[00:00:01] Speaker 03: So we're aware of the unusual situation in which we have an appellant and appellee joining together to split 15 minutes of the appellant's opening time. [00:00:09] Speaker 03: So we'll hear first from Mr. Friam, I believe, and then we'll hear from Mr. Lifer after that. [00:00:16] Speaker 03: And you may each reserve time for rebuttal, but your collective time is 15 minutes. [00:00:21] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:00:21] Speaker 03: You may proceed. [00:00:22] Speaker 01: Good morning. [00:00:23] Speaker 01: May it please the court, Your Honor. [00:00:25] Speaker 01: We have intended to reserve his five minutes for rebuttal and give my initial 10 if that's all right. [00:00:31] Speaker 01: Your Honor, I'm Alex Ephraim. [00:00:32] Speaker 01: I'm an attorney with Federman and Sherwood, here with William B. Federman from Oklahoma City on behalf of Appellant, Aurora Rosario in this matter. [00:00:39] Speaker 01: Your Honor, this plaintiff seeks the reversal of the district court's dismissal order because it erred when it accepted as evidence sufficient to support an inference of citizenship the stale, unverified, last known mailing addresses. [00:00:51] Speaker 01: collected by defendant PIH, and ruling that the intervener met his burden to invoke the CAFA discretionary exception. [00:00:59] Speaker 01: Additionally, Your Honors, the court erred in making its calculation here of putative class members in a way that violated the CAFA statute. [00:01:08] Speaker 01: First, the lower court's acceptance of stale, unverified, last known mailing addresses as evidence of citizenship in this case is dubious. [00:01:16] Speaker 00: Council, why doesn't Adams [00:01:21] Speaker 00: teach us the opposite of what you're saying that addresses may very well be a proxy for residency and for citizenship. [00:01:34] Speaker 00: in the state, at least for domicile purposes. [00:01:39] Speaker 00: And why wouldn't that be particularly true of a class that consists of people who are getting medical care, which presumes that they haven't necessarily traveled from Oklahoma City to be where they are? [00:01:55] Speaker 01: Yes, Your Honor. [00:01:57] Speaker 01: First, the Courtney Adams [00:01:59] Speaker 01: acknowledged that last known mailing addresses are not a direct proxy for residents and residents, not a direct proxy for citizenship. [00:02:06] Speaker 01: And yet the mailing addresses in this case were treated not only as a direct proxy for residency and for domicile and for citizenship here. [00:02:16] Speaker 01: The Adams Court also had additional evidence in the record to support the use of those mailing addresses when compared to this case and the mailing addresses at issue here. [00:02:26] Speaker 01: The mailing addresses in Adams were, it was an employee class, so they also went through some sort of employment verification process, which was also attested to, and that's in the record in Adams. [00:02:37] Speaker 00: Well, certainly they're not identical, but given the nature of this class, [00:02:47] Speaker 00: Why isn't it completely reasonable to infer factually that most at least of these residence addresses are still valid and that most of them represent California citizens? [00:03:05] Speaker 01: Well, your honor, I want to first start by clarifying that the collection of the address information here was not a collection of residential address information. [00:03:14] Speaker 00: It was billing information. [00:03:17] Speaker 01: Your honor, it was used for billing purposes, but there's nothing in the record that supports how effective that was. [00:03:22] Speaker 01: And furthermore, PIH is a charitable hospital that loses a substantial- They still want their money. [00:03:28] Speaker 00: I mean, that's a reasonable inference for sure, isn't it? [00:03:33] Speaker 01: Your honor, I would disagree that it's a reasonable inference that since they were simply used for billing records, that means that they're acceptable for inferring citizenship in this case. [00:03:44] Speaker 04: But Mr. Ephraim, given the [00:03:47] Speaker 04: the, I guess, what we've called the cushion here. [00:03:49] Speaker 04: I mean, the size of the class identified here is at least double or more the size that you'd need for the discretionary exemption. [00:04:02] Speaker 04: So as the district court's deciding between these two inferences, I mean, how can you show that it's actually more likely that out of all of these inferences that most of them [00:04:13] Speaker 04: are not where people live, that most of them are non-citizens? [00:04:19] Speaker 01: Your Honor, I would first admit that it's an intervener's burden to establish the citizenship of at least a third of the putative class here, and while I think this is... Right, but the District Court met that burden, and what's our standard of review of the District Courts? [00:04:34] Speaker 01: Well, I think the standard of review on this particular issue is clear error. [00:04:38] Speaker 01: So there we go. [00:04:38] Speaker 04: We've got two inferences. [00:04:40] Speaker 04: I mean, now it's your turn. [00:04:42] Speaker 00: Yeah, as I read the district court, it isn't 100% clear. [00:04:48] Speaker 00: I'll give you that. [00:04:49] Speaker 00: But it appears to me that the district court found that 99.58% of the settlement class [00:04:58] Speaker 00: had California addresses, which would equate to some like 164,000 people. [00:05:08] Speaker 00: And even if you say that some percentage of those are not citizens, you still end up with probably two-thirds of the folks. [00:05:20] Speaker 00: It's very similar to the Adam's Christian, isn't it? [00:05:24] Speaker 01: I would disagree that it's similar to the Adams cushion because of the error in the court's calculation utilizing that 165,000 number. [00:05:33] Speaker 00: Yes, but my point, my point is if you even if we agree with you. [00:05:39] Speaker 00: His percentage of 165,000 yields a very, very large number, about 164,000 people, which is still, if you put it against the entire class of nearly 200,000, is still way more than a third. [00:05:59] Speaker 01: Yes, it would be way more than a third. [00:06:01] Speaker 01: I'm not going to belabor that point, Your Honor. [00:06:03] Speaker 01: I would address that the court's utilization of that 165,000 number [00:06:08] Speaker 01: was improper under 1332D7, which regards- I'm not arguing with you on that. [00:06:14] Speaker 00: I guess I'm saying that why wouldn't that be harmless, error, or irrelevant to the ultimate conclusion, given the finding that the district court made of how many people were local, even if we assume that it should have looked at the full 200,000? [00:06:34] Speaker 01: Well, Your Honor, what [00:06:36] Speaker 01: you consider to be an inference, I consider to be guesswork of what is a proposition that's likely in its on its face under Mondragon. [00:06:45] Speaker 01: I think it is a proposition likely on its face that a third of the class here may be California citizens, but that the mailing addresses, which were the only evidence put forth in the record to support a finding of citizenship here is insufficient under the district court's precedent. [00:07:01] Speaker 04: That's still more than than we had in either Mondragon or King. [00:07:06] Speaker 04: Sorry, Your Honor. [00:07:07] Speaker 04: We have we have mailing addresses. [00:07:08] Speaker 04: We have these additional facts that Judge Graber talked about about the nature of the business here. [00:07:13] Speaker 04: So I guess I'm still not seeing why this is gets us in Adams Territory. [00:07:19] Speaker 04: Mondragon, they had no evidence at all. [00:07:23] Speaker 04: King involved a bare stipulation. [00:07:25] Speaker 04: Yes, Your Honor. [00:07:27] Speaker 04: So. [00:07:27] Speaker 04: Again, I'm not sure how this is distinguishable from Adams in terms of the quantum of proof available. [00:07:33] Speaker 01: Well, Your Honor, our contention is that the mailing addresses here are simply not evidence of citizenship, able to support an inference of citizenship. [00:07:42] Speaker 04: So the competing evidence would be that of, let's assume now that we're supposed to be looking at the denominator here should be the complaint class rather than the settlement class. [00:07:55] Speaker 04: The competing inference would be that the majority, I think, if my math is right, that the majority of people that they serve are non-citizens of California? [00:08:06] Speaker 01: Yes, Your Honor, that would be the inference. [00:08:07] Speaker 01: But again, I fall back to the fact that we have a proposition that appears likely on its face here regarding the citizenship of the putative class. [00:08:15] Speaker 01: But the evidence put forth in the record, which there must be evidentiary facts in the record to support a finding of citizenship under Ninth Circuit precedent, has not been met here. [00:08:26] Speaker 03: What was the nature of some of the change of address checks or check that was run during this process? [00:08:34] Speaker 01: So regarding the national change of address search, that check was done either at the very end of 2019 or the very beginning of 2020 before the 165,000 mailings went out. [00:08:46] Speaker 01: And out of that change of address, we know that at least over 16,000 of those mailings were returned undeliverable. [00:08:54] Speaker 01: And again, Your Honor, I've come back to the change of address does not speak to the citizenship of the putative class. [00:09:01] Speaker 01: The burden should not be exceptionally difficult to bear. [00:09:04] Speaker 01: That's well established in Ninth Circuit precedent. [00:09:06] Speaker 01: We just think that the [00:09:08] Speaker 00: Intervener the proposed intervener here failed to put forth evidence in the record to support citizenship We are entitled if we exercise our discretion to do it to take judicial notice of certain facts and Why couldn't we take judicial notice of the statistics of? [00:09:30] Speaker 00: non-citizens in the geographic area that is served by the [00:09:34] Speaker 00: the hospital, which is something like 14 and a half percent. [00:09:41] Speaker 00: And why isn't that an appropriate way to consider what the district court implicitly found? [00:09:50] Speaker 01: Well, Your Honor, I think if the court were inclined to take judicial notice of that fact, it would be entitled to do so. [00:09:56] Speaker 01: But the evidence was not put forth in the record and is still not in the record as of now to support that finding of citizenship for the putative class. [00:10:05] Speaker 04: And when we're talking about citizenship, U.S. [00:10:07] Speaker 04: citizenship doesn't cut it, right? [00:10:09] Speaker 04: We need to find citizens of the state as well. [00:10:12] Speaker 04: Correct. [00:10:12] Speaker 04: So we're back to the residency question. [00:10:14] Speaker 04: Yes, sir. [00:10:16] Speaker 01: Specifically domicile, actually. [00:10:18] Speaker 01: And as the court in Adams held, residency is not a direct proxy for domicile, which in turn is not a direct proxy for citizenship. [00:10:26] Speaker 01: And I just think it's a stretch to, in this instance, when the mailing addresses are stale and unverified, many as old as five years old, [00:10:33] Speaker 01: and the information collected was not seeking permanent address information, that change occurred after the data breach, that the mailing addresses here are simply not sufficient to support an inference of domicile or citizenship of California class members. [00:10:50] Speaker 03: Okay. [00:10:50] Speaker 03: I understand you'll reserve the rest of your time for rebuttal. [00:10:53] Speaker 03: Is that how you'd like to proceed? [00:10:55] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:10:55] Speaker 03: Okay. [00:10:56] Speaker 03: Thank you, Mr. Fran. [00:10:57] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:11:02] Speaker 03: Okay, I thought you were going to reserve the time for rebuttal. [00:11:05] Speaker 03: So we'll hear from you in a moment. [00:11:07] Speaker 03: We'll hear from Mr. Maia. [00:11:10] Speaker 02: Good morning, your honor. [00:11:14] Speaker 02: May it please the court. [00:11:16] Speaker 02: I am Theodore Maia here on behalf of Appellee Ferdinand Rivera. [00:11:21] Speaker 02: And preliminarily, we did file some objections. [00:11:27] Speaker 03: We're going to put 15 minutes on the clock for Mr. Maia. [00:11:30] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:11:31] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:11:32] Speaker 03: make sure you have your full amounts. [00:11:34] Speaker 02: I appreciate that. [00:11:35] Speaker 03: Apologies. [00:11:36] Speaker 02: I appreciate that. [00:11:37] Speaker 02: Actually, on that note, you know, we did lodge objections to PIH's notice of intent to appear and argue today. [00:11:45] Speaker 02: And the gravamen of those objections is that, you know, the central argument on appeal advanced by [00:11:54] Speaker 02: Ferdinand Rivera is that, I'm sorry, by Aurora Rosario, is that she somehow was excluded by the district court from an opportunity to brief the issue of application of the discretionary home state exception. [00:12:07] Speaker 02: That argument simply cannot apply to PIH, right, who actually did submit a brief. [00:12:12] Speaker 04: I didn't hear them relying on that argument at all in their opening, so. [00:12:18] Speaker 02: Oh, Rosario's opening. [00:12:20] Speaker 02: Yeah, that that's interesting. [00:12:22] Speaker 02: But that's in the brief. [00:12:25] Speaker 02: In the briefing, you see that front and center, right? [00:12:28] Speaker 02: And I don't know what PIH is does not have that argument. [00:12:31] Speaker 02: I don't really know what PIH is going to say. [00:12:33] Speaker 02: I would request the opportunity to reserve a couple minutes to respond to anything new that PIH. [00:12:40] Speaker 02: Let's see. [00:12:40] Speaker 03: Let's see how it goes on that. [00:12:42] Speaker 03: They've reserved their time. [00:12:43] Speaker 03: And so, you know, it's an odd situation where they're [00:12:46] Speaker 03: They're here together because they'd like to see this class settlements, you know approved and obviously you're representing the intervener and you you want to see all this take place in state court. [00:12:55] Speaker 03: We already have litigation pending. [00:12:57] Speaker 03: So why don't we hear from you on the the the merits of the of the district court's decision? [00:13:03] Speaker 02: Yes, and I appreciate that your honor. [00:13:05] Speaker 02: We did hear Rosario's counsel there call the [00:13:11] Speaker 02: essentially assert that the district court's opinion here was not based on any evidence, and I think that just flies in the face of reality, frankly. [00:13:20] Speaker 02: It also is wrong to call these stale, unverified, last known mailing addresses. [00:13:27] Speaker 04: What about the D7 problem issue that was raised that the statute here [00:13:36] Speaker 04: tells us to look at the complaint for making these determinations and the district court appears to have relied on the settlement class. [00:13:43] Speaker 02: Sure. [00:13:45] Speaker 02: First of all, I don't think anybody could say it was clear error for the district court to rely on to use the number of settlement class members. [00:13:55] Speaker 00: Counsel, that's not a factual question. [00:13:58] Speaker 00: It's a legal question as to what is the denominator. [00:14:01] Speaker 00: So why would we review that aspect for clear error? [00:14:05] Speaker 02: Sure. [00:14:06] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:14:06] Speaker 02: It couldn't be an abuse of discretion, uh, for the district. [00:14:09] Speaker 00: It's a legal question. [00:14:11] Speaker 00: We have to know for review of legal questions. [00:14:13] Speaker 00: I don't see why, why any other, uh, standard of review would apply to the resolution of that legal question. [00:14:21] Speaker 00: Should we decide that we need to, uh, rule on it? [00:14:27] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:14:29] Speaker 02: Uh, that may well be your honor, but at the end of the day, it is harmless error. [00:14:33] Speaker 02: Let me explain why. [00:14:35] Speaker 02: If we're talking about the size of the class pled in the complaint, the evidence in the record before the court here shows that that's about 198,000 plus people who were affected by the data breach. [00:14:54] Speaker 02: The address info that we have that was used to provide notice of the data breach covered 165,000 roughly. [00:15:05] Speaker 02: of those class members only seven hundred and one of whom had addresses outside of california that address info was not stale it was uh... confirmed through a national change of address search uh... shortly before those notices were mailed in twenty twenty there's evidence in the record that p i h uses this address data to provide uh... when the when the national when the change of address search was run some number of [00:15:35] Speaker 03: Addresses were proven 16,000. [00:15:39] Speaker 03: What happened in that process? [00:15:40] Speaker 02: I think those 16,000 actually they that wasn't a result of the NCOA search that was after they were mailed They were turned were returned as undeliverable which could be for any number of reasons I know I I actually have trouble receiving mail at my house for some reason The deposition testimony established that PIH uses this information for billing purposes and [00:16:05] Speaker 02: PIH did use this address data to provide notice of the data breach to affected class members as it was required to do by statute. [00:16:15] Speaker 02: And Rosario's proposed settlement class consists solely of people who were sent these notices. [00:16:22] Speaker 04: Mr. Amaya, I guess there isn't any kind of direct evidence of the citizenship side, the state citizenship side, which is [00:16:33] Speaker 04: this combination of domicile and US citizenship. [00:16:38] Speaker 04: Adams was looking for a third of the class, just like here. [00:16:44] Speaker 04: But there, it was 90% had been determined to be residents. [00:16:49] Speaker 04: And there, we found it was enough to be a cushion. [00:16:52] Speaker 04: The cushion's smaller here. [00:16:54] Speaker 04: And I'm wondering how we're supposed to know whether that's enough. [00:16:57] Speaker 02: I think the cushion is actually hot. [00:16:59] Speaker 02: the cushion is smaller in that there's a higher proportion of California residents and, you know, by inference domiciles. [00:17:10] Speaker 04: What Adams was 96 out of like 1800, I thought Adams was like more than 90 percent there. [00:17:17] Speaker 04: And I think, right, if we use the, if we use a different denominator, if we're looking at the complaint here, we're down to two-thirds and you take [00:17:26] Speaker 02: take some off the top uh... the cushion smaller here and is trying to figure out how work how are supposed to know that's enough out of the hunt we have a seven hundred and one addresses that were confirmed to be outside of the state of california sixteen thousand two hundred and fifty one of the notices that were issued were returned as on deliverable in addition there were thirty three thousand one hundred eighty five [00:17:53] Speaker 02: Uh, victims of the data breach, I would characterize them affected individuals, uh, for whom PIH lacked address information. [00:18:02] Speaker 02: I don't see a reason why anyone would assume that those people were primarily out of state citizens. [00:18:11] Speaker 04: By that number, I'm not sure exactly. [00:18:13] Speaker 04: Um, I've been trying to keep up with the math along the ways, but I'm not sure at that point it needs to be primarily. [00:18:21] Speaker 04: I think we're down to, what, closer to half rather than 90%. [00:18:28] Speaker 02: I don't think so. [00:18:29] Speaker 02: 701 non-California addresses, 16,251 return mailings, plus 33,185 for whom they had no addresses, comes to about 40,000 total. [00:18:44] Speaker 02: I think it's an unreasonable assumption to assume that all of those people... 40,000 off of the top of the settlement class. [00:18:51] Speaker 02: No, that would be the larger number. [00:18:54] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:18:54] Speaker 02: That is. [00:18:55] Speaker 02: So if we're talking about the larger number, which is roughly 200,000, the math's a little easier. [00:19:00] Speaker 02: If we look at that one third, we're talking about 66,000 something in that neighborhood. [00:19:08] Speaker 02: It's certainly higher than 40,000, which you have to assume that every single one of these categories I just laid out consists entirely of non-California citizens to get just a 40,000. [00:19:20] Speaker 02: That's still not a third. [00:19:21] Speaker 02: of the 198,000 larger number. [00:19:26] Speaker 02: So we can't, you know, at most that's the use of the smaller number was harmless error by the district court. [00:19:34] Speaker 02: However, I would submit it wasn't even that. [00:19:36] Speaker 02: The court was entitled to look at the composition of the settlement class before it in the settlement agreement that it was being asked to approve. [00:19:46] Speaker 03: Doesn't the nature of the business [00:19:48] Speaker 02: factoring greatly here if this was a mail order catalog where people are buying this from wherever maybe this maybe we regard the address is one way that my understanding these are hospitals and most people hospital near where they live absolutely your honor and there's evidence in the record showing that this is a regional health care provider that by its its own description of its services serves primarily los angeles county it's based in wittier [00:20:14] Speaker 02: I think it was Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties. [00:20:18] Speaker 02: Anyways, it's not even on the border of California. [00:20:22] Speaker 02: So I think absolutely that's a fact that also suggests that we are looking at a truly intrastate matter here, which was the district court's central conclusion. [00:20:37] Speaker 02: And CAFA was not enacted with the intent of pulling truly intrastate matters into federal court. [00:20:44] Speaker 03: Some of the briefs in this case refer to your client as a proposed intervener. [00:20:49] Speaker 03: Did the district court ever grant you intervention into the case? [00:20:54] Speaker 02: I believe not. [00:20:55] Speaker 03: Does that matter? [00:20:56] Speaker 02: No, because the court dismissed the matter, dismissed it, which we were seeking dismissal. [00:21:04] Speaker 03: No, I understand, but it's a somewhat strange posture. [00:21:06] Speaker 03: It's almost as though you came in and you were essentially an advisor or an amicus. [00:21:11] Speaker 03: to the court, if you're not an actual party. [00:21:14] Speaker 02: I think we were parties. [00:21:16] Speaker 02: We did file a complaint and intervention. [00:21:20] Speaker 02: Yeah, we did seek that. [00:21:21] Speaker 02: We did file a complaint and intervention with our papers. [00:21:26] Speaker 02: Also, with the limited time I have, I did want to alert the court to a decision that was issued after we filed our brief in this matter out of the Fourth Circuit called Skyline Tower Painting Inc. [00:21:40] Speaker 02: v. Goldberg. [00:21:41] Speaker 02: The site is 148 F fourth to 209. [00:21:45] Speaker 02: It's from the Fourth Circuit August 1st, 2025. [00:21:49] Speaker 02: It relies heavily on the Adams case issued by this court. [00:21:54] Speaker 02: To conclude, essentially, I'm paraphrasing here that proof of residents such as mailing address information creates a rebuttable presumption of citizenship for purposes of CAFAs of analysis of CAFAs home state exception. [00:22:09] Speaker 02: So I think that's [00:22:12] Speaker 02: You know authority worth reviewing and considering in the course of this this decision And your honors at the end of the day, I think it's clear that the district court made the ruling that's challenged here based on a robust factual record and after a transparent process in which appellant had every opportunity to participate and frequently did participate and [00:22:42] Speaker 02: Her decision not to submit any briefing in response to the district court's order requesting additional briefing on the discretionary home state exception and not to submit anything in response to the district court's ruling dismissing the case on that basis, including during the 21 days. [00:22:59] Speaker 02: The district court stayed that order seems to have been strategic and voluntary. [00:23:05] Speaker 02: Substantively, [00:23:06] Speaker 02: there's no reason to reverse the district court's well-reasoned opinion here. [00:23:11] Speaker 02: What's happening in the state court? [00:23:13] Speaker 03: I mean, I take it your position would be that you actually already represent the same period of class in the state court? [00:23:20] Speaker 02: That's correct, Your Honor. [00:23:21] Speaker 02: And there was a misrepresentation of fact in the reply brief. [00:23:25] Speaker 02: Those actions are proceeding. [00:23:29] Speaker 02: Discovery is underway. [00:23:31] Speaker 02: There was a second data breach by PIH in 2024, which spawned additional cases, which have been related in the same superior court proceedings where we are lead counsel. [00:23:45] Speaker 02: And so those two groups of actions are coordinated and they're proceeding. [00:23:50] Speaker 03: Is there any other federal case pending against PIH relating to these data breaches? [00:23:55] Speaker 02: Not to my knowledge. [00:23:57] Speaker 02: Not to my knowledge. [00:24:01] Speaker 02: I hope not. [00:24:04] Speaker 02: Your honors, unless you have any more questions, I think I am concluded. [00:24:07] Speaker 03: OK. [00:24:07] Speaker 03: Thank you, Mr. Maya. [00:24:08] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:24:16] Speaker 05: Good morning, your honors. [00:24:17] Speaker 05: May it please the court, Brian Leifer on behalf of Defendant PIH Health, a nonprofit charitable hospital network. [00:24:25] Speaker 05: I just wanted to address a few things. [00:24:27] Speaker 05: I'm also counsel in the current state court matter. [00:24:30] Speaker 05: That action was stayed while the federal court action was pending. [00:24:35] Speaker 05: Judge Dylan, the state court, lifted that stay. [00:24:37] Speaker 05: It's proceeding now, but it's in its very early stages. [00:24:40] Speaker 05: No class certification deadline has been set. [00:24:43] Speaker 05: Only one deposition has been taken in that case. [00:24:46] Speaker 05: To address some of the questions by the [00:24:50] Speaker 05: Judges, I'd like to go back to the NCOA issue, the address search that was conducted quite some time ago. [00:24:58] Speaker 05: So, notices were mailed out after the data security incident, early January 2020. [00:25:06] Speaker 05: The NCOA search was done a few weeks before that, likely in December of 2019. [00:25:13] Speaker 05: The complaint, the federal court complaint here was filed September, 2021. [00:25:17] Speaker 05: So, we're looking at almost 2 years and COA search was conducted almost 2 years prior to that federal court action being filed. [00:25:29] Speaker 05: We look back about 4 years prior to a complaint being filed for, you know, who the class members are. [00:25:36] Speaker 05: So that's quite some time in terms of updated mailing addresses. [00:25:42] Speaker 04: Is there any evidence, I mean, there's, I think, the Postal Service as well, there's data out there in terms of how often Americans, Californians move, change states. [00:25:55] Speaker 04: Correct. [00:25:55] Speaker 04: Was any of that before, right? [00:25:57] Speaker 04: Because we're trying to figure, we can, we don't want to do guesswork on either side of this. [00:26:02] Speaker 04: Did anyone substantiate this concern about stale addresses with some percentage of people that should create a presumption that more than half of the class had moved? [00:26:14] Speaker 05: We raised the issue below, and I believe it was cited in the appeal briefing about, or at least in the excerpt, about the huge number of people who have left California. [00:26:25] Speaker 04: Huge, but numbers, citations, I mean, there is data behind this. [00:26:30] Speaker 05: Yeah, I mean, I think we cited [00:26:31] Speaker 05: I think there was arguments below citing some study about a substantial portion of people. [00:26:39] Speaker 05: I don't recall. [00:26:40] Speaker 05: Not half, though. [00:26:41] Speaker 03: I don't think half of California's. [00:26:42] Speaker 03: If we had numbers here that were even in the most favorable denominator, closer to one-third, then some of these points start to get some traction. [00:26:49] Speaker 03: But we're nowhere near those numbers, even giving you the most favorable inferences. [00:26:54] Speaker 03: And then on top of that, the nature of your client's business as a regional health provider, I think, [00:27:00] Speaker 03: significant impediment to some of these arguments. [00:27:03] Speaker 05: Well, your honor, in terms of the loss of individuals in California, I mean, I understand that there's been a new census data. [00:27:09] Speaker 05: I believe that California has lost a number of congressional seats. [00:27:12] Speaker 05: I think that's verifiable data that the court could take judicial notice of. [00:27:17] Speaker 05: With respect to the idea that it is a regional hospital, that is true. [00:27:21] Speaker 05: But it's all, and this kind of gets back to what Judge Graver was saying, her question relating to taking judicial notice of like a particular area. [00:27:29] Speaker 05: PIH Health has facilities all over Southern California, so it's very, very difficult to be able to track, you know, maybe the unhoused, the transient population, to be able to figure out that situation. [00:27:41] Speaker 04: And the fact that it is... Would they be more or less likely to have left California or the country? [00:27:50] Speaker 05: I would say much more likely. [00:27:51] Speaker 05: I mean, I think that's verified just publicly by them. [00:27:55] Speaker 04: Where in the record? [00:27:56] Speaker 04: Where is it before the district court? [00:27:57] Speaker 05: I believe we cited it in the briefing, but it was just simply. [00:28:02] Speaker 05: I think it was a website reference or reference that a lot of people had moved out of California because I think at that time when we're briefing that was, I mean, during COVID, I think a lot of people had started to move out and. [00:28:17] Speaker 05: to, you know, going back to addressing this de novo review issue. [00:28:22] Speaker 05: I mean, if we take a look at the court's ruling, I mean, the court entirely relied on the settlement class member in its decision, and that's just not the law. [00:28:31] Speaker 05: The law is what is the number of class members at the time of the filing complaint, which is about 199, 198,000. [00:28:38] Speaker 03: Was this point made to the district court? [00:28:42] Speaker 05: Yes, multiple times. [00:28:44] Speaker 05: I mean, throughout briefing multiple times. [00:28:46] Speaker 05: So nothing happened for years in this case. [00:28:48] Speaker 05: So we basically filed something and said, Hey, um, you know, your honor, we have, we have a pending motion for final approval of class action. [00:28:56] Speaker 05: So we had settled this case, um, and we were just hoping to get a ruling on preliminary approval so we could settle this case. [00:29:04] Speaker 05: And, um, the court asked for, for the briefing and [00:29:08] Speaker 05: and then just issue this order. [00:29:10] Speaker 05: And that was that. [00:29:13] Speaker 05: So, you know, there's a portion of the statute in the CAF relating to national interest. [00:29:19] Speaker 05: And without even going to these six factors, there has to be something about the interest here of class member relief, of getting credit monitoring, identity monitoring, potential for payment relief. [00:29:31] Speaker 05: And relief for us as a defendant, we're a nonprofit hospital operating on [00:29:36] Speaker 05: very thin margin to not have to deal with years of litigation. [00:29:40] Speaker 05: If this continues in the state court matter, we're still at the early stages. [00:29:43] Speaker 05: It could be years before any class members get relief. [00:29:48] Speaker 05: So I believe I'm a little bit over time. [00:29:51] Speaker 03: Let me see if there's any further questions from my colleagues. [00:29:55] Speaker 03: Okay. [00:29:55] Speaker 03: Well, hearing none, I want to thank you for your presentation. [00:29:58] Speaker 03: We thank both counsel for the presentations and that matter will be submitted. [00:30:02] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:30:03] Speaker 03: Thank you all.