[00:00:07] Speaker 01:
Good morning, counsel.

[00:00:08] Speaker 00:
Good morning.

[00:00:09] Speaker 00:
May it please the court?

[00:00:11] Speaker 00:
My name is Jeff Ulster.

[00:00:12] Speaker 00:
I'm with the law firm of Lewis, Brisboy, Bisgarden, Smith, and I represent Appellate United Construction Company.

[00:00:19] Speaker 00:
And I would like to reserve five minutes of my time for rebuttal, please.

[00:00:22] Speaker 01:
Counsel, please be reminded that the time shown is your total time remaining.

[00:00:27] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:00:33] Speaker 00:
The district court's ruling here failed to apply and appreciate three critical principles of Nevada law.

[00:00:41] Speaker 00:
Number one, when separate statutes are in conflict, they should be construed to harmoniously avoid the conflict as well as unreasonable and absurd results.

[00:00:53] Speaker 00:
Two, statutes must be interpreted to avoid interpretation that renders other statutes nugatory or meaningless.

[00:01:00] Speaker 00:
Three, statutes should be construed in a manner that conforms to reason and public policy.

[00:01:06] Speaker 00:
The result of the district court's ruling here, that the underlying plaintiff's CD claims, construction defect claims, which were brought nine years after the underlying property was completed,

[00:01:19] Speaker 00:
But United Construction's indemnity and contribution claims, which were brought less than two months after its motion to dismiss was denied, is unreasonable and absurd.

[00:01:34] Speaker 00:
Not just factually, and not just as a matter of common sense, but also as a matter of Nevada law.

[00:01:40] Speaker 00:
Under NRS 11.2023, which is the statute of repose governing construction defect actions, claims for contribution and indemnity are specifically exempted.

[00:01:55] Speaker 00:
In other words, there's no time limitation for those provisions.

[00:02:01] Speaker 00:
This situation is precisely why continuing recognition of the Beezer Homes insurance exception is required.

[00:02:10] Speaker 04:
This exception posits that when the time bar are... Isn't the exception merely dicta given that it was not essential to the holding?

[00:02:20] Speaker 00:
I suppose it's an interesting question.

[00:02:23] Speaker 00:
I suppose it is technically dicta because it wasn't necessary for the court in the case

[00:02:30] Speaker 00:
to reach that conclusion because it held based on the language of the prior statute that post dissolution claims didn't have a time bar.

[00:02:37] Speaker 04:
But the reason I say it's interesting is because... I mean, the statute that was being interpreted was completely silent as to post dissolution claims.

[00:02:49] Speaker 04:
So not only was it not essential to the court's holding, but it's irrelevant to the statute that was being interpreted in its entirety.

[00:02:57] Speaker 00:
That's, again, I think characterizing it as dicta is fair.

[00:03:03] Speaker 00:
But neither the district court nor Atlas here reason that it shouldn't be followed because it's dicta.

[00:03:11] Speaker 04:
So... But we can make that holding.

[00:03:16] Speaker 04:
We're not bound by the decision of the district court on that issue.

[00:03:21] Speaker 00:
Of course you're not.

[00:03:22] Speaker 00:
But what this court has says,

[00:03:25] Speaker 00:
has said repeatedly in the Home Medics case in 2003, 315 F3rd, 1135, G. V. Tenneco, 615 F2nd, 861, Rocky Mountain, 452 F2nd, 603, that in diversity cases, this court is bound

[00:03:47] Speaker 00:
by well reasoned state court dicta.

[00:03:51] Speaker 03:
Even if we regard it as well reasoned dicta, I don't dispute that we should pay attention to reasoned dictum of the state Supreme Court, but it was reasoned dictum about a different statute.

[00:04:05] Speaker 03:
The statute has been amended in fairly significant ways since then by both the addition of the

[00:04:11] Speaker 03:
within three years of dissolution and then the sentence after it that any remedy not commenced within that period is barred.

[00:04:17] Speaker 03:
So why does the court's observation, however we characterize it about the prior statute, have any relevance now?

[00:04:26] Speaker 00:
Because what Nevada law holds in terms of construing statute, and what was discussed in Beezer as well, is that when a statute is silent and it's based on language that has a history,

[00:04:44] Speaker 00:
that have rulings that have been in place, then the court may presume that when the legislature amends the statute, that it has a meaning consistent with those prior rulings.

[00:04:57] Speaker 04:
Right.

[00:04:57] Speaker 04:
So can't we assume that the legislature's addition of this final clause in 2013 was in fact

[00:05:05] Speaker 04:
a response to the silence, there was no such language, then you have Beezer, and then the legislature acted.

[00:05:12] Speaker 04:
So why can't we just presume that that language, which is plain and unambiguous, resolves this question?

[00:05:22] Speaker 00:
Because the legislature did not address one way or another the exception.

[00:05:29] Speaker 04:
But why isn't the inclusion of this clause

[00:05:33] Speaker 04:
the addressing of this issue.

[00:05:37] Speaker 04:
I guess I don't understand why the inclusion of this specific clause doesn't resolve the point that you are making right now.

[00:05:48] Speaker 00:
Again, as the court said in Beezer, you have to look to prior rulings of a statute to guide how it gets applied.

[00:05:57] Speaker 00:
And the legislature could have easily said, yeah, in 2004, Beezer recognized an insurance exception, and we're not going to get rid of that.

[00:06:08] Speaker 04:
What is your best case for the proposition that the legislature had to do that, had to actually speak?

[00:06:17] Speaker 04:
on its intent with respect to the inclusion of this clause?

[00:06:21] Speaker 00:
I don't know that there's a case that says they had to, but I think, again, the language in Beezer itself at pinpoint site, P3rd pinpoint site 1135 to 1136, says when a legislature adopts a language that has a particular meaning or history, rules of statutory construction also indicated that a court may presume that the legislature intended the language to have a meaning consistent with previous interpretations of that language.

[00:06:46] Speaker 00:
Beezer was a previous interpretation of the corporate dissolution statute that engrafted this exception.

[00:06:54] Speaker 00:
And this exception was based on California common law.

[00:07:00] Speaker 00:
the Pensequitos case.

[00:07:01] Speaker 03:
But what the exceptions said was that some kinds of claims, when they're undistributed assets, survive the dissolution.

[00:07:11] Speaker 03:
And isn't one response to that to say any such remedy or cause of action not commenced within the applicable period is barred?

[00:07:19] Speaker 03:
I mean, that seems to directly respond to that by saying any is very broad.

[00:07:25] Speaker 03:
Any means including the ones that were talked about in Beezer, right?

[00:07:31] Speaker 00:
Yes, but that leaves open a conflict.

[00:07:37] Speaker 00:
It leaves open a conflict between the corporate dissolution time bar statute and NRS 11.202, which is the time bar statute for construction defect actions.

[00:07:48] Speaker 00:
We now have a direct conflict between those two statutes in terms of the corporate dissolution statute bars claims for indemnity and contribution just by blanket fiat.

[00:08:01] Speaker 00:
But you still have NRS 11.202 subsection 3 on the books, which exempts contribution and indemnity claims from even the 10-year statute of repose time bar for CD claims.

[00:08:16] Speaker 00:
That's the type of conflict that should require the continuing recognition of the exception, Your Honor.

[00:08:23] Speaker 04:
So you raised an interesting point just a few moments ago about how Beezer

[00:08:27] Speaker 04:
the footnote in Beezer was relying on a California Supreme Court decision.

[00:08:30] Speaker 04:
And I'm interested to know, you know, how that should factor into our consideration of the legislature's action, because now we not only have a court interpreting a Nevada statute, you know, or looking at Nevada law, they were looking at the California Supreme Court decision, and then you have the Nevada legislature acting.

[00:08:52] Speaker 04:
So how should we

[00:08:53] Speaker 04:
It seems to me that that actually undercuts your argument that we should interpret this particular provision consistent with the footnote in Beezer.

[00:09:03] Speaker 00:
Right.

[00:09:04] Speaker 00:
Well, as this court is aware, Nevada courts frequently look to California courts for guidance.

[00:09:10] Speaker 00:
That's a very common practice and well established and well recognized.

[00:09:15] Speaker 00:
While Atlas does note that there are differences between the California statutory scheme and the Nevada scheme in terms of corporate dissolution, in fact, California doesn't have the deadlines, right?

[00:09:28] Speaker 00:
That's pretty obvious.

[00:09:29] Speaker 00:
However, in the Pensequatos case, the California case that Beezer cites, they don't rely on the California statute.

[00:09:38] Speaker 00:
They rely on the notion that it's just not fair as a matter of common law.

[00:09:44] Speaker 00:
that what the California Supreme Court said is if the corporation has liability insurance coverage, its dissolution provides no reason to excuse the insurer from defending the action and indemnifying those injured by the dissolved corporation's activities.

[00:10:03] Speaker 00:
They don't cite to any provision of the California code.

[00:10:09] Speaker 00:
They just simply state that as a matter of corporate common law and common law in both Nevada and California is is critical in shaping and forming law with respect to statute of limitations provisions and in time limitations that law.

[00:10:25] Speaker 00:
is a collection of statutes and case law.

[00:10:29] Speaker 00:
So that common law is critical.

[00:10:32] Speaker 00:
I see my time for this session is up, but if there are any questions, I'm happy to answer.

[00:10:38] Speaker 04:
Before you sit down, I have a question about the certification.

[00:10:43] Speaker 04:
Why didn't you raise the issue of certification below?

[00:10:50] Speaker 00:
In all honesty, Your Honor, I can't answer that question just because I wasn't involved.

[00:10:56] Speaker 00:
So all I can say is frequently when a case goes on appeal and you get

[00:11:05] Speaker 00:
more.

[00:11:06] Speaker 00:
Both sides go deeper into the weeds.

[00:11:09] Speaker 00:
You realize that there really is a hole in a state's law, here in Nevada, obviously.

[00:11:18] Speaker 00:
And that's when it becomes apparent that, you know, there is this genuine conflict between the two statutes that is recurring, it's current, it's an important and case-determinative issue of law that

[00:11:32] Speaker 00:
that could help guide this court if it feels it's necessary.

[00:11:37] Speaker 03:
Can I ask you one more question about the conflict with 11202?

[00:11:40] Speaker 03:
So 11202 has the general statute of repose for construction defects.

[00:11:47] Speaker 03:
And then you were saying there's an exception for indemnity.

[00:11:49] Speaker 03:
And subsection three just says the provisions of this section do not apply to a claim for indemnity.

[00:11:57] Speaker 03:
So I don't understand how that conflicts with 78.585 because

[00:12:05] Speaker 03:
You can just not apply the indemnity and construction defect statute or oppose, and that's fine.

[00:12:13] Speaker 03:
But then you do apply 78585.

[00:12:16] Speaker 03:
So what's the conflict?

[00:12:17] Speaker 00:
Well, the conflict is that there's no time limitation for claims for contribution and indemnity that attach to a CD claim.

[00:12:26] Speaker 00:
because there's a recognition by the legislature in that context that when a construction defect claim is brought, you're going to have claims for indemnity and contribution downstream to subcontractors.

[00:12:38] Speaker 00:
And those may happen more than 10 years after the property was completed.

[00:12:46] Speaker 00:
So it's a recognition that those claims are special.

[00:12:49] Speaker 00:
Those claims are different and they're not subject to time bars.

[00:12:53] Speaker 01:
All right.

[00:12:53] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Council.

[00:12:54] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:13:03] Speaker 02:
Your honor's may it please the court all this Mercado on behalf of Atlas contractors Council started his argument by talking about statutory construction and public policy and I would note that the District Court had those considerations in mind twice in

[00:13:27] Speaker 02:
Her order, Judge Dews starts with, when construing an ambiguous statute, the court must give the statute the interpretation that reason and public policy would indicate the legislature intended.

[00:13:41] Speaker 02:
And then proceeding on, the court goes on to talk about the policy underlying 78-585.

[00:13:49] Speaker 02:
And she says, the plain language is consistent with the history of Section 78-585 as a mechanism intended to provide finality to shareholders.

[00:13:59] Speaker 02:
and directors after the dissolution of a corporation while simultaneously balancing the need to preserve adequate remedies for latent defects undiscovered at the time of dissolution.

[00:14:11] Speaker 02:
So Judge Dew's order actually comports with applicable principles of statutory construction.

[00:14:19] Speaker 02:
In addressing the issue before her, the court looked at the plain language of NRS 78585, not the previous statute, not anything else.

[00:14:31] Speaker 02:
She's looking at the plain language of the statute.

[00:14:34] Speaker 02:
And under the plain language of the statute, post dissolution claims are barred after three years, post dissolution.

[00:14:42] Speaker 02:
There's no exception in there.

[00:14:43] Speaker 02:
There's no discovery rule in there.

[00:14:45] Speaker 02:
There was much argument in the briefing about how unfair it was that UNITE was not able to discover what was going on because the dissolution happened and the time had already lapsed.

[00:14:57] Speaker 02:
But that's not the question.

[00:14:59] Speaker 02:
The legislature knew what to do when it had a discovery rule for

[00:15:05] Speaker 02:
the two-year period, and plainly did not include a discovery rule for the three-year period, which is why Judge Duke correctly determined that was a statute of repose.

[00:15:15] Speaker 02:
It triggered based on what happened.

[00:15:19] Speaker 02:
The event was the dissolution of Atlas.

[00:15:22] Speaker 02:
That triggered the three years.

[00:15:23] Speaker 02:
No discovery, and it didn't matter that there are other statutes, that there's other statutes of limitations.

[00:15:29] Speaker 02:
There's always going to be.

[00:15:31] Speaker 04:
Do you agree, though, that

[00:15:34] Speaker 04:
The language in Bezer presents a little bit of a challenge here in that it states the exception for corporations with undistributed assets would apply even in the face of express statutory language to the country.

[00:15:50] Speaker 02:
And, Your Honor, one of the things that the Court was talking about

[00:15:54] Speaker 02:
As you mentioned, the court was dealing with the prior version of 78-585.

[00:15:59] Speaker 02:
That was silent as to post dissolution claims.

[00:16:01] Speaker 04:
But it arguably is contemplating the possibility of express statutory language.

[00:16:09] Speaker 02:
Yeah, and arguably that's true.

[00:16:13] Speaker 02:
But what the court was dealing with is things were silent with regard to post dissolution claims.

[00:16:20] Speaker 02:
And as the court said, even if there was a bar, we're dealing with this issue.

[00:16:24] Speaker 02:
So that issue was presented to the legislature.

[00:16:27] Speaker 02:
There's no question the legislature was aware of Beezer because they cite Cannarelli, and Cannarelli refers back to Beezer and references it as being potentially flawed reasoning.

[00:16:38] Speaker 02:
But the legislature dealt with those issues and had an opportunity in the statute of repose to make an exception

[00:16:46] Speaker 02:
following Beeser.

[00:16:47] Speaker 02:
It didn't follow anything that Beeser did.

[00:16:50] Speaker 02:
It basically wrote the statute, added a specific provision for post dissolution claims, and it basically took out any discovery issue with regard to that.

[00:17:01] Speaker 02:
And then in terms of any conflict between 11202 and 78585,

[00:17:08] Speaker 02:
The Legislature dealt with that as well in Section 2 of 78.585.

[00:17:12] Speaker 02:
It says this is what it is and no other law is going to extend or shorten the statutes or the periods of limitations that we've discussed in this matter.

[00:17:22] Speaker 02:
So there is no conflict that the Legislature hasn't dealt with.

[00:17:27] Speaker 02:
with regard to Beeser, the statute, the 2013 version of 78585, filled the silence that was left by the earlier version that the Beeser court tried to fill by basically saying, what is opposed to solution claim?

[00:17:46] Speaker 02:
What does arising, how do we interpret arising to make sure that the time limit is going to be for that?

[00:17:52] Speaker 02:
The legislature took out the word arising out of the current statute, and it took away anything that would be anywhere consistent with what Bezier was looking to do.

[00:18:03] Speaker 02:
The legislature could have done that, but it didn't.

[00:18:06] Speaker 02:
It created a statute of repose basically following

[00:18:10] Speaker 02:
what Judge Du mentioned, it was balancing the interests of the corporations that are dissolved and the shareholders and the directors.

[00:18:18] Speaker 04:
So your position is essentially there is no conflict, the language is clear, the legislature has resolved this issue.

[00:18:24] Speaker 04:
Let's assume we disagree with you on that.

[00:18:28] Speaker 04:
What's the problem with certifying the issue to the Nevada Supreme Court?

[00:18:32] Speaker 02:
Well, the way that I see certification, Your Honor, is that the Nevada Supreme Court will look at cases where there is no controlling law, and it wants to come in and make a determination, and it wants the opportunity to certify or to make its decisions with regard to new law.

[00:18:52] Speaker 02:
But we have controlling law.

[00:18:54] Speaker 02:
We have 78-585, and that controls here because it addresses the very specific issue that is raised

[00:19:01] Speaker 02:
from United suing Atlas six years after it had been dissolved.

[00:19:07] Speaker 02:
There's no reason to take it to the Nevada Supreme Court.

[00:19:12] Speaker 02:
And one of the things that

[00:19:14] Speaker 02:
United's brief had indicated is that Judge Duke predicted incorrectly how the Nevada Supreme Court would rule on this issue.

[00:19:23] Speaker 02:
And I respectfully disagree with that.

[00:19:25] Speaker 02:
She followed basically going through, this is what the statute says.

[00:19:30] Speaker 02:
If the statute isn't clear and ambiguous, which she says it is, plain language, this is what it says.

[00:19:36] Speaker 02:
But even if we say it's not, then let's look to legislative history.

[00:19:40] Speaker 02:
And the legislative history

[00:19:42] Speaker 02:
also pretty clearly says, we want a ceiling, a stop date for this time period for claims that are against a dissolved corporation.

[00:19:52] Speaker 02:
So she not only took the statute, she took the legislative history, and they both comport with one another.

[00:19:58] Speaker 02:
There is nothing in the legislative history that says, you know, Beeser had a point here when they talked about this exception for liability insurance or undistributed assets.

[00:20:10] Speaker 02:
The legislature could have easily added that exception, no differently than it added an exception to 11202,

[00:20:18] Speaker 02:
for any fraudulent claims or where it says this is not going to apply to the indemnity and contribution claims, the legislator could have easily have done that.

[00:20:28] Speaker 02:
It did not do that.

[00:20:30] Speaker 03:
Does Atlas have any assets at this point other than the insurance policy?

[00:20:35] Speaker 02:
No.

[00:20:36] Speaker 03:
So the only issue here really is does the insurer have to pay out on this claim as a practical matter?

[00:20:42] Speaker 03:
And so, I mean, the insurance company wrote this policy that would cover these claims.

[00:20:51] Speaker 03:
If Atlas were still in business, the insurer would have to pay out on the claim.

[00:20:57] Speaker 03:
I mean, it seems sort of odd that the happenstance that Atlas is no longer in business and has dissolved means that the insurer gets a windfall and United has nobody to recover from it.

[00:21:11] Speaker 03:
Why does that make any sense as a policy matter?

[00:21:14] Speaker 02:
Well, I can't tell you why it would make any sense, other than this is what the legislature determined, because as I said earlier, the legislature was aware of Beezer when it changed this, and it could have said, you know, this doesn't make sense.

[00:21:30] Speaker 02:
We're going to adopt that footnote from Beezer and add it here for the very reasons that you've just articulated.

[00:21:37] Speaker 02:
But it didn't do that.

[00:21:40] Speaker 02:
This is what it said.

[00:21:41] Speaker 02:
It created the exception for it.

[00:21:43] Speaker 02:
And there's an aspect where the court or the legislature both address the issue of fairness, because that's one of the themes that United has brought forward.

[00:21:53] Speaker 02:
And it's similar to the question that you asked, is why is this fair that the insurance company gets to get a windfall and it's not fair to us?

[00:22:00] Speaker 02:
Because we didn't know that there was a claim out there, so why is this fair to us?

[00:22:05] Speaker 02:
And there's a case that

[00:22:07] Speaker 02:
The Supreme Court actually spoke about fairness in the instance where statutes of repose are involved and basically said, that's not up to us to decide.

[00:22:19] Speaker 02:
And the case that I want to bring to the Court's attention, it's Somerset Owners Association versus Somerset Development.

[00:22:26] Speaker 02:
And that's 492 P 3rd, 532, a Nevada 2021 case.

[00:22:33] Speaker 02:
And in that same issue, similar issues here, statute reposes before the court and the homeowners are saying, well, we didn't know that, you know, we only had six years and so these walls are falling apart and we should be able to sue.

[00:22:48] Speaker 02:
And summary judgment was entered in favor of the contractor.

[00:22:54] Speaker 02:
And the Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment.

[00:22:58] Speaker 02:
And in so doing, addressing statutes of repose, it said, the perceived unfairness resulting from the application of the statute of repose on these facts is not within this court's purview to resolve.

[00:23:12] Speaker 02:
And then quoting from the United States Supreme Court,

[00:23:16] Speaker 02:
And the court wrote, quote, statutes of repose effect a legislative judgment that a defendant should be free from liability after the legislatively determined period of time.

[00:23:27] Speaker 02:
And with that, it recognized there might be instances where it may not be fair, but it's not the court's purview, it's the legislator's purview.

[00:23:37] Speaker 02:
And if they think this is not an appropriate manner of handling or how it should be resolved, then it's up to

[00:23:45] Speaker 02:
the legislature to make that legislative determination that it's going to make an exception as it has shown it's impossible to do and it's able to do in cases where it thinks that, you know, that statute of repose should not apply in these instances.

[00:24:01] Speaker 02:
So ultimately,

[00:24:02] Speaker 02:
Judge Dew was correct.

[00:24:04] Speaker 02:
This is a statute of repose.

[00:24:06] Speaker 02:
The three-year aspect is a statute of repose.

[00:24:08] Speaker 02:
There's no discovery rule.

[00:24:10] Speaker 02:
It's not affected by other statutes of limitations.

[00:24:15] Speaker 02:
The legislature made that clear.

[00:24:17] Speaker 02:
It's not subject to any exceptions.

[00:24:19] Speaker 02:
The legislature made that clear.

[00:24:21] Speaker 02:
And if there is any problem with that or any concerns that this is just a not fair outcome, then it's up to the legislature to make that correction and whether it will or won't remains to be seen.

[00:24:35] Speaker 02:
But we do know that the legislature was aware of Beezer, it was aware of Canarelli, and it actually in its legislative history

[00:24:43] Speaker 02:
acknowledges the Nevada Supreme Court asked us to address this issue.

[00:24:47] Speaker 02:
We're addressing this issue.

[00:24:49] Speaker 02:
The outcome of that invitation was NRS 78585 as it currently stands and as Judge Ju interpreted it.

[00:24:58] Speaker 02:
There's no question

[00:25:00] Speaker 02:
based on the facts or based on the plain language of the statute that she accurately predicted what the Nevada Supreme Court would do in a similar situation.

[00:25:10] Speaker 02:
And on that basis, we ask the court to affirm the entry of summary judgment in favor of that list, unless the court has any other questions.

[00:25:18] Speaker 01:
It appears not.

[00:25:19] Speaker 01:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:25:20] Speaker 02:
Thank you, your honor.

[00:25:29] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:25:31] Speaker 00:
You can't miss the Bezer insurance exception in the opinion.

[00:25:36] Speaker 00:
While it is a footnote, the footnote is appended to the main holding of the case, which is that there are no time bars for post-dissolution claims under the prior statute.

[00:25:48] Speaker 00:
We're left with the question.

[00:25:49] Speaker 00:
There's a lot of legislative history in the record.

[00:25:52] Speaker 00:
It's undisputed that none of it mentions the insurance exception.

[00:25:57] Speaker 00:
So there's no evidence that it was consciously rejected.

[00:26:04] Speaker 00:
Therefore, we need to rely on the other guidance from Bezer, which is that silence, when there's silence on the amendment of an existing statute, we need to look at existing rulings.

[00:26:18] Speaker 00:
And part of the existing rulings are Bezer itself and the insurance exception.

[00:26:25] Speaker 01:
As Judge Miller noted, that is a different statute now.

[00:26:28] Speaker 01:
So Bezer was interpreting a statute that had been amended.

[00:26:33] Speaker 01:
Why should we rely on a case that interpreted a different statute?

[00:26:40] Speaker 00:
It's the same statute, but it's a critical amendment that was made in 2013.

[00:26:44] Speaker 00:
The 2013 amendment did change the Beezer holding.

[00:26:50] Speaker 00:
I don't want to play games about that.

[00:26:52] Speaker 00:
It did change the Beezer holding about post dissolution claims.

[00:26:55] Speaker 00:
But there's no evidence in the legislative history record that the insurance exception was considered.

[00:27:01] Speaker 01:
go to legislative history when the language of the statute is clear?

[00:27:07] Speaker 00:
Generally not.

[00:27:08] Speaker 00:
But there's a different kind of ambiguity, I think, that flows from certain statutory predicaments like we have here, which is silence.

[00:27:16] Speaker 00:
And under Nevada law, including Beezer, including many other Nevada Supreme Court opinions, silence means you look to how the statute integrates with other statutory schemes and public policy.

[00:27:29] Speaker 01:
What's silent about the amended statute?

[00:27:32] Speaker 00:
It doesn't speak to the insurance exception.

[00:27:36] Speaker 00:
It doesn't speak to an exception that was recognized by another branch of the Nevada government and has not been overturned or weakened or commented on in any way by any subsequent Nevada court.

[00:27:49] Speaker 00:
It has not been overruled.

[00:27:51] Speaker 00:
And it's an opinion that's based on

[00:27:54] Speaker 00:
the California Supreme Court and well-grounded common law, which Nevada looks to.

[00:28:01] Speaker 00:
And I suppose all that may militate in favor of certification, but again, public policy here is like you said, Your Honor.

[00:28:09] Speaker 00:
You've got happenstance, you've got live companies that continue to do business subject to 10-year statutes of reposes, and companies, if they go out of business, they're in the clear after three years.

[00:28:20] Speaker 00:
And that's just not fair.

[00:28:21] Speaker 01:
All right, thank you, counsel.

[00:28:22] Speaker 00:
We respectfully request reversal.

[00:28:23] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:28:24] Speaker 01:
Thank you to both counsel.

[00:28:25] Speaker 01:
Case just argued is submitted for decision by the court.