinction. [00:35:53] Speaker 01: It explains that post-judgment contempt orders are immediately appealable because they don't raise the kind of problems under Section 1291 about final judgments that would occur if they occurred prior to the final judgment on the merits. [00:36:10] Speaker 01: So for that reason, [00:36:13] Speaker 01: Preeminent, if they were aggrieved by Judge McFadden's findings in the June 9, 2019 civil contempt order, they had 30 days to bring that to the court. [00:36:25] Speaker 01: Because they didn't, they are no longer in a position to say, we shouldn't have to pay these fees because we weren't in contempt to begin with. [00:36:34] Speaker 01: that this court said in Gawain, that is also what other courts, for instance, the Sixth Circuit in Guinesses versus Green have said. [00:36:45] Speaker 04: I didn't hear what you asked, Judge Katz. [00:36:48] Speaker 04: Sorry, go ahead. [00:36:49] Speaker 04: No, did you ask something I didn't hear? [00:36:51] Speaker 05: Yeah, it just seems very odd to me that for a civil sanction like this post-judgment, [00:37:01] Speaker 05: but a coercive sanction which says it'll be 20,000 unless you cure the contempt by such and such date and then 20,000 every two weeks thereafter. [00:37:17] Speaker 05: Baked into that is a need for future proceedings to figure out whether the contempt was purged and how much the sanction should be [00:37:32] Speaker 05: So you're positing one appeal of the order imposing the sanction on the front end and then a separate appeal on the back end when the district court says, well, the contempt wasn't purged in time. [00:37:48] Speaker 05: and it was purged in the second week after, so the sanction is $40,000 as opposed to 20 or 60, and that's a separate appeal. [00:37:59] Speaker 05: It just seems very strange. [00:38:01] Speaker 01: I understand, Your Honor, but that's really an argument against this court's decision in Armstrong. [00:38:07] Speaker 01: And in the attorney's fees context, that's also an argument against the Supreme Court's rule in Budenich. [00:38:13] Speaker 01: that when the Supreme Court says that the fixing of the amount of the attorney's fees does not affect the finality of the underlying order, the Supreme Court really is making a choice that sets up the need for two separate appeals, the first appeal from the order that awards the attorney's fees and the second order that fixes the amount. [00:38:36] Speaker 01: But that's inherent. [00:38:37] Speaker 05: Yes. [00:38:38] Speaker 05: I can't figure out a way around Armstrong, but let me take a crack at Boudinet. [00:38:43] Speaker 05: which is to say that case holds that the fee issues are collateral to the merits issues. [00:38:54] Speaker 05: Here the merits issues are the order compelling arbitration. [00:38:59] Speaker 05: And we're having this conversation on the assumption that you've won that issue, that was final. [00:39:06] Speaker 05: Now we're talking about everything that flows from non-compliance. [00:39:13] Speaker 05: And the question here is whether one set of consequences, which are attorney's fees, are collateral, not to the merits, but to the contempt. [00:39:26] Speaker 05: And you can think of the contempt and the fees as just everything bad that might happen to a party because it disobeyed, [00:39:41] Speaker 05: disobeyed a judicial order. [00:39:43] Speaker 05: That's a little bit different from Budenich, which is fees are collateral to merits. [00:39:50] Speaker 01: except that Budinich was trying to resolve a circuit split where many courts followed the line of reasoning that you're proposing now and made delicate distinctions between fee orders which were like damages versus fee orders which were like costs. [00:40:07] Speaker 01: And they applied different rules of finality to each one. [00:40:11] Speaker 01: Budinich takes a very broad brush approach and says, no matter what the statutory or equitable or contractual basis of the fees, [00:40:20] Speaker 01: litigation over the amount of fees does not toll the finality of the underlying order. [00:40:26] Speaker 01: And that applies just as much to contempt as any other case. [00:40:32] Speaker 01: When I mentioned the Sixth Circuit's decision in Ganesas versus Green, which is cited in my brief, although that was a Sixth Circuit case, it was actually written by our late district judge, Orbedorfer, who was sitting by designation in the Sixth Circuit. [00:40:48] Speaker 01: make the opinion any more binding on this court. [00:40:51] Speaker 01: But his analysis of how attorney's fees in contempt sanctions work in relation to Budinich is persuasive and correct. [00:41:02] Speaker 01: And I would urge the court to follow Judge Overdorfer's analysis in Ganesas. [00:41:11] Speaker 01: So what that means is that, [00:41:14] Speaker 01: If preeminent believed that it had not in fact been in contempt of Judge McFadden's May 9, 2018 order, it had 30 days to bring an appeal where he could raise all of its arguments about how everything that it did in the 13 months between the arbitration order and the contempt order was not in fact contumacious. [00:41:38] Speaker 01: But if that 30-day period elapses without an appeal, then the court simply doesn't have jurisdiction to use fee litigation to circle back and say, well, we don't think preeminence should have to pay any fees because they weren't in contempt to begin with. [00:41:54] Speaker 01: That is what preeminence is urging you to do. [00:41:56] Speaker 01: And that's contrary to the finality rules that are set forth in cases like Denise's, as well as a US versus go in. [00:42:05] Speaker 01: If I may turn to the merits of the amount of the fees, unless the court has further questions. [00:42:12] Speaker 00: Right. [00:42:13] Speaker 01: OK. [00:42:14] Speaker 01: It's a bit frustrating to hear preeminent argue even now that there is a DC Circuit decision that says that the Lathe matrix is not applicable where the litigation occurs in some, you know, [00:42:31] Speaker 01: sub-corporate market like union rates, because the only citation that's given for that proposition in the briefs is on page 26 of the appellant's opening brief, and it reads Covington versus District of Columbia, 57F3rd 1101 at 1113. [00:42:51] Speaker 01: But when you look that side up, you find that that is a citation to Judge Henderson's dissent in that case. [00:42:58] Speaker 01: And that was, in fact, the very proposition that the majority in Covington, written by Judge Edwards, rejected, saying that the Laffey rates state the prevailing market rate and there are no second class markets within the legal community. [00:43:15] Speaker 01: And that's particularly true when it comes to union lawyers. [00:43:18] Speaker 01: As the record reflects, my partner Arliss Stevens and I have good credentials as anybody that works for large firms that serve wealthy clients. [00:43:30] Speaker 01: I'm a 1987 honors graduate of Harvard Law School. [00:43:33] Speaker 01: It is true that I and Arla Stevens bill our clients, our union clients, at less than the full Laffey rates. [00:43:42] Speaker 01: But the entire premise of the lodestar jurisprudence, both in this court and in the Supreme Court, is that the prevailing hourly rates within the market, and in the District of Columbia that's defined by Laffey, [00:43:56] Speaker 01: apply whether I'm a pro bono counsel for a legal aid clinic or simply an ideologically motivated public interest lawyer who works for workers and workers organizations. [00:44:09] Speaker 05: Can I ask a different argument, which is [00:44:14] Speaker 05: Why should we extend those? [00:44:18] Speaker 05: Those are all cases involving fee shifting snatches. [00:44:23] Speaker 05: Congress gives the courts authority to figure out what is a reasonable rate [00:44:32] Speaker 05: and the existence of the fee shifting statute is thought to reflect Congress's inducement to have talented lawyers like yourself bring cases that otherwise wouldn't be brought because they want private enforcement in some area. [00:44:54] Speaker 05: All of that is fine, but this is civil contempt [00:44:59] Speaker 05: There is no fee shifting statute. [00:45:01] Speaker 05: So the background rule would be the American rule that each side bears its own fees. [00:45:10] Speaker 05: The only exception to that is inherent power, which is to be cautiously exercised. [00:45:18] Speaker 05: And we have the Supreme Court in Goodyear telling us that if the sanction is an award of fees, [00:45:28] Speaker 05: it has to be precisely to compensate the client for the amount it was forced to pay because of the contemptuous conduct. [00:45:39] Speaker 05: And here, whatever your motives for lowering your rates to your client, the injury to your client is what they had to pay you because of the contemptuous conduct on the other side. [00:45:53] Speaker 01: Understood, but even one of the earliest Supreme Court decisions on the lodestar, Pennsylvania versus Delaware Valley, was a contempt case where they approved the lodestar in a contempt context. [00:46:07] Speaker 01: What's more, the argument that you're sketching here is [00:46:13] Speaker 01: effectively no different than the argument that the losing defendants made in Save Our Cumberland Mountains and in Covington. [00:46:21] Speaker 01: The argument is that, well, even under ordinary fee-shifting statutes, all the client is entitled to is an award of their attorney's fees. [00:46:31] Speaker 01: And if they didn't actually have to pay any attorney's fees because they had a pro bono counsel or had discounted fees because they had a public-spirited counsel like myself, [00:46:42] Speaker 01: then it would become punitive damages. [00:46:47] Speaker 01: It would exceed the compensatory intent of the fee-shifting statute to allow the plaintiff to recover something in excess of the actual rates. [00:46:58] Speaker 04: Well, the question my colleague is asking, in Cumberland, was there a fee-shifting statute? [00:47:03] Speaker 04: There is no fee-shifting statute here. [00:47:06] Speaker 01: No, that follows from the power to award civil contempt, correct? [00:47:11] Speaker 04: Right. [00:47:12] Speaker 04: But I mean, that's the whole point. [00:47:13] Speaker 04: I mean, his premise of his question is, in those circumstances where there are fee-shifting statutes, we do what, I think, what, wasn't Cumberland a fee-shifting statute? [00:47:23] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:47:24] Speaker 01: I believe it was Section 1988. [00:47:25] Speaker 04: Yeah. [00:47:26] Speaker 04: So, I mean, so you're not really answering his question. [00:47:28] Speaker 04: His question is, is there any case law that says, you said there's an old Supreme Court case, [00:47:34] Speaker 04: which I'm not aware of. [00:47:35] Speaker 04: I'm not saying it's not there. [00:47:37] Speaker 04: But that hasn't been normal. [00:47:40] Speaker 04: Our normal routine is to apply fee shifting statutes and to follow the Laffey matrix. [00:47:47] Speaker 04: That's true. [00:47:49] Speaker 04: But has that been done in situations like this? [00:47:53] Speaker 01: In my brief, I cited a long line of federal cases that apply the lodestar rates in contempt and in Rule 37 sanctions cases where the same considerations would apply. [00:48:08] Speaker 05: I looked and found district court cases, but no court of appeals cases. [00:48:18] Speaker 05: I'll take a look at Delaware Valley. [00:48:20] Speaker 05: I missed Delaware Valley. [00:48:22] Speaker 05: I'll take a look at that. [00:48:23] Speaker 05: But do you know of any Court of Appeals cases? [00:48:30] Speaker 01: The... Everyone, all the cases that the parties... There's the Teledyne Technologies case on page 34 of my brief. [00:48:43] Speaker 01: Tell the court that's a federal appendix case. [00:48:45] Speaker 01: It was not published. [00:48:47] Speaker 05: Okay. [00:48:48] Speaker 01: But that's where the Seventh Circuit, at least in a federal appendix case, applied the low star. [00:48:55] Speaker 04: Is Barrow consistent with what you? [00:48:59] Speaker 04: Barrow v. Falk? [00:49:01] Speaker 04: I just don't remember. [00:49:02] Speaker 01: I'm sorry. [00:49:03] Speaker 01: I don't have that in front of me, Your Honor. [00:49:10] Speaker 05: All right. [00:49:10] Speaker 04: I'll have to look at that again. [00:49:12] Speaker 05: OK. [00:49:13] Speaker 05: Anything else you want to tell us about? [00:49:17] Speaker 05: inability to pay or things we haven't covered? [00:49:19] Speaker 01: Well, on inability to pay, the district court had a full evidentiary record from which it discredited preeminence claim of inability to pay. [00:49:32] Speaker 01: Preeminence has not even provided you with any of the exhibits on either side in the experts of record. [00:49:39] Speaker 01: If you need to go back into the ECF dockets to see, you'll see [00:49:45] Speaker 01: that the district court had ample reason to judge from what preeminence said on its own website that it has revenues of $25 million a year, that it always meets all of its financial obligations, so that a $50,000, $51,000 fee award does not seem to be outside the ability to pay. [00:50:06] Speaker 01: And finally, I think that to the extent the court is interested in the question, take a look at Judge Easterbrook's analysis for the Seventh Circuit, where he says that it is a circumvention of the bankruptcy code for courts to give ad hoc debt relief because one party claims insolvency, [00:50:28] Speaker 01: where all other creditors are not also brought into the process. [00:50:34] Speaker 01: If preeminent genuinely can't pay, it has a remedy under the bankruptcy code. [00:50:38] Speaker 01: And then the bankruptcy court can allocate who is entitled to what percentage of its obligations. [00:50:45] Speaker 01: But to ask for a one-sided debt relief against only one creditor in a non-bankruptcy proceeding effectively frustrates what Congress expects in the bankruptcy code. [00:50:56] Speaker 01: And that's persuasive. [00:50:58] Speaker 01: And I have nothing further unless the court has more. [00:51:00] Speaker 05: Judge Rau? [00:51:02] Speaker 05: Judge Edwards? [00:51:03] Speaker 05: No, I'm fine. [00:51:04] Speaker 05: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:51:07] Speaker 05: Ms. [00:51:07] Speaker 05: Gaines, we'll give you two minutes. [00:51:09] Speaker 03: Yes, sir. [00:51:10] Speaker 03: I mean, I think it's just important maybe to go backwards so that the court can see that there is something to do here. [00:51:15] Speaker 03: I mean, if we just go from the award of attorney's fees and the arguments concerning the attorney's fees, the court certainly has jurisdiction to determine whether the fee was proper, whether it came in the right context, because [00:51:28] Speaker 03: That didn't come until November, and this case was appealed within 30 days of that particular award. [00:51:34] Speaker 03: And then moving backwards to the conditional civil contempt award, the court has to consider the fact that because it was conditional, the court still had to do something after entering that order. [00:51:46] Speaker 03: It had to say you didn't do what you were supposed to do, and here's what we're going to do, or you did do what you were supposed to do, and here's what we're going to do. [00:51:53] Speaker 03: And the court really didn't do that until November. [00:51:56] Speaker 03: And so this court has jurisdiction certainly over those issues. [00:52:01] Speaker 03: And then moving back to just the issue about compelling arbitration, 16b says that an interlocutory order is not appealable. [00:52:10] Speaker 03: If it's this type of order and then the court is wondering how this is interlocutory, I think we just have to look to what happened. [00:52:16] Speaker 03: Again, the court, it says that the case has to be disposed of, the case has to be dismissed, and the court did not do that. [00:52:23] Speaker 03: The court continued to exercise its jurisdiction in the very same case, you know, as the parties proceeded. [00:52:30] Speaker 03: With respect to the arguments about ability to pay, I think there was just a conflation of when something is reduced to a judgment versus when it comes in the court's exercise of its inherent authority to have compliance with its orders or contempt. [00:52:43] Speaker 03: Had it been reduced to a judgment, then perhaps, of course, preeminent could dispose of it through a traditional debt-related proceeding. [00:52:49] Speaker 03: But this is a contempt award. [00:52:51] Speaker 03: So if preeminent can't pay the order, then again, its officials can be jailed. [00:52:57] Speaker 03: and until they actually, it becomes like a debtor's prison in that way, until they satisfy, you know, the court. [00:53:06] Speaker 03: So whether or not you can purge yourself of the contempt is an important consideration and factor. [00:53:11] Speaker 03: And I think financial statements are more important than what's stated on an outdated website. [00:53:16] Speaker 03: And Priam and it's certainly put in its actual financial statements. [00:53:19] Speaker 03: They're in the record because they were under seal because of course of the trade secret [00:53:23] Speaker 03: aspect of those statements that showed that preeminent actually did not have the money in order to do it. [00:53:29] Speaker 03: And then another thing, if there really was an issue based on what was that issue, the court should have held a hearing. [00:53:34] Speaker 03: The court did not allow preeminent the opportunity to have an evidentiary hearing where they sent in an affidavit, they sent in their financial statements, but where there could be this competition of whether the internet site was important versus their actual financial statements. [00:53:50] Speaker 03: So I mean, I think this is a different context. [00:53:52] Speaker 03: It's not a debt. [00:53:53] Speaker 03: It's not something that can be discharged in bankruptcy. [00:53:55] Speaker 03: It's the court requiring. [00:53:57] Speaker 03: And in fact, the appellees actually filed a subsequent order asking for, again, contempt for preeminent not paying before the bond was put up in this case. [00:54:06] Speaker 03: Because before the PPP, preeminent didn't even have the money to put up the bond. [00:54:12] Speaker 03: And so I think we're just in a different context. [00:54:15] Speaker 05: Thank you, Ms. [00:54:16] Speaker 05: Gaines. [00:54:17] Speaker 05: Do my colleagues have anything else? [00:54:19] Speaker 05: Okay, thank you. [00:54:20] Speaker 03: Thank you, Your Honor. [00:54:22] Speaker 03: Nice meeting you all. [00:54:24] Speaker 05: Thank you.