[00:00:03] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honors.

[00:00:04] Speaker 00:
I may please the court.

[00:00:07] Speaker 00:
My name is Shannon Wilhite.

[00:00:09] Speaker 00:
I am here representing the plaintiffs, Stanley Maruth and Patricia Maruth, who are watching on the live video stream this morning.

[00:00:28] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, first I want to address that the documents that are stated in the order, the judicial records that were procured by defendants and currently are complained about as defendants that those records were not included in the excerpt of records.

[00:00:55] Speaker 00:
These records,

[00:00:59] Speaker 00:
were extensively cited by both the defendants and the courts in her order to dismiss this case.

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However, the records that were stated are showing that

[00:01:28] Speaker 00:
The Maruths or what defendants want to prove and what the court wanted to prove was that the Maruths had an opportunity to state at the time in the state court proceeding that they were objecting to the defendant social workers false statements that were being made about them.

[00:01:59] Speaker 04:
Let me, first of all, I want to make sure the clock is counting down, Ms.

[00:02:02] Speaker 04:
Robinson.

[00:02:02] Speaker 04:
I think we can, we'll move it down to 13 minutes since we've been going for a few, but we'll make sure you have plenty of time for rebuttal.

[00:02:11] Speaker 04:
What is your argument as to why this case was improperly dismissed?

[00:02:18] Speaker 00:
The argument to why this case was improperly dismissed is because the case was dismissed

[00:02:26] Speaker 00:
on the base of the Rooker Feldman doctrine that is a de facto appeal from the state court

[00:02:38] Speaker 00:
And that Ruth stated in state court things like we weren't doing drugs.

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We were doing services.

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We were doing things to keep the children in the house directly after they were removed.

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We were availing ourselves to corrective action and

[00:03:09] Speaker 05:
As a general matter, in terms of the Rockefellman Doctrine, I understand that you're no longer seeking to overturn the state court decision, but your complaint in your current argument is sort of an amalgam between

[00:03:30] Speaker 05:
they made a mistake because they didn't do what the state law requires, and some fraud allegations, i.e.

[00:03:40] Speaker 05:
they lied to the state court.

[00:03:44] Speaker 05:
And insofar as it's the second, probably the Rucker Feldman doctrine doesn't apply.

[00:03:50] Speaker 05:
So what is your argument?

[00:03:52] Speaker 05:
Is it that they didn't follow state law or that they lied to the state court?

[00:03:59] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:04:01] Speaker 00:
The argument is that they were falsely stating a myriad of things to the state court.

[00:04:09] Speaker 00:
It's specifically, the reason that this was brought was specifically to show that the Trinity County social workers were describing, they were

[00:04:29] Speaker 00:
lying and omitting.

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So not just falsely stating things about the plaintiffs, but omitting critical information that they are required by law to provide to the court.

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And because of that, those omissions and those falsities that

[00:04:55] Speaker 00:
It was then that the court made a certain decision based on that, but really the CWS workers in their actions were devious and were, they were basically, like you said, falsely stating to the court and avoiding.

[00:05:21] Speaker 02:
Can I ask you on that?

[00:05:24] Speaker 02:
So they were telling that to the court.

[00:05:27] Speaker 02:
Did you have an opportunity to respond to these false statements and explain to the court that they were false?

[00:05:35] Speaker 02:
And did you do that?

[00:05:36] Speaker 02:
Did you tell the court that these statements were false?

[00:05:40] Speaker 00:
Yeah.

[00:05:41] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:05:41] Speaker 00:
So I think defendants are arguing that there was an opportunity for them to state that those things were false.

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have had limited opportunity through their counsel, which if you read the, as you've read the complaint, it states that they switched attorneys so many times, they were never able to

[00:06:15] Speaker 00:
address what CWS workers were doing.

[00:06:17] Speaker 02:
I want to be real clear about were they not able to because it sounds like you're saying they were not able to because of changing attorneys, et cetera, but were they not able to because they didn't have an opportunity to or that they were unable to because they were unable to take advantage of the opportunity they were given?

[00:06:42] Speaker 00:
I would say, well, Your Honor, we were arguing that there was no opportunity because what the social workers were doing, the social workers were omitting things.

[00:06:56] Speaker 00:
And to respond to that, the plaintiffs were saying, we did these things

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The point is, is that the social workers have a legal obligation to say these things themselves to the court.

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The court historically relies on the county social workers' opinion.

[00:07:20] Speaker 00:
That attorney is giving opinion to the court and the majority of time

[00:07:25] Speaker 00:
they are following that attorney's recommendation.

[00:07:27] Speaker 04:
Let me just follow up a little bit on what Judge Van Dyke was asking.

[00:07:30] Speaker 04:
One thing the district court said in the order on ER 11 was that all of the alleged fraud, misrepresentations, and omissions were matters brought to the state court's attention, as explained above, or were matters within plaintiff's knowledge.

[00:07:47] Speaker 04:
Do you dispute that?

[00:07:48] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:07:51] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:07:51] Speaker 04:
What's the basis and the record for disputing that?

[00:07:56] Speaker 00:
The basis in the record is that the... Well, the basis in the record is in the second amended complaint where it states that sometimes they didn't have an attorney.

[00:08:18] Speaker 00:
They went through three different attorneys.

[00:08:20] Speaker 00:
Ms.

[00:08:20] Speaker 00:
Maruth especially went through three different attorneys whereas Mr. Maruth had the same one.

[00:08:27] Speaker 00:
They themselves, they never said the social workers are fraudulently

[00:08:35] Speaker 00:
inducing the court to believe this other story, they would say their piece, but this wasn't a case about social workers being fraudulent.

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There is probably hundreds of pages of the service logs, which defendant did not procure from the county.

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The service logs are where you can actually see what defendants were doing

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and in regards to were they following state law or not.

[00:09:08] Speaker 00:
By the time it gets to the court and they're just signing a dependency petition and they're falsely alleging to facts in that dependency petition, my clients had no idea how to dispute the actual actions that led up to that decision.

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For example, when they put that

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on 300J in the dependency petition where it is emotional abuse, you don't know when they're signing that.

[00:09:45] Speaker 00:
My clients couldn't tell when the social workers are signing that under penalty of perjury what events led up to that.

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Where were the facts that allowed them to come up with that specific

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allegation towards the clients.

[00:10:06] Speaker 00:
If you can't see those facts, which we allege to many of the proceedings to date prior to when the motion was dismissed.

[00:10:25] Speaker 04:
Are these things though that you allege that you found out later or are they things you allege or you acknowledge that your clients knew about at the time of the state court proceedings?

[00:10:40] Speaker 00:
My clients were able to tell me, my clients knew the facts of what happened on their side of things based on those facts.

[00:10:51] Speaker 00:
We alleged the wrongful removal and the continuing removal of the children based on my client's facts.

[00:11:01] Speaker 05:
Alleged where?

[00:11:02] Speaker 05:
Alleged here or in the state court?

[00:11:06] Speaker 05:
Here.

[00:11:07] Speaker 05:
Okay.

[00:11:07] Speaker 05:
But what we're trying to find out is at the time of the state court proceedings,

[00:11:14] Speaker 05:
Were your clients aware of the documents and either their omission or falsification, or is there any reason they weren't?

[00:11:27] Speaker 00:
So my clients were aware that CWs weren't stating

[00:11:43] Speaker 00:
These parents are attending counseling.

[00:11:47] Speaker 00:
These parents are attending domestic violence services.

[00:11:53] Speaker 00:
These parents have said they are doing everything they can do to rectify the situation.

[00:11:59] Speaker 05:
And you said your clients said this to the state court.

[00:12:06] Speaker 00:
My clients were saying what they were doing to the state court.

[00:12:12] Speaker 00:
My clients could not tell that the social workers were doing anything wrong by legally wrong by not stating that these like the social workers be stating these parents are doing X, Y, and Z.

[00:12:34] Speaker 04:
I'm not following this, to be honest with you, because it seems that if your clients know what happened to them and they hear somebody saying something that's allegedly not true, why didn't they have a basis at the time to say, that is not correct?

[00:12:52] Speaker 04:
I'm having trouble understanding what could have happened in the state court proceedings that they were unaware of.

[00:13:02] Speaker 00:
So thank you for that.

[00:13:14] Speaker 00:
I think that it's the legal nuances that are getting overlooked when they're in the state court proceeding and there are being things omitted intentionally by the social workers.

[00:13:38] Speaker 00:
they're not in the state court stating these social workers are being fraudulent, nor do they know that they're being fraudulent when they're doing that.

[00:13:49] Speaker 00:
They might say, oh, they heard in a state court proceeding, the social workers didn't say anything about it.

[00:13:55] Speaker 00:
So they say, well, I am doing classes, I am doing this, I am doing that.

[00:14:01] Speaker 00:
But to actually allege in the state court

[00:14:06] Speaker 00:
with particularity that the social workers are fraudulently misleading them that they're actually collaborating to do this, you have to look at all of the facts in the service logs to see exactly what's going on.

[00:14:24] Speaker 00:
It goes way beyond just

[00:14:27] Speaker 00:
them stating that when they get to state court.

[00:14:31] Speaker 00:
When I say them, I mean the social workers stating or not stating something.

[00:14:36] Speaker 05:
So what you're saying is that the service logs, which they didn't have access to at the time, if I understand what you're saying, demonstrated that the social workers knew that what they were telling the court wasn't true.

[00:14:52] Speaker 05:
Is that what you're saying?

[00:14:54] Speaker 05:
I don't think that's exactly in your complaint, but is that what you're saying?

[00:14:58] Speaker 00:
Right.

[00:15:06] Speaker 00:
Thank you for that.

[00:15:07] Speaker 00:
There's ample facts in there that are outside of any of the juvenile records that happened during court.

[00:15:18] Speaker 00:
There are things outside of what happened in court, but that were not presented or presented in court by the social workers and

[00:15:28] Speaker 00:
No, my clients didn't have the opportunity that they argue in People vs. Sims.

[00:15:35] Speaker 00:
That opportunity is when there was an actual case on exactly the same thing and they didn't argue it, as far as collateral estoppel goes.

[00:15:49] Speaker 00:
The opportunity- Sorry, hold it.

[00:15:51] Speaker 00:
Hold in argument.

[00:15:54] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry.

[00:15:54] Speaker 00:
Defendant's argument.

[00:15:57] Speaker 00:
and I guess the de facto appeal in the state court or in the federal court order.

[00:16:08] Speaker 04:
We've taken you almost to the end of your time.

[00:16:10] Speaker 04:
We'll put two minutes on the clock for rebuttal and we'll go ahead and hear from your opposing counsel.

[00:16:20] Speaker 03:
Good morning.

[00:16:20] Speaker 03:
This is John Whitesides for the Appalese.

[00:16:27] Speaker 03:
If the court earlier referenced the district court's order at page 11 and the summary statement made by Chief Judge Mueller about the opportunities, whether taken or not, that the

[00:16:50] Speaker 03:
Miros had in the dependency proceeding to establish the facts as they asserted them to be.

[00:16:58] Speaker 03:
If we go to the prior page in the record, which is volume 1, er 10, you'll see the district court list in an item by item fashion.

[00:17:12] Speaker 03:
Each

[00:17:14] Speaker 03:
uh... alleged omission or misrepresentation that was pled in this case and where the record shows that in the dependency proceeding uh... they the morass actually testified as to their version of the facts uh... or have the opportunity to and due to the alleged

[00:17:43] Speaker 03:
negligence of their own attorney failed to pursue the appropriate tactic in doing so or failed to put on all the relevant evidence.

[00:17:56] Speaker 03:
But nonetheless, the opportunities were there.

[00:18:02] Speaker 05:
So are you arguing for issue of preclusion basically?

[00:18:07] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:18:08] Speaker 05:
All right.

[00:18:08] Speaker 05:
So the only thing about that is, first of all, the district court did not exactly find that.

[00:18:16] Speaker 05:
She relied on Rucker-Feldman, right?

[00:18:19] Speaker 05:
Correct.

[00:18:20] Speaker 05:
Yes.

[00:18:20] Speaker 05:
Secondly, the parties are not the same.

[00:18:26] Speaker 05:
You'd have to have non-mutual clerical stop essentially, right?

[00:18:32] Speaker 03:
No.

[00:18:33] Speaker 03:
The party against whom the doctrine is being asserted has to be the same or in privilege.

[00:18:39] Speaker 05:
That's non-mutual, racial preclusion.

[00:18:41] Speaker 05:
OK.

[00:18:43] Speaker 05:
And what exact are these factual issues or legal issues?

[00:18:50] Speaker 05:
I guess, ultimately, my question is, should we be doing this on our own?

[00:18:53] Speaker 05:
If we thought Rick or Feldman did not apply, but issue of preclusion quite possibly did.

[00:19:01] Speaker 05:
Should we decide that, or should we send it back to the district court for a more careful look at the issue of preclusion question?

[00:19:08] Speaker 03:
Well, this court can affirm on any basis that is shown as supported by the record.

[00:19:13] Speaker 05:
I know we can.

[00:19:13] Speaker 05:
I'm asking you whether we have sufficient briefing and analysis giving that the district court did not do this to decide on an issue of preclusion basis.

[00:19:24] Speaker 03:
Yes, you can.

[00:19:25] Speaker 05:
I know I can.

[00:19:26] Speaker 05:
I want to know whether I should.

[00:19:28] Speaker 03:
You should, because the complaint on its face shows the doctrine's applicability.

[00:19:35] Speaker 03:
So that's step one.

[00:19:36] Speaker 03:
It shows the identicality of the parties, the identicality of the issue.

[00:19:41] Speaker 05:
The parties are not identical, right?

[00:19:43] Speaker 05:
The parties are not identical.

[00:19:45] Speaker 05:
The Maraths are identical.

[00:19:47] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:19:49] Speaker 03:
It shows that it was necessarily and finally decided in the dependency proceeding.

[00:19:59] Speaker 03:
and it was done on the merit what's it the various claims that are in this case wrongful removal of the children wrongful detention of the children and the failure to reunify the children with the biological parents those of the three

[00:20:17] Speaker 03:
basis for the claims in this case all three of those were litigated in the dependency proceeding the complaint makes that clear it sites extensively to the juvenile record in that regard and talks about what evidence was submitted and whether their lawyer did the right thing or not and what the court ruled so the complaint on its face shows the doctrines applicability

[00:20:45] Speaker 03:
The second reason you should look at collateral estoppel is that it was raised conspicuously and timely in the motions to dismiss, and even though the district court didn't address it, the appellants, plaintiffs, were certainly aware of it, had the opportunity to brief it, and did not brief it in their initial opposition.

[00:21:10] Speaker 03:
Then in a sir reply,

[00:21:13] Speaker 03:
They did try to address it, I would say, belatedly, but they did.

[00:21:20] Speaker 03:
Yet, in the opening brief on appeal, they did not address it, even though they knew that it was an issue.

[00:21:26] Speaker 03:
Well, that's not unusual.

[00:21:28] Speaker 05:
Well, they didn't know it was an issue because the district court had decided on Urquhart-Feldman, so it's not unusual for them to do it.

[00:21:34] Speaker 05:
But they knew the defendants were raising it.

[00:21:38] Speaker 05:
Maybe you wouldn't raise it.

[00:21:40] Speaker 05:
But the real problem is that it then didn't file a reply brief.

[00:21:43] Speaker 05:
So they did have an opportunity to brief it here and they didn't do it.

[00:21:47] Speaker 05:
But the fact that they didn't raise it in the first place was certainly not a waiver because it's not what the district court decided.

[00:21:54] Speaker 03:
I would disagree, Your Honor, because your job is not to show that the district court's reasoning was wrong.

[00:22:00] Speaker 03:
As the appellant, your job is to show that the judgment should be reversed, and that includes any ground for affirmance that's shown by the record.

[00:22:11] Speaker 05:
All I can tell you is that it's never done that way, or just about never in this court.

[00:22:15] Speaker 05:
i.e., it comes up if the appellee raises it.

[00:22:20] Speaker 04:
Right.

[00:22:20] Speaker 04:
I mean, they didn't waive anything by not addressing issue preclusion in the opening brief.

[00:22:25] Speaker 04:
That said, this issue is on the table, and you've briefed it in your answering brief, and we're trying to get to the bottom of whether this is a sufficient basis for affirmance here if we have questions about the Rooker-Feldman doctrine.

[00:22:37] Speaker 04:
So I don't think they've waived anything except that it would have been helpful to get a reply brief to address some of this.

[00:22:43] Speaker 03:
yes and my point is this was not a surprise because it was raised in the district court by the defense so none of this is a surprise.

[00:22:51] Speaker 05:
Is your emphasis on issue of preclusion?

[00:22:54] Speaker 03:
Well, the emphasis on the merits is split between, yes, you can support Rucker-Feldman because they dropped the extrinsic fraud claim.

[00:23:06] Speaker 05:
I don't understand the extrinsic fraud emphasis versus intrinsic fraud.

[00:23:12] Speaker 05:
I don't understand Rucker-Feldman to depend on that.

[00:23:16] Speaker 05:
In fact, as I recall, excuse me.

[00:23:20] Speaker 05:
The opinion in Kugasian seems to say fairly plainly that if no one is seeking to, if the federal cases between

[00:23:44] Speaker 05:
private parties and no one is seeking to overturn the state court opinion, then Rucker Feldman doesn't apply.

[00:23:52] Speaker 05:
And even if they were seeking to overturn the state court ruling and there was extrinsic fraud, then there would be jurisdiction.

[00:24:06] Speaker 05:
But I don't understand where the extrinsic fraud idea comes from otherwise.

[00:24:12] Speaker 05:
as being determinative of Rooker-Film.

[00:24:17] Speaker 03:
I would agree, Your Honor, that this circuit does not have a published opinion that expressly addresses intrinsic versus extrinsic fraud in the specific context of Rooker-Feldman.

[00:24:32] Speaker 05:
Right.

[00:24:32] Speaker 05:
So why are we worrying about it?

[00:24:34] Speaker 05:
I mean, the basic notion of Rucker-Feldman is, are you trying to overturn the state court decision, or are you trying to resolve an issue between private parties, a separate issue between private parties?

[00:24:48] Speaker 05:
And they are.

[00:24:49] Speaker 05:
So I don't really see what Rucker-Feldman has to do with this.

[00:24:53] Speaker 03:
Well, the district court's reasoning, and I would agree with your honor that it would have been much simpler to just go to collateral estoppel.

[00:25:03] Speaker 03:
But I think what the district court did was say, there's no way I can grant relief for the plaintiffs without essentially saying that the

[00:25:17] Speaker 03:
juvenile court made the wrong decisions, and that I cannot do because of Rooker Feldman.

[00:25:25] Speaker 03:
That's how I read the district court's order.

[00:25:28] Speaker 04:
Yeah, I read it the same way.

[00:25:29] Speaker 04:
I don't know that that's correct, though.

[00:25:30] Speaker 04:
Let me ask you on the issue of preclusion.

[00:25:34] Speaker 04:
Your opposing counsel referenced some logs and was trying to make the point that the logs were sort of determinative of the fraud and that the logs could not have been discerned during the state court proceedings.

[00:25:46] Speaker 04:
What's your response on the logs?

[00:25:50] Speaker 03:
I don't believe the argument was that the lack of logs, which, as the court pointed out earlier, is not alleged, but let's humor it in the sense of a potential amendment.

[00:26:03] Speaker 03:
i don't think the argument is because they lack the logs they weren't aware of the falsity it appears what they're saying is although they were aware of the falsity and they testified as to the truth

[00:26:17] Speaker 03:
perhaps if they'd offered these logs as well, the juvenile court as the finder of fact would have believed them rather than the other evidence.

[00:26:30] Speaker 05:
What I understood them to be saying is that what the logs demonstrated was that the defendants knew that this wasn't true.

[00:26:41] Speaker 05:
In other words, in order to prove fraud, you'd have to demonstrate not only that it wasn't true, but that they knew it wasn't true.

[00:26:47] Speaker 03:
Yes, they did say that.

[00:26:50] Speaker 05:
Right.

[00:26:50] Speaker 05:
So that could be a reason for saying that they weren't able to demonstrate then what they could demonstrate now.

[00:27:02] Speaker 05:
I'm not sure why they now have the logs and didn't have them before, and I wasn't looking for this in the complaint, but I don't remember seeing it, but it may be there.

[00:27:12] Speaker 05:
I don't know.

[00:27:13] Speaker 03:
it's not there's nothing about the logs in the complaint uh... which was amended multiple times uh... secondly the whether or not misstatements were knowing your negligent would not have any bearing

[00:27:32] Speaker 03:
on whether they were actually and necessarily decided in the juvenile proceeding.

[00:27:38] Speaker 03:
I mean, that might go to state of mind in terms of, like you said, showing intentional versus negligent misrepresentation, but that would have no bearing on collateral estoppel.

[00:27:50] Speaker 03:
We're not getting in a state of mind when we look at collateral estoppel.

[00:27:55] Speaker 03:
What we're getting into is what was litigated, how was it decided, was it decided on the merits.

[00:28:01] Speaker 03:
not what were the tactical decisions made or who had more evidence that they could have offered but didn't.

[00:28:09] Speaker 05:
I mean, it's a little strange to be talking about this set of concerns that I don't fully understand and I don't think was alleged.

[00:28:18] Speaker 05:
But in Benavides, the conclusion was that Rooker Feldman didn't apply.

[00:28:26] Speaker 05:
And I don't think collateral estoppel would have applied because

[00:28:30] Speaker 05:
there, things were done outside the knowledge of the defendants and they didn't have the opportunity to litigate it.

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

[00:28:40] Speaker 05:
What you're saying is, well, they had the opportunity to litigate it, but they didn't have, even if they didn't have all the facts.

[00:28:47] Speaker 05:
Is that what you're saying?

[00:28:50] Speaker 03:
I'm not saying it isn't because they didn't have all the facts.

[00:28:53] Speaker 03:
What they're saying is, we had all the facts, but what we didn't have was the confirmation that the social worker's state of mind was nefarious.

[00:29:09] Speaker 03:
To me, that's a big step removed from lacking facts.

[00:29:14] Speaker 03:
I mean, again, as the district court says, they testified as to what the true facts were in their view.

[00:29:23] Speaker 03:
I didn't use drugs.

[00:29:26] Speaker 03:
I have done my rehab services.

[00:29:28] Speaker 03:
So I mean, what the social worker's state of mind is about that doesn't really matter.

[00:29:36] Speaker 03:
the juvenile courts focuses on what's the best thing for the children and where are the parents at the juvenile court doesn't care about what the social workers state of mind is well certainly

[00:29:54] Speaker 05:
you would be able to demonstrate to the state court that the social workers didn't believe what they were saying.

[00:30:00] Speaker 05:
There was much more possibility that he would find in favor of the parents and not the social workers.

[00:30:08] Speaker 03:
I don't think that's true, Your Honor.

[00:30:10] Speaker 03:
I think the juvenile court's job is to do what's in the best interests of the children.

[00:30:16] Speaker 03:
And if the facts show that a... Well, no, but that's the question.

[00:30:20] Speaker 05:
I mean, the social workers were presenting one state of facts.

[00:30:22] Speaker 05:
They were presenting another state of facts.

[00:30:25] Speaker 05:
Whether you believe the social workers' state of facts would certainly be influenced by whether the logs supported what the social workers were saying.

[00:30:35] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:30:35] Speaker 03:
If you were to find the fact... But whether or not the mother used drugs, for example,

[00:30:41] Speaker 03:
No, that wouldn't be in any way shaped in terms of a judicial decision.

[00:30:47] Speaker 03:
Wait a minute.

[00:30:48] Speaker 05:
If the social workers were standing up and saying she used drugs, but their notes said she didn't use drugs.

[00:30:56] Speaker 05:
The state court judge would be more likely to find that she didn't use drugs if they have notes saying they didn't use drugs.

[00:31:04] Speaker 05:
I'm not saying that's what happened, but obviously what's in those logs could matter.

[00:31:09] Speaker 03:
Well, I guess that gets us into the second prong of this, which is, according to them, they're represented by counsel, and it's because of their own counsel's errors and mistakes that the juvenile court reaches these erroneous decisions.

[00:31:25] Speaker 03:
And that has nothing to do with the social workers or their states of mind.

[00:31:32] Speaker 03:
And yet, as the district court notes, the complaint is replete with all these references to things that the dependency lawyer could have done and didn't that would have led to a better result.

[00:31:46] Speaker 04:
You're into borrowed time here.

[00:31:47] Speaker 04:
Let me see if my colleagues have any further questions for you.

[00:31:51] Speaker 04:
Mr. Whitesides, I want to thank you very much for your presentation this morning, and we'll hear a brief rebuttal from Ms.

[00:31:56] Speaker 04:
Wilhite.

[00:31:58] Speaker 00:
Thank you, Your Honors.

[00:32:01] Speaker 00:
This conversation that just occurred is, we're talking about collateral estoppel, is exactly why collateral estoppel doesn't apply.

[00:32:14] Speaker 00:
We're talking about things that we could discover in discovery rather than things that are stating, Ms.

[00:32:23] Speaker 00:
McRuth said she doesn't use drugs.

[00:32:27] Speaker 00:
That was not actually litigated.

[00:32:33] Speaker 00:
It's not been actually litigated that the Marous believe that they were defrauded and retaliated against by defendants.

[00:32:48] Speaker 00:
Excuse me.

[00:32:50] Speaker 00:
That's not what the state court proceeding was.

[00:32:52] Speaker 00:
The state court proceeding was these parents were trying to get their children back.

[00:32:58] Speaker 00:
This was a dependency petition.

[00:33:00] Speaker 00:
There was a determination on parental fitness.

[00:33:05] Speaker 00:
This is what they were focused on.

[00:33:07] Speaker 05:
Did the state court judge make any specific findings as to

[00:33:14] Speaker 05:
whether they used drugs, whether they were going to classes, whether the sex offender was in the house anymore.

[00:33:24] Speaker 05:
Did he make any specific findings or was his finding just a general finding with regard to the final dependency determination?

[00:33:34] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, I am not sure.

[00:33:36] Speaker 00:
I don't think so.

[00:33:38] Speaker 00:
I think that he heard the hearing and made an order, but not based on any specific findings.

[00:33:50] Speaker 00:
But one other thing, if I'm allowed to state, is that defendants are relying on People Vs. Sims for opportunity.

[00:34:00] Speaker 00:
And People Vs. Sims was also a collateral estoppel case, and the court found that

[00:34:13] Speaker 00:
The issues have to be actually litigated and that the defendant state that because plaintiffs had the opportunity to bring up the current allegations in the state court, that prong was met.

[00:34:25] Speaker 00:
But in Sims, the defendant had an administrative hearing on the same issue she later had a criminal hearing for, which was defrauding the welfare system.

[00:34:35] Speaker 00:
The county did not present their case at administrative hearing and

[00:34:41] Speaker 00:
As such, the Supreme Court found the county did have an opportunity to find that she had committed fraud.

[00:34:50] Speaker 00:
But it can only be applied if the issues are identical.

[00:34:53] Speaker 00:
And in Sims, the issues were identical, and in this case, they are not identical.

[00:34:59] Speaker 00:
We just can't say that this case was a case alleging social worker, that the state court was a case alleging that the social workers were defrauding someone and denying them their 14th constitutional rights.

[00:35:12] Speaker 00:
That's a whole nother

[00:35:16] Speaker 00:
The only time that the Rooker Feldman has been found is when the person alleges in their complaint that the state court ruled wrongly and it was because the state court ruled wrongly that they are now suing the social workers.

[00:35:34] Speaker 04:
We've let you go a little over your time, Ms.

[00:35:35] Speaker 04:
Wilhite.

[00:35:36] Speaker 04:
I want to see if my colleagues have any further questions.

[00:35:38] Speaker 05:
I have one question.

[00:35:38] Speaker 05:
Please.

[00:35:39] Speaker 05:
This material that you say you didn't have originally, and leaving aside whether you could have gotten it, how did you get it afterwards?

[00:35:53] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, I don't have that material.

[00:35:55] Speaker 00:
Oh, you don't have it?

[00:35:56] Speaker 00:
I do not.

[00:35:57] Speaker 00:
What I believe, the reason why I say the service logs are going to be where we are going to find the- I say you don't have it.

[00:36:04] Speaker 05:
Okay.

[00:36:05] Speaker 00:
All right.

[00:36:05] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:36:08] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:36:10] Speaker 04:
I want to thank both counsel for the briefing and argument.

[00:36:12] Speaker 04:
This matter is submitted.