[00:00:01] Speaker 04:
Mr. Webb, whenever you're ready.

[00:00:12] Speaker 00:
Thank you and good morning.

[00:00:14] Speaker 00:
May I please the court?

[00:00:16] Speaker 00:
I would like to begin by addressing the significance of the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock versus Clayton County.

[00:00:25] Speaker 00:
The Supreme Court's decision in Bostock made it clear that the plain meaning of the words in the statute is the law.

[00:00:31] Speaker 00:
and that if the plain meaning of the words is unambiguous, the court must apply the plain meanings of the word.

[00:00:40] Speaker 00:
Rstock made it clear that broad, inclusive words are not ambiguous.

[00:00:45] Speaker 00:
They simply demonstrate the breadth of a legislative command.

[00:00:50] Speaker 00:
The court made it clear that if the words of a statute are unambiguous, the courts must not consider legislative history or other extra textural considerations.

[00:01:01] Speaker 00:
And the court warned that proposed interpretations of a statute based on extra textual considerations are sometimes suggested in an effort to deny the benefits of a statute to a disfavored group.

[00:01:17] Speaker 00:
The special master and the court of federal claims judge violated the rules of law set out in Bostock when they chose to disregard

[00:01:27] Speaker 04:
Let me just interrupt for a moment.

[00:01:28] Speaker 04:
For anyone who might ultimately hear this oral argument, just to be clear, you submitted a 28-J letter, and we're talking about the very recent Supreme Court opinion written by Justice Gorsuch.

[00:01:40] Speaker 00:
That's correct.

[00:01:41] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:01:42] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:01:44] Speaker 00:
Proceed.

[00:01:46] Speaker 00:
Thank you very much for that.

[00:01:47] Speaker 00:
I probably should have been explicit in that regard.

[00:01:50] Speaker 00:
So, Vostok.

[00:01:52] Speaker 02:
Mr. Wabbitt, as Judge Clever said, I think the panel

[00:01:56] Speaker 02:
understands and appreciates your argument based on the recent Supreme Court opinion.

[00:02:02] Speaker 02:
So the question would seem to me to turn on whether the word return can ever be ambiguous.

[00:02:10] Speaker 02:
I think your assertion is it never can.

[00:02:12] Speaker 02:
Let me ask you this question.

[00:02:14] Speaker 02:
Let's assume, for example, a French citizen flies from Mexico to Paris in a jet airplane, flies over the Grand Canyon

[00:02:24] Speaker 02:
in Arizona, low enough so the person can really appreciate the grandeur and the beauty of the canyon, admires the canyon, and the person says, I want to return to the United States to see the Grand Canyon in person.

[00:02:40] Speaker 02:
The person says, I want to return to the United States to see the Grand Canyon in person.

[00:02:45] Speaker 02:
Is that a correct use of the word return?

[00:02:50] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry, most of your question was garbled.

[00:02:52] Speaker 00:
Could you please ask it again?

[00:02:54] Speaker 02:
Yes.

[00:02:55] Speaker 02:
A French citizen flies from Mexico to Paris over the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

[00:03:03] Speaker 02:
The plane flies low enough that the person can see quite clearly what the canyon looks like.

[00:03:09] Speaker 02:
The person says, I want to return to the United States to see the Grand Canyon in person.

[00:03:17] Speaker 02:
Is that a frivolous use of the word return?

[00:03:21] Speaker 00:
I don't think flying over the United States would be a sufficient presence to justify a subsequent entry into the United States to the return.

[00:03:36] Speaker 02:
I believe that you need to have... My point is that I think you need to have a context in order to decide what was meant by return in that sentence I gave you.

[00:03:54] Speaker 00:
Well, I think that the... Did he mean return by air?

[00:03:59] Speaker 02:
Did he mean return in person?

[00:04:02] Speaker 02:
What I'm trying to get at is whether or not I'm trying to indicate to you that I don't agree with you that the word return is never ambiguous.

[00:04:12] Speaker 02:
I'm saying to you, I think you need the context in which you can appreciate what the word means.

[00:04:21] Speaker 00:
I think that there... I think the...

[00:04:24] Speaker 00:
The factual context of the person's prior presence in the United States and subsequent return is relevant.

[00:04:39] Speaker 00:
It's necessary to understand whether or not there was a return, but I don't think that makes the word ambiguous.

[00:04:47] Speaker 00:
You just apply the unambiguous meaning of the word returned to the

[00:04:53] Speaker 00:
to the contact, and that answers the question of whether there was a return or not.

[00:04:59] Speaker 02:
Wouldn't you agree to me that a return ordinarily just means to go back?

[00:05:04] Speaker 02:
But in my hypothetical, it raised the possibility of going back in person or going back by airplane.

[00:05:11] Speaker 02:
And so my point is, don't you need further information to decide what the word meant?

[00:05:16] Speaker 02:
Assume the word was in a statute as opposed to in a sentence.

[00:05:22] Speaker 02:
I think you've admitted that you do need further context to understand whether in my hypothetical the person would wanted to return in person or to return by airplane.

[00:05:35] Speaker 00:
But I don't think that makes the word returned ambiguous.

[00:05:38] Speaker 00:
I think it means that you need to know what the person, whether in terms of, I guess what you're saying, this is the person who flew over the Grand Canyon

[00:05:52] Speaker 00:
Did he go to the United States and did he go back when he returned to the Grand Canyon?

[00:06:00] Speaker 00:
I suppose in that sense you need to the word, if you will, the plain meaning of ambiguous means to go to and to go back, I mean to go back to some place you've been before, I think go to or go back

[00:06:21] Speaker 00:
and be ambiguous in the context of whether you go to the United States or go back to the United States when you fly over in an airplane.

[00:06:32] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:06:32] Speaker 02:
I wanted to also ask you, in the McGowan case, the court of error would then tell that the very statuette that you wrote here, Roman 3, applies only to those who previously had lived in the United States and returned.

[00:06:52] Speaker 02:
So if in order for you to earn, you have to have previously lived in the United States.

[00:07:00] Speaker 02:
I don't believe your client previously lived in the United States.

[00:07:05] Speaker 00:
Well, I would say first, that is what the McGowan case said, but it's not what the plain language of the statute says.

[00:07:17] Speaker 00:
If you talk about the value of context, and that

[00:07:21] Speaker 00:
The point is that Congress said what was required to satisfy Faction 11C1.

[00:07:33] Speaker 00:
My point being is they required only two things.

[00:07:38] Speaker 00:
They required that the vaccine be made by the vaccine manufacturer located in the United States and the person returned to the United States within six months.

[00:07:48] Speaker 00:
I don't, there is nothing,

[00:07:51] Speaker 00:
Go ahead.

[00:07:52] Speaker 02:
Yeah.

[00:07:53] Speaker 02:
Well, the court of interclaims and the special master both put, from your perspective, a spin on the word return by saying, how permanent did the return have to be?

[00:08:05] Speaker 02:
All I'm asking is whether or not there isn't a question on having, not on the return mission, but on leaving.

[00:08:14] Speaker 02:
You have to have been someplace in order to leave returns.

[00:08:20] Speaker 02:
And McGowan says you have to have previously lived in the United States to leave and return.

[00:08:29] Speaker 02:
And I'm asking, why isn't that correct?

[00:08:34] Speaker 00:
Well, that's not correct because the plain meaning of the word returned, the plain meaning of the word go back to, there's no reason to

[00:08:47] Speaker 00:
suggests, even if the word returned were ambiguous, that it means that require previously living in the place that you return to.

[00:08:59] Speaker 00:
That's a complete, that's an addition, it's a material, important, substantial addition to the requirement that is in the plain meaning of the word.

[00:09:09] Speaker 00:
So, go back to your trip to the Grand Canyon.

[00:09:16] Speaker 00:
if the person from Mexico landed at the Grand Canyon and walked around down into the canyon and back out in a day or half a day and then we then went back, returned to Mexico and then six months came back to the Grand Canyon and again spent a lunch there or a dinner there

[00:09:47] Speaker 00:
it would satisfy the plain meaning of the word returned because he would have been in the united states one point and in the subsequent trip he had returned to that there's there is nothing even if there were some ambiguity in the term revert returned there's nothing in the understanding of the word returned there's nothing in the and the understanding of the vaccine act that requires living in the place you return to

[00:10:18] Speaker 04:
Well, except, let me, the hypothetical doesn't really frame the issue in this case because it's not a matter of whether I was traveling over the Grand Canyon and returned.

[00:10:31] Speaker 04:
Both Judge Stoll and I have had the blessing of being pregnant a number of times.

[00:10:35] Speaker 04:
The question in this case is whether or not if a person being somewhere in the United States is three or four or five months pregnant.

[00:10:45] Speaker 04:
whether it's a return for the fetus who was in utero then, whether that now baby returns to the United States, and whether that's the return for him, right?

[00:10:58] Speaker 04:
That's this case.

[00:11:00] Speaker 00:
That is this case on the question of whether Aidan Caron's presence in the United States as a child in utero was legally sufficient to make his

[00:11:13] Speaker 00:
subsequent entry into the United States a return.

[00:11:17] Speaker 00:
And on that point, it really shouldn't matter whether we call the child in utero a child in utero or a fetus or accumulation of cells.

[00:11:30] Speaker 00:
There was a presence, a physical presence in the United States by the child in utero, whatever words you used to identify it,

[00:11:42] Speaker 00:
And that occurred, and it has been legally recognized that the existence of a child in utero is a sufficient presence to be meaningly, legally significant.

[00:11:59] Speaker 00:
And that is both the prior vaccine act cases that we cited, that sound.

[00:12:11] Speaker 00:
Now, the cases we cited, the cases we cited... Mr. Webb, let Judge Povendor finish, please.

[00:12:18] Speaker 02:
Yes.

[00:12:19] Speaker 02:
Okay, I'm sorry.

[00:12:20] Speaker 02:
As you quite candidly admit and state in your brief, this is a matter of first impression because the three cases that led to the statutory revision dealt with the situation of whether or not

[00:12:32] Speaker 02:
a woman who was given a vaccine, who apparently the child then suffered from the infection of the vaccine, whether the child could have been considered to have received the vaccine.

[00:12:42] Speaker 02:
And it's clear the answer to that question we now know.

[00:12:45] Speaker 02:
We knew from the three cases, Moody's opinion, as well as the statute.

[00:12:50] Speaker 02:
So the question was not that, in those cases, informed of whether or not your client was present in the United States.

[00:13:02] Speaker 02:
satisfying the return statement.

[00:13:05] Speaker 02:
It's a different situation, as you quite honestly admit.

[00:13:11] Speaker 00:
The very last part was garbled.

[00:13:13] Speaker 02:
I'm sorry.

[00:13:14] Speaker 02:
Yeah.

[00:13:14] Speaker 02:
You've said that it was a question of first impression, and that you're arguing that by analogy, we should treat the three cases that led to the statutory revision as informing what the decision should be here on the question of first impression.

[00:13:30] Speaker 02:
I understand your argument.

[00:13:34] Speaker 00:
Yes, it is a question of first impression.

[00:13:38] Speaker 00:
The question of whether the presence of a child in utero in the United States is sufficient to make a subsequent entry into the United States a return.

[00:13:54] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:13:55] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:13:55] Speaker 04:
Will we reserve your rebuttal time while I'm here from the other side?

[00:13:59] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:14:07] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:14:08] Speaker 01:
This is Robert Coleman.

[00:14:09] Speaker 01:
I represent the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

[00:14:12] Speaker 01:
Good morning.

[00:14:14] Speaker 01:
Good morning.

[00:14:15] Speaker 01:
Case law dictates that the initial step in interpreting statutory language is to consider the context in which the word is used.

[00:14:24] Speaker 01:
Though the court is not to pluck a word, hear the word returned out of its context and apply a dictionary definition to that term in the abstract, but rather to consider the term

[00:14:37] Speaker 01:
in the context in which it is used here.

[00:14:41] Speaker 01:
The context in which it is used 11C1BI includes subsection two immediately before the subsection that's at issue today.

[00:14:51] Speaker 01:
And that subsection is very, it also expressly applies to extraterritorial applications, administrations of vaccines, but it also is very expressed

[00:15:05] Speaker 01:
in its curtailment of that extraterritorial application.

[00:15:12] Speaker 01:
So it's very narrow in the sense that it requires the individual to be both a citizen and, in addition, to be a federal employee or member of the armed services.

[00:15:21] Speaker 01:
And the reason I bring that up is because that narrow language, it would be inconsistent to read the following section, subsection three, in its broadest sense in the way that petitioners are indicating

[00:15:35] Speaker 01:
if the immediately proceeding section is so narrow.

[00:15:39] Speaker 01:
That's one way in which the context dictates that some of this requirement here is necessary.

[00:15:45] Speaker 01:
But an additional point weighing in favor of respondent's position is that petitioner's interpretation would produce absurd results.

[00:15:55] Speaker 01:
And absurd results are to be avoided in interpreting a statute.

[00:15:59] Speaker 01:
One such third result was identified by the Court of Federal Claims on appendix page 22.

[00:16:06] Speaker 01:
And that was dealing with a French citizen who was vaccinated, who visited the United States but returned to France and was vaccinated there.

[00:16:16] Speaker 01:
And then a week later returned to the United States solely to transfer planes on the way to Mexico.

[00:16:24] Speaker 01:
But under petitioner's view of this case,

[00:16:28] Speaker 01:
that individual would be qualified to pursue a claim under the Vaccine Act.

[00:16:33] Speaker 01:
But that's an absurd result.

[00:16:37] Speaker 04:
Can I just switch gears a little?

[00:16:39] Speaker 04:
And I guess I'm looking right now at the statutory provision you cited, page 12 of RADS.

[00:16:46] Speaker 04:
And that's on the question of children in utero, whether children in utero are persons is a matter of law.

[00:16:55] Speaker 04:
And we all know you cite you talk on that page.

[00:16:58] Speaker 04:
about the recent statutory change that Congress made under the Vaccine Act on that regard, right?

[00:17:07] Speaker 04:
You know what I'm talking about now?

[00:17:08] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:17:09] Speaker 04:
So what's your argument about that?

[00:17:11] Speaker 04:
I mean, this provision that petitioners rely on talk about maternal immunization.

[00:17:18] Speaker 04:
I know it's a different thing, but how do you differentiate what Congress recently included in the statute from what we need to do in our case?

[00:17:30] Speaker 01:
For that question, the way I differentiate there is that the expressed terms of the 21st Century Cures Act do not provide for any provision regarding in utero presence.

[00:17:41] Speaker 01:
And that has particular importance in this case because the implications of the petitioner's argument is that the Vaccine Act will apply extraterritorially in this specific instance when there is no expressed language to authorize that.

[00:17:58] Speaker 01:
Otherwise, if there is no express language, then there's the presumption against extraterritorial application of congressional action, and therefore, that cuts against petitioners' arguments.

[00:18:11] Speaker 03:
Counsel, so you're relying specifically on Section 8 of Title I, that definition?

[00:18:21] Speaker 01:
For the word?

[00:18:23] Speaker 01:
For what?

[00:18:24] Speaker 01:
Sorry, Your Honor.

[00:18:25] Speaker 03:
of the word person or the definition of the word child?

[00:18:29] Speaker 01:
Yes, I believe that those definitions are still in effect.

[00:18:35] Speaker 03:
And can I just say, Mr. Webb, are you still... I think I hear you, Mr. Webb, but can you mute your line if you haven't already?

[00:18:44] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry?

[00:18:45] Speaker 03:
Could you mute your line?

[00:18:46] Speaker 03:
I'm hearing noise coming from your line.

[00:18:49] Speaker 03:
Would you mind muting it while Mr. Coleman's speaking?

[00:18:52] Speaker 00:
Oh, I'm sorry.

[00:18:54] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:18:56] Speaker 02:
Mr. Coleman.

[00:18:59] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:19:00] Speaker 00:
Mr. Coleman.

[00:19:01] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:19:02] Speaker 02:
Yes, I appreciate it.

[00:19:04] Speaker 02:
I think I understand your Title I, Section 8 argument and your argument that the three court of federal claims cases and the statutory amendment deal with a problem different from the in utero presence issue that's presented by the statute that we're dealing with.

[00:19:22] Speaker 02:
The question I have is the

[00:19:26] Speaker 02:
Court of Federal Claims' opinion in footnote 13 referred to the question of ARDC's in utero visits and whether that was present.

[00:19:40] Speaker 02:
But he says that determination in and of itself would not be dispositing.

[00:19:47] Speaker 02:
I gather you disagree with that.

[00:19:51] Speaker 02:
What's your take on the question of whether or not

[00:19:55] Speaker 02:
in muteral presence issue is dispositive.

[00:20:00] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, you're correct.

[00:20:01] Speaker 01:
We do disagree with that point by the judge of the Court of Federal Claims.

[00:20:06] Speaker 01:
I'm not certain what the basis was for his conclusion in that regard.

[00:20:11] Speaker 01:
But he did find against petitioners on the issue of the interpretation of the meaning of the word returned.

[00:20:19] Speaker 01:
And that, in and of itself,

[00:20:22] Speaker 01:
also can form the basis of an affirmance.

[00:20:25] Speaker 02:
I appreciate that.

[00:20:27] Speaker 02:
My question is, do you embrace the analysis of the special master on the in utero presence issue?

[00:20:40] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:20:41] Speaker 01:
We do generally embrace the analysis of the special master regarding in utero presence.

[00:20:47] Speaker 01:
He did find that there is no

[00:20:52] Speaker 01:
expressed provision for in utero presence, which is our argument as well.

[00:20:57] Speaker 01:
And he also indicated that it's not necessary to re-evaluate the definition of the word person, which we also agree with that remains standing.

[00:21:11] Speaker 01:
There are one USCA as we already addressed.

[00:21:17] Speaker 02:
Well, as I understood it, your position on the in utero presence

[00:21:21] Speaker 02:
is a plain meaning of the statute analysis based on Title I, Section 8.

[00:21:31] Speaker 01:
Yes, that's correct.

[00:21:31] Speaker 01:
There is no reason to look beyond simply the definition as provided by Section 8 of 1-USC.

[00:21:46] Speaker 01:
But more than that, there is no express language if we're looking to

[00:21:51] Speaker 01:
the 21st Century Cures Act amendments, there is no language there to indicate anything about extraterritorial in utero presence establishing grounds for extraterritorial application of the act.

[00:22:05] Speaker 01:
So that's just further reason to support our position.

[00:22:09] Speaker 02:
It would have been quite easy for Congress to deal with that issue had it chosen to, correct?

[00:22:14] Speaker 01:
Yes, that's correct, Your Honor.

[00:22:18] Speaker 04:
Well, except that when Congress dealt with it, we're saying this is a question of first impression.

[00:22:24] Speaker 04:
So in fairness, this wasn't an issue that they would have been necessarily aware of because there hadn't been cases yet decided that involved raise this question, right?

[00:22:38] Speaker 01:
That I'm not sure what Congress was aware of, of course.

[00:22:42] Speaker 01:
But yes, it's true that this is an issue of first impression.

[00:22:46] Speaker 01:
So

[00:22:47] Speaker 01:
It's possible that Congress wasn't aware of it, but it's also possible that Congress was aware of it and that Congress did intentionally omit that language and we're left with what the language is that is provided by Congress.

[00:23:00] Speaker 01:
And that language does not provide any express provision.

[00:23:05] Speaker 04:
Well, I kind of think that most that can be said, I think something can be said.

[00:23:10] Speaker 04:
with regard to that, and that Congress knew it had to add specific provision to account for that.

[00:23:16] Speaker 04:
And I think that goes to your side.

[00:23:19] Speaker 04:
But beyond that, I'm not sure what else to make of it, frankly.

[00:23:25] Speaker 04:
Understood, Your Honor.

[00:23:28] Speaker 04:
Anything further?

[00:23:30] Speaker 02:
I wanted to ask the government.

[00:23:32] Speaker 02:
In McGowan, as I pointed out, Mr. Coleman, in my conversation with Mr. Webb,

[00:23:38] Speaker 02:
McGowan means to say that you have to have had a real presence in the United States before you left.

[00:23:45] Speaker 02:
You have to have lived there.

[00:23:48] Speaker 02:
Does the government stand by that interpretation of McGowan?

[00:23:54] Speaker 01:
Yes, to the extent that there needs to be some type of residency established, but no in the sense that McGowan was fairly rigid in

[00:24:08] Speaker 01:
requiring some, it appeared to be some type of permanent domicile type presence.

[00:24:18] Speaker 02:
On the return side.

[00:24:20] Speaker 02:
Yes, on the return side.

[00:24:22] Speaker 02:
The thing that interests me about the statute is that the word return necessarily implies that you have to have been somewhere in order to return to it.

[00:24:33] Speaker 02:
In this case, the gloss on return is put on the degree of permanence required at the return, whereas McGowan puts in gloss on the emphasis on how long you were someplace before you left.

[00:24:55] Speaker 02:
And if you look at the stats that we have here, the Roman II and the Roman III, the Roman II provision

[00:25:04] Speaker 02:
deals with military and governmental personnel that have temporarily gone abroad.

[00:25:11] Speaker 02:
Those persons presumably had some fixed presence in the United States before they left.

[00:25:21] Speaker 02:
And one might interpret Roman III to have a similar requirement for purposes of how long you had been in the United States before you left to go abroad.

[00:25:35] Speaker 01:
Yes, and to the extent that McGowan and the context provided around this subsection, this particular subsection indicate that we also agree.

[00:25:46] Speaker 01:
It's, we're relying heavily on the statutory context in which the word returned is used to figure out what the meaning of that word is.

[00:25:55] Speaker 01:
And it does include some type of residency prior to receiving the vaccine.

[00:26:05] Speaker 02:
And that, in this case, I showed you with assert that the individual had no such similar presence.

[00:26:15] Speaker 02:
And even if they can, in the United States, it wasn't for a long enough period of time to qualify to satisfy McGowan.

[00:26:27] Speaker 01:
Yes, that's correct.

[00:26:33] Speaker 01:
If the court has any further questions, I would be happy to answer those.

[00:26:37] Speaker 04:
Anything further, colleagues?

[00:26:41] Speaker 04:
I think we're done.

[00:26:42] Speaker 04:
Thank you very much.

[00:26:44] Speaker 01:
Thank you very much.

[00:26:44] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:26:46] Speaker 04:
Mr. Webb, you can unmute now for the remainder of your rebuttal.

[00:26:52] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:26:54] Speaker 00:
I want to address a couple things quickly.

[00:26:56] Speaker 00:
The first is that Section 11C1B13

[00:27:04] Speaker 00:
isn't narrow and it isn't a restriction on who can qualify.

[00:27:10] Speaker 00:
It's an explicit extension of coverage of the Vaccine Act.

[00:27:16] Speaker 00:
And it satisfies, it eliminates the presumption against extraterritorial application.

[00:27:24] Speaker 00:
The whole purpose of that section is to provide extraterritorial protection.

[00:27:32] Speaker 00:
or coverage of the Vaccine Act.

[00:27:36] Speaker 00:
And so the whole purpose of that, as opposed to Section 1-2, is to provide access to the program to people who don't have a prior presence, who haven't previously lived in the United States.

[00:27:51] Speaker 00:
The whole purpose of that, the access out to requirements that the vaccine is made by a vaccine manufacturer, located in the United States, and that the person returned.

[00:28:02] Speaker 00:
it does not specify the nature or the duration of or of the prior presence and it doesn't states that govern the nature it doesn't limit the nature or a purpose or duration of the return that was a critical error that the special master and the

[00:28:28] Speaker 00:
Court of Federal Claims made and I'm concerned that you might make it up.

[00:28:32] Speaker 00:
Let me just say one quickly about the section one, the definition of person.

[00:28:38] Speaker 00:
That's from an act called the Born Alive Child Protection Act.

[00:28:43] Speaker 00:
And the very end of it says, section C of that says, nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable

[00:28:58] Speaker 00:
to any member of species Homo sapien at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this section.

[00:29:06] Speaker 00:
And the three decisions from the Vaccine Act that we cited had been decided before the enactment of the 21st Century Cares Act and had held that a child in utero was a person.

[00:29:25] Speaker 00:
They were addressing, focusing on the,

[00:29:27] Speaker 00:
the question of whether that person received the vaccine.

[00:29:33] Speaker 00:
But they assumed, essentially, that a child in utero was a person for the purposes of the Vaccine Act.

[00:29:41] Speaker 00:
And so there was already case law which said, concluded, that a child in utero had a legally significant presence.

[00:29:58] Speaker 00:
That added to, and I want a non-dimension, the Social Security Act decisions, which basically say that the presence of a child in utero is sufficient for that context for the father to either support that child before he died or to be living with the child before he died.

[00:30:21] Speaker 00:
And there is nothing that would suggest that

[00:30:27] Speaker 00:
that presence should not be, the Special Master gave no reason why that presence should not be sufficient to make a subsequent entry into the United States of Return.

[00:30:38] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:30:39] Speaker 04:
We thank you, Mr. Webb, Mr. Komen, and the case is presented.