[00:00:00] Speaker 04:
Council is now situated, and the next case for argument is Gray v. Tyson Fresh Meat, stock at 25-3184. Council, please proceed when you're ready.

[00:00:11] Speaker 02:
Good morning, and may it please the Court. My name is Ryan Hudson. I'm here on behalf of the appellant, Brian Gray. With me at Council table is Josh Ruhlman.

[00:00:20] Speaker 02:
We're here today on the 12b-6 dismissal of a negligence claim. against Tyson Foods. Brian Gray was horrifically injured in a workplace accident. He had three distinct injuries.

[00:00:32] Speaker 02:
Two prior District of Kansas courts in Gray 1, in this case it's Gray 2, we're now on Gray 3 on appeal, and a case called Logue have both held that under the 2011 amendments to the Kansas Workers' Compensation Act, The prevailing factor test is a gateway issue, such that the exclusive remedy provision only applies if a workplace injury is the prevailing factor. This is the result of what the Kansas Supreme Court has called massive and significant changes to the workplace workers' compensation regime.

[00:01:05] Speaker 02:
Unfortunately, the district court dismissed this case at the 12B6 stage by concluding that because Bryant Gray possibly could have recovered from Had his arguments been believed, therefore the exclusive remedy provision applied. Which arguments?

[00:01:20] Speaker 04:
Which arguments been believed?

[00:01:22] Speaker 02:
Fact questions or? Any of them. In fact, it's broader than that. Any arguments that he made or he possibly could have made.

[00:01:31] Speaker 02:
There's absolutely no limiting principle to the district court's ruling.

[00:01:35] Speaker 04:
Maybe you can just generally and broadly explain what the difference the 2011 amendments made in this case.

[00:01:44] Speaker 02:
Yes. So the 2011 amendments included two really important phrases. One is the pre-existing condition exclusion, and it is narrowly limited to a situation where the workplace injury solely aggravates a pre-existing condition. In this case, Brian Gray pursued workers' compensation, and the Workers' Compensation Board held, using that exact magic phrase, that he solely aggravated a pre-existing condition. That is a new term that was added in 2011.

[00:02:17] Speaker 02:
And as we point out, several Kansas Court of Appeals decisions have expressly equated recoverable with the pre-existing condition exclusion.

[00:02:30] Speaker 04:
So did compensability and recoverability shrink after the 2011 amendment? And are you in that shrinkage?

[00:02:39] Speaker 02:
So, yes, they did. They shrunk the scope of the Workers' Compensation Act. The idea was that workers were recovering for preexisting conditions. And no surprise, Kansas, along with many states, has a strong lobby that is trying to limit workers' compensation benefits. And so the idea was to shrink the scope of the Workers' Compensation Act. But as a result of shrinking it, again, workers' compensation is a bargain. And if you are excluded from the scope of the Workers' Compensation Act, how is it that you can also be barred by the Workers' Compensation Act?

[00:03:16] Speaker 02:
No Kansas case has ever held that.

[00:03:18] Speaker 00:
It doesn't say that you're barred. What it says is it's got to be recoverable. And compensation is recoverable if you prove that you're entitled to it under the act. And what the court was saying here, as I understood it, is you did not prove it was recoverable, but you did not prove that it was. I mean, it's potentially recoverable is, I guess, what I should say.

[00:03:50] Speaker 00:
But then ultimately you didn't prove it because of this clause about the solely aggravating a preexisting condition. And that's, therefore, it's not ultimately compensable, but it was recoverable had you been able to prove it. And that's how I understood what the court was saying. That is what the court said. And that does seem to be the language that it uses, the exclusive remedy provision uses, is recoverable.

[00:04:21] Speaker 00:
It has to be recoverable. And the court said, well, it was.

[00:04:26] Speaker 00:
You just didn't.

[00:04:28] Speaker 00:
ultimately establish that you could recover it essentially. And I understand the fine distinction, but I think that's consistent with the Kansas Supreme Court case that the district court relied on here. Hopkins seemed to be almost directly on point, and I understand that it's unpublished, but I wonder if you could distinguish it. Sure.

[00:04:49] Speaker 02:
Sure. Yeah, it's not a Kansas Supreme Court case.

[00:04:53] Speaker 00:
Did I say that? I meant Kansas Court of Appeals.

[00:04:54] Speaker 02:
Yeah, it's per curiam, summary of judgment, and unpublished, which is kind of a fatal trilogy for a case that a federal district court is relying on.

[00:05:03] Speaker 00:
Well, I want to know about its persuasive value. Sure. It seems to be on point, and that's what the district court said is she used it for its persuasive value.

[00:05:11] Speaker 02:
It is. And I think the biggest answer to Hopkins and even the district court's logic is, The Kansas cases, if you start reading them, they do use this phrase that workers' compensation is not available if the plaintiff could have recovered. And we drill into this. In the district court's decision, they cite this court's decision in price, and in price it was about what type of employer. You have various types of employers or independent contractors or third parties. That's what this language is talking about.

[00:05:43] Speaker 02:
There's no response to this from Tyson Foods in their response brief. And as we explain, not just in Price, but also in Robinette, if you trace these Kansas cases back to 2000 and Robinette, and as well as even in Hopkins, it cites the Fugit versus United Beechcraft, a 1970s case. Once you start reading these, they all make it clear. What they're saying is the question on recoverable is had you sued all of the possible employers, could you have recovered?

[00:06:13] Speaker 02:
Recovery is a subset of compensability. If something is not compensable, it could never be recoverable. But the inverse is not necessarily true. And regardless of whether you like that argument or not, we cite 12 different states, all of which have said that the exclusive remedy provision does not apply to a claim that is not compensable. Again, no answer from Tyson Foods in the response brief. This court in Riddell also held the same thing and said that it's a fact question whether um that's going to apply whether the exclusive remedy provision applies we're only at the 12b6 stage and under this court's recent decision in brown versus city of tulsa at the motion to dismiss stage a plaintiff resisting an affirmative defense has no burden whatsoever the only way that we can lose at the 12b6 stage is if we literally plead ourselves out of court the only way i've ever seen that happen is on a statute of limitations defense where the plaintiff lists that the injury occurred outside the statute of limitations.

[00:07:15] Speaker 02:
This court in Riddell is very clear in saying it's never been decided, even at summary judgment, that the exclusive remedy provision has always been sent to the trier of fact. So this court would be breaking with its own precedent. It would also be ignoring both of the other two District of Kansas decisions that looked at this exact same situation. both of which rejected the argument made by Tyson Foods here.

[00:07:38] Speaker 00:
More importantly, the district court in this— But those were pre-amendment, weren't they?

[00:07:42] Speaker 02:
No, they were not.

[00:07:43] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry, I misunderstood. Okay.

[00:07:45] Speaker 02:
No, they were not. Okay. Logue is a recent case, and Gray 1 is this case.

[00:07:49] Speaker 00:
Right.

[00:07:50] Speaker 02:
And there's no acknowledgment in Gray 2 about either of these orders. In fact, in the district court's decision— They only address the Hopkins case, which ad nauseum, I feel, we've explained in the briefing, has no bearing here. It's a summary judgment case. It's unpublished.

[00:08:06] Speaker 04:
What precisely is incompensable? What is it that you say the workers' compensation bar does not cover, and therefore we should be allowed to sue on it outside of the workers' compensation bar?

[00:08:22] Speaker 02:
The third injury, which is the chronic kidney disease, the CPD.

[00:08:27] Speaker 04:
The whole thing or a portion of it?

[00:08:29] Speaker 02:
The whole thing of that injury. So the district court's order and the Workers' Compensation Board, they make it very clear there are three distinct injuries. There were chemical burns, an acute kidney injury, and chronic kidney disease. The Workers' Compensation Board said injuries one and two are compensable. Injury three is not compensable because it's solely aggravated a preexisting condition.

[00:08:51] Speaker 04:
aggravated and exacerbated, is that a separate piece that falls outside of workers' compensation, whatever the damage was to you, because it was aggravated, because it was accelerated? Absolutely. Is that what you're picking up and taking outside of the workers' compensation exclusive remedy? That's exactly right. That small piece?

[00:09:11] Speaker 02:
That's exactly right, yes. And importantly, that language about the pre-existing conclusion sorry, the pre-existing exclusion is found in 508 F2. That's the definition section of the Workers' Compensation Act. It's definitional. It determines the scope of the act. So our argument is not only supported by the plain language, but we cite several cases. In fact, the Kansas Court of Appeals, not only in Endres, which our briefing is based around, but we block quote the decision in Buchanan versus JM staffing.

[00:09:48] Speaker 02:
It twice says that an injury is not recoverable if it's subject to the preexisting condition exclusion.

[00:09:55] Speaker 02:
So this is not just one case that we're citing or two cases that we're citing. We also point to Nam Lee v. Armour Meats, which looks at six Kansas workers' compensation decisions involving the preexisting condition. And when they don't use the word solely in their opinion, then the preexisting exclusion doesn't apply.

[00:10:17] Speaker 00:
It's not recoverable. It feels like we're talking about semantics here, I guess, in light of the 2011 amendments. I mean, it's not recoverable if it's subject to the preexisting injury conclusion, but you have an opportunity to prove that it is not subject to the preexisting injury exclusion, as you did here at the administrative level. And so ultimately, yes, that's true. It's not recoverable once it's been determined that it is subject to that exclusion.

[00:10:54] Speaker 00:
See what I'm saying? I mean, it feels like we're talking about semantics in terms of what... Well, perhaps it is.

[00:10:59] Speaker 02:
The word recoverable. And the district court, without any prior support, is the one that created this semantic distinction. We're the ones that say, that recoverable and compensable essentially mean the same thing. We are arguing that compensability or compensable, I guess I would compare it to sort of the pre-Iqbal standard. Under any set of facts, could this be recoverable, right? The Conley versus Gibson standard. And then it narrowed with Iqbal down to plausibility.

[00:11:30] Speaker 02:
So if you think about it that way, compensable means is it possible for this category of injury to be recoverable upon. And then recoverability says, okay, within this specific case, based on these specific facts, did you sue all of the potential defendants that you could such that you could have recovered?

[00:11:50] Speaker 00:
And it sounds like that is what you're saying, that that is the pre-2011 view of recoverable. But it seems that that's changed.

[00:12:01] Speaker 02:
I would say that's still the view of recoverable, given that Buchanan v. JM staffing and Endrez, those are all post-2011 decisions.

[00:12:11] Speaker 02:
Our argument is that the district court manufactured this distinction and decided, again, as we said, with no limiting principle whatsoever. Under the district court's logic, anyone who loses on anything or possibly could have prevailed in workers' compensation on any argument, it wipes out all exclusions, It wipes out all exceptions, and a district court with no administrative experience on the pleadings at the 12B6 stage is now making determinations about what a worker could have recovered upon, simply unworkable, in addition to not being supported by Kansas law.

[00:12:46] Speaker 02:
I would reserve the rest of my time for rebuttal.

[00:13:00] Speaker 01:
Good morning, may it please the court. My name is John Wilcox, and I represent Tyson Fresh Meats in this matter.

[00:13:07] Speaker 01:
As indicated, this is an appeal from the district court's grant of a 12B6 motion to dismiss based upon the exclusive remedy provision set forth in the Kansas Workers' Compensation Act.

[00:13:20] Speaker 01:
The exclusive remedy provision is set forth in KSA 44-501B and provides that an employer or shall be liable for any injury for which compensation is recoverable under the Workers' Compensation Act.

[00:13:37] Speaker 04:
And on that point, do you agree that the 2011 amendment shrank the coverage?

[00:13:44] Speaker 01:
I think the case law is clear that it, in fact, did shrink the coverage.

[00:13:47] Speaker 04:
And so whatever got shrunk out of the coverage should be recoverable outside the workers' compensation?

[00:13:55] Speaker 01:
Well, I think what the case law indicates is that, yes, they make the 2011 amendments made it more difficult for workers to recover, particularly for pre-existing conditions. In workers' comp? In workers' comp. But the court also indicated that, or the courts, rather, indicated that it is not impossible. It is still possible for workers to recover if they meet their burden of proof.

[00:14:26] Speaker 04:
But if they don't, if they don't make that burden of proof under the workers' compensation standard, I don't understand why that means that they can't now sue or try to sue outside the workers' compensation system. In other words, it's shrink. Your coverage has shrank.

[00:14:46] Speaker 04:
And in the shrinking, whatever got left aside should be able to be subject to a lawsuit, and that's my problem, and so help me with that problem.

[00:15:00] Speaker 01:
And I think the point you're making is in what plaintiffs' counsel, or what Mr. Gray's counsel has attempted to make in his briefing and on this appeal, is they're arguing that the exclusivity provision should state or means that it should say for which compensation is recovered rather than what it actually says, recoverable.

[00:15:26] Speaker 04:
No, I'm not saying that, because I think that you could, a claimant could come in and do a terrible job of establishing the workers' compensation remedy. And it, in fact, was recoverable, but for crying out loud, you have to bring some testimony or some expertise to the subject. You blew it. But I'm talking about a different subject, a different category where the claimant is extremely proficient and comes in and lays everything out, and the court says it's not a primary factor, and therefore your aggravation and exacerbation is not covered by workers' compensation, not because you failed in your efforts to prove it by negligence or something, but instead...

[00:16:17] Speaker 04:
It doesn't fit within the workers' compensation picture. And so anything that doesn't fit in the picture, I don't know how you can shrink workers' comp and not allow the remedy.

[00:16:30] Speaker 01:
So the Workers' Compensation Act remains very broad. It's designed to bring in workers into the system. And I guess an analogy I have is worker, there are two options in which you get to play. It's workers' comp. or it's a civil lawsuit.

[00:16:50] Speaker 01:
And the act funnels workplace injuries into workers' comp. And the case law and the statutory language is clear that once you're in workers' comp, the rules and whatnot apply in workers' comp. The current Kansas Act continues to state that the plaintiff shall have the burden of proof or that injured workers shall have the burden of proof in the workers' comp arena, and that the administrative law judge shall make or determine the factual issues concerning the prevailing factor issue.

[00:17:31] Speaker 01:
So you get your bite at the apple in work comp. You are given the opportunity to recover in work comp. And if you're unable to do that for whatever reason, if you're unable to meet your burden of proof, That doesn't mean you get to turn around and get a second bite at it. I think in that situation you would have, in every case, you would have a workers' compensation filing and a worker who either didn't recover or didn't recover to the extent sought would then turn around and file a workers' compensation, or excuse me, a tort action in the civil courts.

[00:18:11] Speaker 01:
And that's just not how the system is designed to work.

[00:18:14] Speaker 03:
But the statute, Judge Moritz hit on this, the statute doesn't include the word potential. It feels like you're adding language that says for which compensation is potentially recoverable. That's not what the statute says. The statute says for which compensation is recoverable.

[00:18:31] Speaker 01:
The statute says, right, for which compensation is recoverable. And that leads me back to What I was attempting to point out earlier was that... And here it was determined that compensation was not recoverable.

[00:18:47] Speaker 03:
Well, that is true. Okay, so why doesn't that fit within the statutory parameters?

[00:18:51] Speaker 01:
Well, because what we've got here is, and let me circle back around again to a point made earlier today, is that plaintiff claims that there were three injuries, and there clearly were not. There was a skin injury from the burns. And then there was the kidney injury. And he recovered for the acute injury and then attempted to climb for his ongoing care and treatment. And that was determined. I mean, he was given the ability to make that case in work comp that the prevailing factor or the injury was, excuse me, the workplace accident was a prevailing factor in causing that ongoing kidney care.

[00:19:33] Speaker 01:
He was unable to make that case in work comp. So he shouldn't be able to come around and then file a separate lawsuit.

[00:19:42] Speaker 04:
Are you saying that the ongoing care does not relate to the aggravation and exacerbation to the kidney problem?

[00:19:51] Speaker 01:
No, the finding by the ALJ and the Workers' Comp Board was that the injury was not the prevailing factor necessitating the ongoing care and treatment.

[00:20:12] Speaker 01:
Does that answer your question?

[00:20:13] Speaker 04:
I think that means yes, but I'm not sure. Are you saying that you, the claimant, you've got this problem before the accident, you have the problem after the accident, at some point you would have had this care anyway? You're not saying that, are you?

[00:20:31] Speaker 01:
I'm sorry.

[00:20:31] Speaker 04:
Can you repeat that? Well, I didn't say it very well. Let me try again. Are you saying that because you have this chronic condition and your age, whatever you are, at some point you're going to have to deal with this? And whether you had been injured or not in an accident, you still would have had to pay for it. So what's the diff?

[00:20:57] Speaker 04:
We have not made that claim. Okay. I didn't think so.

[00:21:00] Speaker 04:
But it seems like maybe not all roads lead to Rome, but that one might.

[00:21:07] Speaker 01:
I'm not sure if that's a question or a comment.

[00:21:10] Speaker 03:
More comment. The purpose, though, to follow up with what Judge Phillips is saying, the purpose of the act, the Enders case, the purpose of the act is to preclude double recovery. True. Okay. Okay.

[00:21:24] Speaker 03:
The claimant here is not going to be obtaining double recovery because you've already determined that the injury that he's seeking redress for wasn't part of the injury that was provided for by work comp.

[00:21:43] Speaker 01:
Let me address that.

[00:21:46] Speaker 01:
There has never been a finding that there were three injuries. There was a skin, the burn injury. and then there's the kidney injury. I thought you just told me there were different injuries. No, no, no, no. Let me... The ongoing care is not a separate injury. It's a consequence of his acute injury, which was found by the district court and is consistent with language contained in Hopkins and Perez, which is a published Kansas Court of Appeals case from 2021.

[00:22:19] Speaker 01:
And if you look at The definition of an injury, which is at 44-508, it defines an injury as a lesion or change in the physical structure of the body causing damage or harm there too. I think that plain language makes it clear that a burn to your skin, that's of course an injury. An acute kidney injury is an injury, but an aggravation of a pre-existing condition is It's not a separate thing.

[00:22:55] Speaker 01:
It's a consequence of the kidney injury.

[00:22:59] Speaker 01:
So he was compensated. He did recover for his kidney injury, just not to the extent that he desired.

[00:23:09] Speaker 01:
And Judge Garcia, you pointed out the Andres case. And a couple things on that. I think that the Andres case, the language supports our position that in that it does discuss that to recover an accident has to be the prevailing factor causing the injuries. The workers' compensation system is set up to avoid double recovery situations. And in that case, we had a widow who filed suit after her husband died of a heart attack after work on a golf course.

[00:23:51] Speaker 01:
And her allegation was that the decedent went in and saw the work nurse and was misdiagnosed. In that case, there was no workers' compensation claim filed, and the employer then sought or filed a motion to dismiss based on the exclusivity provision, which was granted, and the Court of Appeals reversed, indicating that

[00:24:19] Speaker 03:
We've got a hard amendment case, number one, which is... But the motion was predicated on the very idea that you're raising here, which is the injury was potentially compensable.

[00:24:32] Speaker 01:
But it was not potentially compensable in that case because there was the hard amendment, which was a separate... The Workers' Comp Act specifically excludes...

[00:24:49] Speaker 01:
recovery for heart issues in most circumstances.

[00:24:52] Speaker 03:
So do you think the statute incorporates the word potentially in there?

[00:24:57] Speaker 01:
I think the word recoverable does, yes.

[00:25:02] Speaker 01:
Again, for plaintiff's view of the War Comp Act to be accurate, it needs to say recovered. It says recoverable, which suggests that If you have the potential to recover in War Comp, once you're in the system, which everybody agrees he should have been in the system, the War Comp system, once you're there, you have the opportunity to recover, which he did. He presented evidence. He sure as heck tried to recover and just failed to meet his burden.

[00:25:36] Speaker 03:
How do I square that position? And then I'll stop talking. My colleagues are probably sick of hearing me. But how do I square that with what to me is the takeaway holding from Enders? And I'll quote it to you. If there can be no recovery under the act, then the exclusive remedy provision of the law does not apply and the motion to dismiss should not have been granted.

[00:25:54] Speaker 01:
Because there is the opportunity to recover. It's the opportunity. It's not the fact that you do recover.

[00:26:05] Speaker 01:
There's been much ink spilled on the applicability of Hopkins and it's an unpublished decision and whatnot. But I would also, you know, I would I would point this court to the language set forth in the Perez case, which I believe I mentioned a moment ago, which, again, is a 2021 published Court of Appeals case. It's cited by the plaintiff in his brief and his reply brief. And in that case, we had, again, a worker trying to recover, well, for a work-on knee injury, which he recovered in initial surgery and then tried to recover laterally.

[00:26:45] Speaker 01:
additional benefits for a knee replacement.

[00:26:51] Speaker 01:
And the court in that case, without citing Hopkins, uses the exact same language.

[00:26:57] Speaker 01:
The exact same language. And Judge Malone was on both cases.

[00:27:02] Speaker 01:
And in Perez, the...

[00:27:09] Speaker 01:
Court indicated that despite the 2011 amendments to the act, compensation was recoverable under the act for Perez's knee replacement and disability. Perez could still recover under the act for his ongoing medical care, provided he could show that his work accident rather than the preexisting condition was a prevailing factor, causing his need for total knee replacement.

[00:27:33] Speaker 01:
Then Perez did not sustain two independent injuries resulting from his tripping accident. He sustained one injury with multiple consequences. And again, I don't have time to go through all of it, but the language is exactly the same as Hopkins. And based on that, we would ask that this court affirm the district court.

[00:27:52] Speaker 04:
Any other questions?

[00:27:54] Speaker 01:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:27:55] Speaker 02:
Please proceed. Thank you. I think Judge Garcia hit the nail on the head and walked through exactly how Tyson Foods is amending the statute. There's simply no limiting principle. Even in the Endrez decision, had Endrez possibly argued that the Hart Amendment didn't apply, then Endrez possibly could have recovered.

[00:28:26] Speaker 02:
There's absolutely no limitation to this runaway logic by the district court.

[00:28:32] Speaker 00:
In addition to that, as we... Well, your logic, as I'm seeing it, is really that... we should read this to say for which compensation is recovered. And what that would mean was that you could do what you did, which is go all the way through, put the employer through it too, the work comp proceeding, and you could have your experts, which you did here, and you could argue about the prevailing factor as long as you wanted, and then you could get a negative finding, but the ALJ could rule against you, which is what happened here.

[00:29:05] Speaker 00:
And then, hey.

[00:29:07] Speaker 00:
It's a big so what? You can have your cake and eat it too because you can go out and start all over again against this employer.

[00:29:14] Speaker 00:
The same facts. Essentially the same issue.

[00:29:17] Speaker 00:
And that's what I think you're saying. And that's not the point of Section D. Unless I'm missing something.

[00:29:25] Speaker 02:
That's not what I'm saying. It's only if the Kansas workers compensation includes the word solely. So it has to say that... I'm sorry, if the word solely... Solely aggravated. That's the exclusion. It's a limited exclusion. As we point out, there are multiple cases where the exclusion has not been met, including the Perez case the council was citing. You didn't hear the word solely because solely wasn't met in that case. It's an exclusion to...

[00:29:51] Speaker 02:
the exclusive remedy provision. It excludes it from outside the Act. That's the distinction.

[00:29:58] Speaker 02:
In addition to that, the argument that there's not three injuries, you didn't hear a cite because there isn't one. The Workers' Compensation Board, the District Court, and most importantly, our complaint that the 12B6 stage all say that.

[00:30:09] Speaker 02:
Essentially, as I've said, under their interpretation and the District Court's interpretation, anybody who could have possibly won is barred, meaning there's no longer any exceptions or any exclusions to the workers' compensation, which can't be correct.

[00:30:23] Speaker 00:
So what you're saying, if I'm understanding correctly, is yes, that's true. You would be precluded from coming back at this employer under the framework of the Workers' Compensation Act, which now prohibits only those solely aggravating.

[00:30:38] Speaker 00:
But you can come back against this employer and say... Well, it wasn't solely, but so, I mean, you achieve the same purpose. There's this exclusion in the Workers' Compensation Act, and you would just completely bypass it, wouldn't you? Then if you could come back against the employer for this particular injury.

[00:30:55] Speaker 02:
I guess I don't understand. We're not bypassing anything. We were excluded. We tried to win in workers' compensation. We appealed to the Kansas Workers' Compensation Board. They said you are excluded. So once we're excluded, I don't understand the idea that we're pulling a fast one.

[00:31:12] Speaker 00:
Well, you fully tried it is what I'm saying. It was a factual issue. And that's the problem here. It was. You had an opportunity to meet your burden of proof for, you know, to prove that you weren't excluded. And then you didn't. And now you want to go outside the act despite its exclusive remedy provisions. We don't. Sorry.

[00:31:36] Speaker 00:
you could open the floodgates there.

[00:31:37] Speaker 02:
Well, that's the argument the district court makes, but this amendment was passed in 2011. We have a 15-year track period. Another argument they don't answer? There's no trickle or flood of cases. Where are these cases that allegedly are going to happen? Because the plain language has been applied since 2011. It's been 15 years. Where are these flood of cases? This court hasn't seen them. The district court hasn't seen them. There's been a handful proving that this limitation works.

[00:32:05] Speaker 02:
They're the ones that want to change the structure and gut the 2011 amendments.

[00:32:12] Speaker 02:
If there's nothing further, we would respectfully ask this Court to reverse.

[00:32:15] Speaker 04:
Thank you very much. Thank you, counsel, for your arguments. The case is submitted. Counselor, excuse.