[00:00:00] Speaker 02:
The next case for argument is 20-1728 Parrott v. Wilkie.

[00:00:06] Speaker 02:
Mr. Jelsma, whenever you're ready.

[00:00:11] Speaker 03:
May it please the court, this is David Jelsma representing claimant appellant Grover W. Parrott.

[00:00:17] Speaker 03:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:00:18] Speaker 03:
The Veterans Court applied the wrong legal standard for equitable tolling under 7266 by not basing its analysis on the totality of the circumstances.

[00:00:29] Speaker 03:
It did so with respect to each required element for equitable polling, extraordinary circumstances, due diligence, and nexus, and I will be addressing each of those errors in turn.

[00:00:42] Speaker 02:
Well, before you get to that, Mr. Judge, can I just interrupt you there?

[00:00:46] Speaker 02:
This is Judge Crouse.

[00:00:47] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:00:49] Speaker 02:
Before you get to this, I'm reading the Veterans Court opinion, and I don't think you dispute

[00:00:54] Speaker 02:
that the veterans court made essentially the same statements of law in its decision that you make in your brief about flexibility, et cetera.

[00:01:04] Speaker 02:
And what you're saying, I think, and you can clarify this for me, is that the board articulated a particular standard, the correct, may have articulated a correct standard, but it actually applied a different law.

[00:01:18] Speaker 02:
Now on our limited standard of review, which I'm sure you're aware of,

[00:01:23] Speaker 02:
Why do we have jurisdiction to, if we don't have jurisdiction to review the application of law to facts, how do we have jurisdiction in your appeal?

[00:01:33] Speaker 03:
The Federal Circuit does have jurisdiction to correct where the Veterans Court has applied the wrong legal standard.

[00:01:42] Speaker 03:
And in this case, that's what's occurred, despite the fact that the Veterans Court may have recited the correct legal standard.

[00:01:50] Speaker 03:
James teaches us that what's mattered is what it actually applied.

[00:01:55] Speaker 03:
And when you look at the Veterans Court decision, what it did is it took Mr. Parrott's holistic argument about his extraordinary circumstances and parsed it into siloed circumstances, the four that it presents in the opinion.

[00:02:10] Speaker 00:
This is Judge Toronto.

[00:02:14] Speaker 00:
Can I ask you about that?

[00:02:15] Speaker 00:
So tell me why the following is

[00:02:19] Speaker 00:
is wrong.

[00:02:21] Speaker 00:
So the Veterans Court addressed these four silos, to use your word, and as to one of them, the medical impairment, it said not strong enough.

[00:02:38] Speaker 00:
But then I think as to all of the others, what it said was there is nothing there during the relevant period, which is

[00:02:48] Speaker 00:
February to June of 2017, anything at all in those other categories comes too late.

[00:02:56] Speaker 00:
And therefore, there's literally nothing in those silos so that there's no prejudicial difference between considering them altogether and considering the medical condition silo by itself.

[00:03:15] Speaker 03:
Your Honor, I would argue that the relevant appeal period is actually the period from February to June of 2018, rather than the one you quoted from February to June of 2017.

[00:03:28] Speaker 03:
The notice of appeal was filed following the board's denial of the request for reconsideration on February 16, 2018.

[00:03:39] Speaker 03:
So the real relevant appeal period here is that one from February to June of 2018.

[00:03:45] Speaker 03:
not the one in 2017.

[00:03:49] Speaker 00:
Do I understand right?

[00:03:50] Speaker 00:
I thought the Veterans Court said, we the Veterans Court have since the beginning, since 1990 or 1991, adopted the position that the 120 day period for the notice of appeal is in fact suspended, in fact set back to zero, if during that same period a reconsideration request is filed.

[00:04:13] Speaker 00:
But there was no such reconsideration request here, and therefore the relevant period is actually the February to June 2017 period.

[00:04:22] Speaker 00:
Why is that not right?

[00:04:24] Speaker 03:
That's not right, Your Honor, because Mr. Parrott sent a request for reconsideration on August 17, 2017.

[00:04:31] Speaker 03:
That request for reconsideration was addressed by the February 16, 2018

[00:04:40] Speaker 03:
board decision.

[00:04:42] Speaker 03:
So that first appeal period was essentially closed.

[00:04:45] Speaker 03:
And when that second decision came down in 2018, that commenced the 120-day period following that decision itself.

[00:04:55] Speaker 03:
So that is the relevant appeal period here.

[00:04:58] Speaker 03:
And the other circumstances that you started off mentioning

[00:05:03] Speaker 03:
Those all existed prior to and into that relevant appeal period beginning February of 2018.

[00:05:09] Speaker 00:
I don't think it is, but does the Joint Appendix include that denial, February of 2018 denial of reconsideration?

[00:05:24] Speaker 03:
I know, Your Honor, it does not have a copy of that denial.

[00:05:28] Speaker 03:
It cites to the brief that mentions it.

[00:05:30] Speaker 03:
I am more than happy to supplementally file that document and any other that the court would require.

[00:05:38] Speaker 00:
It may be available to me on Veterans Court.

[00:05:43] Speaker 03:
And it was part of the record before the agency, Your Honor, so it is before you in that regard, but I'm happy to supplement if you so desire.

[00:05:54] Speaker 03:
So, Your Honors, the error with these extraordinary circumstances was siloing them into the separate individual circumstances and never taking an honest look at how they together could have constituted extraordinary circumstances.

[00:06:13] Speaker 03:
as is the correct standard, we see that the Veterans Court can apply those standards correctly in the Benson case where it did consider the totality and did not improperly silo as in our case.

[00:06:26] Speaker 03:
But moving along to due diligence, we also have a legal error in due diligence.

[00:06:33] Speaker 03:
For the due diligence factor, what occurred is rather than analyzing the totality of the due diligence factors,

[00:06:40] Speaker 03:
The Veterans Court made a per se determination that a veteran cannot use the same evidence to establish both extraordinary circumstances and due diligence.

[00:06:52] Speaker 03:
Here I'm specifically referring to Mr. Parrott's letters of November 14th and January 18th.

[00:07:00] Speaker 03:
Those were the letters that he wrote to the VA seeking assistance and clarity, specifically mentioning that he was awaiting medical exams

[00:07:08] Speaker 03:
and he was never, ever responded to with those letters.

[00:07:13] Speaker 03:
In this situation, those letters are evidence both of the extraordinary circumstance of nonresponse and of due diligence in timely pursuing his claim.

[00:07:27] Speaker 03:
Furthermore, we have cases from the Federal Circuit saying that the Veterans Court needs to consider

[00:07:35] Speaker 03:
non-response as evidence of due diligence.

[00:07:39] Speaker 03:
I am referring to the Elliott v. Shinseki case.

[00:07:43] Speaker 03:
That was a 2014 case.

[00:07:46] Speaker 03:
Granted, that was a non-published opinion from the Federal Circuit, but it is very instructive.

[00:07:51] Speaker 03:
In that case, we had an attorney writing letters to the agency requesting status updates, and those letters were never answered whatsoever.

[00:08:04] Speaker 03:
And so the Federal Circuit remanded that case to the Veterans Court to consider whether the evidence of non-receipt and diligence including the unanswered request to the VA for status updates would warrant equitable tolling.

[00:08:22] Speaker 03:
So that case stands for the proposition that unanswered letters can be demonstrative of due diligence.

[00:08:28] Speaker 03:
And here we also have a case where those unanswered letters

[00:08:33] Speaker 03:
that itself is also part of his totality of extraordinary circumstances.

[00:08:39] Speaker 03:
And so the veteran's court can only make the determination that Mr. Parrott presented no evidence or argument demonstrating that he acted diligently.

[00:08:48] Speaker 03:
That's almost a verbatim quote, no evidence or argument.

[00:08:52] Speaker 03:
They can only make that determination if they've made the improper per se determination that the veteran cannot use that same evidence for both prongs.

[00:09:01] Speaker 03:
And to do so was error as regards the due diligence aspect of the test for equitable polling.

[00:09:15] Speaker 03:
And finally, we will come to the third element for equitable polling, in this case Nexus.

[00:09:24] Speaker 03:
This error honestly, it flows from the first regarding extraordinary circumstances.

[00:09:29] Speaker 03:
This test for,

[00:09:31] Speaker 03:
nexus is that the veteran has to show causation between extraordinary circumstances, the extraordinary circumstances and the period that he or she seeks to toll.

[00:09:45] Speaker 03:
That standard incorporates the extraordinary circumstances standard.

[00:09:51] Speaker 03:
Therefore, if the court made an error as to the extraordinary circumstances determination, in which case, in this case it did

[00:10:01] Speaker 03:
by failing to consider the totality, if it makes that error in the first instance, the nexus analysis will be inherently flawed.

[00:10:11] Speaker 03:
And that's exactly what we have here.

[00:10:13] Speaker 03:
We have, you know, the court addressing the nexus requirement by merely saying that he's not submitted any information showing how these circumstances constrained his ability.

[00:10:24] Speaker 03:
Again, that can only be a determination that is made if they have not appropriately analyzed the extraordinary circumstances, which again, we allege here that they applied that incorrect legal standard to.

[00:10:40] Speaker 03:
And moreover, there's just sort of a practical problem here in saying that he didn't submit any information.

[00:10:47] Speaker 03:
When the court below ordered him to show cause,

[00:10:51] Speaker 03:
while he was still acting pro se, mind you, when they ordered him to show cause, he wrote a letter to the court detailing the different medical appointments that he had had over the last year, which that would have spanned into that tolling period from February to June of 2018.

[00:11:10] Speaker 03:
He detailed the medical appointments, he gave the names of his doctors, the frequency, he detailed that he was

[00:11:17] Speaker 03:
you know, having to do lab tests and things of that nature.

[00:11:20] Speaker 03:
And furthermore, he referenced the fact that he was still waiting for his medical exam.

[00:11:26] Speaker 03:
That reference is a reference to those two letters that he wrote that were never answered.

[00:11:32] Speaker 00:
Mr. Silver, this is Judge Trander.

[00:11:33] Speaker 00:
Can I just return to the subject I asked you about?

[00:11:36] Speaker 00:
I have in front of me now the February 16th, 2018 denial of reconsideration.

[00:11:44] Speaker 00:
And I think it is fair to say, at least on quick reading, it is very much on the merits as opposed to this is not timely.

[00:11:55] Speaker 00:
Something that without the document, I don't remember there having been any discussion of.

[00:12:01] Speaker 00:
What law, case law or otherwise, might there be to suggest what I think is part of your

[00:12:11] Speaker 00:
argument that we shouldn't focus on the 2017 gap but only the 2018 gap, that a motion for reconsideration that the board or the board chair, I guess, addresses on the merits has been recognized to fall within this kind of tolling of notice of appeal.

[00:12:39] Speaker 00:
And I say rule with a small r. I think that's something the Veterans Court announced rather than it appearing in any statute or enacted rule.

[00:12:50] Speaker 00:
But where would we look to try to figure out whether when the board chair acts on the merits of a motion for reconsideration, even if that motion was filed outside the 120-day time period,

[00:13:05] Speaker 00:
It has the effect of starting a new clock for the notices of appeal.

[00:13:12] Speaker 03:
I don't have a good site for that exact proposition.

[00:13:16] Speaker 03:
We do have cases like Ratliff that would, if I may finish your honor.

[00:13:23] Speaker 02:
Yes, please do.

[00:13:23] Speaker 03:
We do, as I said, I don't have a good site for that exact proposition, which of course I am willing to brief in supplemental briefings if you would like.

[00:13:32] Speaker 03:
But we do have cases like Ratliff

[00:13:35] Speaker 03:
which stands for the proposition that filing a motion for reconsideration tolls the finality of the underlying decision.

[00:13:46] Speaker 03:
And I think that sort of this proposition that decision on the merits.

[00:13:54] Speaker 00:
Even an untimely one.

[00:13:56] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry?

[00:13:57] Speaker 00:
Even an untimely one.

[00:13:57] Speaker 00:
That's generally not the rule in the federal rule procedure.

[00:14:02] Speaker 03:
I understand.

[00:14:02] Speaker 03:
And my understanding of the rat list

[00:14:05] Speaker 03:
case is that it does need to be a timely motion for reconsideration.

[00:14:11] Speaker 03:
So that would be distinguishable from our case.

[00:14:14] Speaker 03:
However, I think that simply as a matter of fairness, when we are dealing with a regime that is designed to favor the veteran, that is designed to place a thumb on the scales for the veteran, I think it's fundamentally fair to say that if the board rules on a decision,

[00:14:33] Speaker 03:
They can't then go back and say, oh, that decision was still not final, and we're still going to make you jump through the hoots for that period, even though we effectively closed it.

[00:14:46] Speaker 03:
And that would be my response, Your Honor.

[00:14:48] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:14:49] Speaker 02:
Why don't we hear from the other side, and we'll reserve rebuttal time.

[00:14:56] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:14:57] Speaker 01:
May it please the Court?

[00:14:58] Speaker 01:
I will address this question of the relevant appeal period first,

[00:15:03] Speaker 01:
I respectfully disagree with Mr. Parrott about the first appeal period here, the February 2017 to June 2017 appeal period not being the relevant period.

[00:15:16] Speaker 01:
I would first point the court to the, this ended up being a supplemental appendix that we filed, but it's the notice of appeal rights that was attached to

[00:15:30] Speaker 01:
the board's February 2017 decision.

[00:15:32] Speaker 01:
It very clearly lays out that an appellant or a veteran has 120 days from the decision date.

[00:15:42] Speaker 01:
If a motion for reconsideration is filed and it is filed within that 120 days, the 120 days starts again from the decision on that reconsideration.

[00:15:54] Speaker 01:
But it is not filed within that 120 days.

[00:15:58] Speaker 01:
the reconsideration does not restart the clock for an appeal.

[00:16:02] Speaker 01:
One fact that was missing from the prior colloquy is that there is no timeliness issue for a motion for reconsideration to the board.

[00:16:14] Speaker 01:
A veteran can file a motion for reconsideration at any point and it is considered timely.

[00:16:19] Speaker 01:
And this is explicitly stated in this appeal notice as well.

[00:16:23] Speaker 01:
It goes from appendix 63 to 64.

[00:16:28] Speaker 01:
specifically at the top of Appendix 64.

[00:16:31] Speaker 01:
It says, remember, the board places no time limit on filing a motion for reconsideration, and you can do this at any time.

[00:16:37] Speaker 01:
However, if you also plan to appeal this decision to the court, you must file your motion within 120 days from the date of this decision.

[00:16:45] Speaker 01:
And again, above when it discusses the appeal to the court, it states that if a reconsideration motion is filed within the first 120 days, 120 days restarts.

[00:16:58] Speaker 01:
once the decision is rendered on that motion for reconsideration.

[00:17:01] Speaker 00:
But then the merits decision on the motion for reconsideration, on an untimely motion for reconsideration itself can be appealed?

[00:17:10] Speaker 00:
Is that right?

[00:17:12] Speaker 01:
That is not correct, Your Honor.

[00:17:13] Speaker 01:
And again, there is no distinction between a time or there is no such thing as an untimely motion for reconsideration.

[00:17:20] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry.

[00:17:21] Speaker 00:
I'm just using the term timely to mean within 120 days.

[00:17:25] Speaker 00:
A motion for reconsideration filed on day 196 that is acted on on the merits.

[00:17:32] Speaker 00:
So that does not suspend the time for a notice of appeal from the original decision.

[00:17:40] Speaker 00:
Does the here, February 16, 2018, denial of reconsideration whose critical paragraph is, as far as I can tell, very much on the merits, not

[00:17:52] Speaker 00:
anything else.

[00:17:53] Speaker 00:
Is the February 16, 2018 decision appealable to the Veterans Court?

[00:17:59] Speaker 01:
No, Your Honor, not in and of itself.

[00:18:01] Speaker 01:
It is only that the Board's original decision merits decision that is appealable.

[00:18:09] Speaker 01:
Again, this is not, as I think Your Honor has noted, part of the Joint Appendix, but if you have that reconsideration

[00:18:18] Speaker 01:
decision in front of you.

[00:18:19] Speaker 01:
The third page of it is, again, the appeal rights.

[00:18:23] Speaker 01:
And those state, again, that you have 120 days from the date of the board decision.

[00:18:29] Speaker 01:
And it's talking about the original decision.

[00:18:32] Speaker 01:
And then it says, however, if you filed your motion for reconsideration within that 120 days, you now have an additional 120 days.

[00:18:39] Speaker 01:
There is no distinction between the character of the decision on reconsideration.

[00:18:47] Speaker 01:
Presumably, every

[00:18:48] Speaker 01:
decision on reconsideration is going to be on the merits, again, because there is no such thing as a motion for reconsideration denied because it is untimely.

[00:18:56] Speaker 00:
And what's the authority for, what's the reason that the action on the reconsideration, so here, the February 16, 2018, not being appealable to the Veterans Court?

[00:19:10] Speaker 00:
Is there a statutory

[00:19:12] Speaker 00:
requirement that that flunks or what?

[00:19:16] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, I don't know that there is a statutory citation for that proposition.

[00:19:20] Speaker 01:
There is a Veterans Court ruling, and that's cited in this notice, the Rossler v. Derwinsky 1991 decision.

[00:19:32] Speaker 01:
The primary justification is that

[00:19:36] Speaker 01:
As I noted, the motion for reconsideration can be filed at any point.

[00:19:41] Speaker 01:
You know, 20 years down the road, a veteran could timely file a motion for reconsideration before the board.

[00:19:46] Speaker 01:
The court, however, has determined that there has to be a cutoff point to an appeal.

[00:19:54] Speaker 01:
And that is 120 days from the original decision.

[00:19:58] Speaker 00:
So I see.

[00:19:59] Speaker 00:
So I guess it's actually the citation

[00:20:06] Speaker 00:
versus Gover near the bottom of that page of that February 16, 2018 addresses the point expressively.

[00:20:17] Speaker 01:
Yes, Your Honor, that's correct.

[00:20:20] Speaker 01:
And it does specifically talk about that time frame in the 120 days.

[00:20:27] Speaker 01:
So I think that the Veterans Court law and the statutory

[00:20:34] Speaker 01:
framework here make clear that the, in order for Mr. Parrott to succeed, that first, he has to demonstrate that that 120, at the very minimum and first, has to demonstrate that the 120 days beginning at February 2nd, 2017 should be pulled.

[00:20:54] Speaker 01:
And in particular, particularly with respect to due diligence,

[00:20:59] Speaker 01:
Mr. Parrott's arguments make clear that his due diligence claims stem from his arguments surrounding the fact that the VA arguably sent him communication indicating that he need not take any further steps.

[00:21:19] Speaker 01:
Those communications occurred well after this 120-day period, and in fact, after he filed his motion for reconsideration.

[00:21:26] Speaker 01:
So they really are not relevant to the tolling

[00:21:28] Speaker 01:
question of this first 120 days.

[00:21:31] Speaker 01:
And that was explained by the Veterans Court in its discussion of the, what it called, confusion caused by VA prong.

[00:21:43] Speaker 01:
This is Appendix 4 to 5.

[00:21:45] Speaker 01:
And that is also applicable to the due diligence as explained by Mr. Parrott.

[00:21:56] Speaker 01:
Very briefly, I will address the totality of the circumstances question.

[00:22:01] Speaker 01:
I think we've explained in our briefing that there is no explicit requirement that a court read any particular tolling request to look at the totality of the circumstances.

[00:22:24] Speaker 01:
even considering the fact that the court did explain the correct legal framework here, explain that there is no mechanical rule, that there is a need for flexibility.

[00:22:38] Speaker 01:
And given that the court did indicate that it appears to have considered both individually and collectively the circumstances explained by Mr. Parrott

[00:22:55] Speaker 01:
Even assuming that that were some sort of the totality of the circumstances were some sort of legal rule that the court required to follow, it did so here.

[00:23:04] Speaker 01:
And it did clearly consider all of Mr. Parrott's claims that he presented in the background section of the court's decision.

[00:23:16] Speaker 01:
It goes through each of both Mr. Parrott's letter that he sent to

[00:23:21] Speaker 01:
the court in May of 2019, as well as the filing that was provided with the assistance of counsel thereafter.

[00:23:31] Speaker 01:
It details all of the claims he made in those filings, and it did very clearly consider all of them on their own merits, on their own facts, as applied to the legal framework that has been provided by this court, in particular in Arbus.

[00:23:54] Speaker 01:
If the court has no further questions, we would simply ask that the court affirm the veteran court's decision on those bases.

[00:24:03] Speaker 00:
This is just trying to, can I just return to the topic that I was exploring with you as I was in process of learning about it.

[00:24:11] Speaker 00:
So I'm looking at NGELP versus Gober and it says the chairman's decision to deny a motion for reconsideration is generally not

[00:24:21] Speaker 00:
reviewable, but it is if there is new evidence or changed circumstances.

[00:24:28] Speaker 00:
And then it, I think, defines changed circumstances in a quite limited way.

[00:24:35] Speaker 00:
Was there new evidence here that was put in front of the chairman in the motion for reconsideration?

[00:24:46] Speaker 01:
Your Honor, I am not aware

[00:24:49] Speaker 01:
of any new evidence, and I'll be perfectly honest, I have not reviewed the, that decision particularly closely.

[00:24:59] Speaker 01:
At this point, my understanding of the reconsideration motion was that the, Mr. Peridot argued that there were certain evidence that was already available that the board did not consider.

[00:25:18] Speaker 01:
And the conclusion on reconsideration was that the record reflected that in fact those records had in fact been considered.

[00:25:26] Speaker 01:
I am unaware of any true new evidence that was brought before the board as part of the reconsideration motion.

[00:25:36] Speaker 00:
Okay, thank you.

[00:25:40] Speaker 02:
Okay, Mr. Jelsma, you have some time on rebuttal.

[00:25:44] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:25:46] Speaker 03:
First, I'd just like to return to this issue of the two appeal periods.

[00:25:50] Speaker 03:
I'd like to point out that the order to show cause that was issued to Mr. Parrott by the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims contemplates two appeal periods.

[00:26:01] Speaker 03:
It contemplates an appeal period from January 17, 2019, I'm sorry, from February 2, 2017 to June 7, 2017.

[00:26:11] Speaker 03:
It also contemplates that second period

[00:26:14] Speaker 03:
I'm from February to June of 2018.

[00:26:16] Speaker 03:
The order itself also contemplates there being two periods.

[00:26:23] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry to ask, is the order in the Joint Appendix?

[00:26:27] Speaker 03:
Yes, it is.

[00:26:28] Speaker 03:
I'm specifically referring to Appendix Page 5, second line from the top, it's set off with an M dash.

[00:26:35] Speaker 03:
It says from, it's the periods that he wishes to toll from February 2017 to June 2017 and from February 2018 to June 2018.

[00:26:46] Speaker 03:
So clearly there are two relevant appeal periods that were addressed here.

[00:26:51] Speaker 03:
At the very least, there needs to be a remain.

[00:26:54] Speaker 00:
I'm sorry, that's not actually the order to show cause, right?

[00:26:58] Speaker 03:
No, I'm sorry, I misunderstood you.

[00:27:00] Speaker 03:
I thought you were referring to

[00:27:02] Speaker 03:
the order, the order on the equitable tolling decision.

[00:27:08] Speaker 03:
The order to show cause is not in the appendix.

[00:27:12] Speaker 03:
That is part of the docket for the CAVC.

[00:27:15] Speaker 03:
That was, that docket entry is from March 21st, 2019.

[00:27:19] Speaker 00:
Okay, we have access to that, okay.

[00:27:23] Speaker 03:
Yes, but the same point is proved by that appendix page five, the top of it there.

[00:27:29] Speaker 03:
The court was considering two periods, February 2017 to June 2017 and February 2018 to June 2018.

[00:27:38] Speaker 03:
We maintained the relevant period is that second one, in which case these letters are evidence of extraordinary circumstance and due diligence that were not considered as part of the totality of the circumstances as is the proper legal standard.

[00:27:55] Speaker 03:
We would, of course, ask that this court reverse and remand the decision below with instructions to proceed on the merits of Mr. Parrott's appeal.

[00:28:06] Speaker 03:
Barring that, we would ask that this court vacate in remand with instructions to apply the correct legal standard.

[00:28:12] Speaker 03:
Barring that, I think at the very least, we need a remand to determine this proper period.

[00:28:20] Speaker 03:
You know, whether it is 2017 or whether it's 2018, because that will bear directly on whether or not the extraordinary circumstances demonstrate due diligence and nexus.

[00:28:35] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:28:35] Speaker 02:
Thank you, Your Honors.

[00:28:38] Speaker 02:
Thank both sides, and the case is submitted.