Litigation Update: Kloosterman v. Metropolitan Hospital

Valerie Kloosterman, a devout Christian and third-generation healthcare professional, served her community as a Physician Assistant for 17 years. In 2021, University of Michigan Health introduced mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training that required participants to affirm statements Kloosterman believed conflicted with her religious convictions and medical judgment. After she requested a religious accommodation, hospital officials denied her request, criticized her beliefs, and ultimately terminated her employment.
Kloosterman filed suit in federal court, asserting Title VII and constitutional claims. While the court allowed her core claims to move forward, it later granted the hospital’s motion to compel arbitration. Kloosterman appealed, and in August 2025, the Sixth Circuit sided with her, ruling that the hospital had defaulted on its arbitration rights after litigating for over a year. The court rejected what it called a “heads I win, tails you lose” strategy of reserving arbitration until after seeing how the case would unfold in court.
Join Kevin Wynosky and Kayla Toney as they unpack the Sixth Circuit’s opinion and discuss its broader implications for employment law and religious accommodations.
Featuring:

Kevin Wynosky, Associate Counsel, Clement & Murphy
(Moderator) Kayla Toney, Counsel, First Liberty Institute

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
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Speaker 2 (00:08):
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Speaker 3 (00:18):
Hello everyone, and welcome to this Federalist Society a virtual event.
My name is Marco J. Lloyd, and I'm Assistant director
of Networks with the Federalist Society. Today I'm excited to
host a litigation update and Inclusterman VW Metropolitan Hospital featuring
Kevin Weinowski. Kevin is council at Clement and Murphy refocuses
on briefing complex legal issues at all levels of the

(00:41):
federal court system. Previously, he served as a trial attorney
in the Department of Justices Civil Division, where he briefed
and argued high profile cases challenging federal laws as well
as well as Executive branch policies and decisions. Our moderator
today is Kayala Toni. Kala's Council is first liberty institute

(01:03):
concentrating on religious liberty matters and First Amendment rights for
clients of all faiths. Prior to joining First Liberty, Kayla
litigated goldous freedom cases as a constitutional law fellow at
the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty. She clerked for Judge
Gregory Maggs on the US Court of Appeals for the
Armed Forces before that. If you'd like to learn more

(01:24):
about today's speakers, their full bios can viewed on our
website fedsock dot org. If you have a question at
any point today's program, please enter into the Q and
A function at the bottom of your zoom window. We'll
do our best to answer as man as we can. Finally,
I'll note that, as always, the Federal Society takes no
position on particular legal or public policy issues, and all

(01:45):
expressions opinion are those of the speakers. With that, thank
you Kayla for joining us today, and the floor is yours.

Speaker 4 (01:53):
Thank you so much for having me. It's great to
be with you all. Today we get to talk about
an exciting case close to UMAN, the Metropolitan Hospital. We
represent a wonderful Christian healthcare professional, Valerie Closterman, who has
been a physician assistant for two decades now. She works

(02:14):
in her local community clinic for seventeen years, and this
was actually the same hospital system that her mom and
her grandma had also worked in in Western Michigan. So
very much a dedicated member of the community, and some
of her patients were even second generation, so they brought
their children to see her once they were grown up,

(02:36):
and Valerie served patients of all different backgrounds. She had
great relationships with her patients and continues to in her
new role, and because of her strong Christian faith, she
could not affirm certain statements about the gender that went
against her beliefs, and so this issue came up back

(02:57):
in twenty twenty one when her employer, the University of Michigan,
it started requiring some equity diversity and diversity equity and
inclusion trainings. And at first the trainings were simply just
informative about, you know, how to serve different patient populations,
but then the training started to include a quiz a

(03:19):
required affirmation where you had to make statements such as
gender is fluid, and the only way to finish the
quiz and you know, complete these mandatory trainings was to
say that yes, it is. And this was something that
conflicted not just with her Christian religious beliefs, but also
with her medical judgment. As a medical provider, it's very

(03:40):
important to know the biological sects of your patients to
make sure that they're able to get the specific treatments
and care and and yeah, just the details of their
their treatment to make sure that that's correct. And so
she was concerned about this, and so she simply asked
a question to her DEI coordinator, asking, you know, if

(04:04):
it was possible for her to not finish this training
or if there was you know, any other option. Truly,
what she did is requested a religious accommodation in order
to yeah, not have two affirm statements that went against
her faith and her medical judgment. And instead of receiving
that accommodation, which would have been very easy to provide,

(04:25):
the hospital officials called her into a meeting and attacked
her faith. They called her evil and a liar. They
were very hostile, and they accused her of things that
were not even relevant to her experience. You know, they
accused her of not wanting to serve certain patient populations,
even though that wasn't the case. And they also asked,

(04:48):
you know, if she would be willing to refer patients
for gender transitions. And this was never something that had
come up. This is very much a hypothetical dispute at
this point. But when she explained that her and her
religious beliefs, you know, really would prevent her involvement in
those procedures or referrals, they attacked her again and told
her not to bring her bible to work with her.

(05:11):
And so just a couple of weeks later, she was fired,
and she sued in federal court, represented by Force Liberty,
and we brought several claims. We brought Title seven claims
because of the failure to accommodate and also just because
of the religious discrimination to terminate her because of her
religious beliefs. And then we also brought constitutional claims under

(05:33):
Section nineteen eighty three, and so we brought free speech,
free exercise, and equal protection claims. And I'll just mention
the free exercise claim briefly because that's the most relevant
one for this conversation. We explained that the hospital was
very willing to accommodate other providers. So, for example, a

(05:55):
provider who wasn't comfortable examining patients of the opposite gender,
or provider who didn't want to prescribe opioids, they were
accommodated because another provider would just do those examinations or
make those prescriptions and it was never a problem. It
was simply a matter of scheduling. And so the fact
that the hospital refused to accommodate Valerie and instead terminated

(06:17):
her was a free exercise violation. So we filed back
in fall of twenty twenty two, bringing all these claims,
and the hospital filed two very long motions to dismiss
on many different grounds, ranging from focusing on the individual
defendants that we ensued and then also on the hospital itself.

(06:39):
And so we litigated back and forth for thirteen months
in total, and near the end of that time we
received a favorable ruling on the motions to dismiss. So essentially,
Judge Beckering in the Western District of Michigan allowed our
core claims to proceed. She did uphold she did dismiss

(07:00):
a free speech claim, but she upheld the free exercise
and the Title seven claims and equal protection as well,
I believe, and so so it was a favorable ruling,
and she seemed to view the facts, you know, in
a similar light to the way that we had pleaded them,
which was the burden that she had at that particular

(07:21):
stage of the litigation. But shortly after we received that ruling,
we received a surprise motion to compel arbitration. And the
reason this was so surprising was that we were having
discussions with opposing counsel about our discovery plan. We had
just had a call earlier that day sort of talking
about the schedule and the plan for next steps, and

(07:43):
so we were all ready to go into discovery and
then here comes this motion to compel arbitration and the
court actually granted it, and so that's when we appealed,
and that's when Clement and Murphy, an amazing national firm,
joined us, and Kevin Waynaski came on board to handle

(08:04):
the appeal at the sixth Circuit. So I'm going to
turn it over to see you, Kevin, to talk about
the appeal.

Speaker 5 (08:09):
Well, I will start the same way you did, which is,
of course, thank you Defense Soccer for having us, Thanks
for everybody for taking time out of your afternoon to
join us, and thanks to Kayla not only for moderating
and giving us that primer, but also for bringing the
case to Clement Murphy and thinking.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Of us for it.

Speaker 5 (08:27):
As she was going through the facts, I was reminded
of sort of why it was such a great case,
and a big part of that is Valory yourself. Not
only is she a wonderful person with a wonderful family
who I got to know through the process, but she
sort of did everything that you could possibly have wanted
a plaintiff in her position to do right. She sort

(08:47):
of requested all the meetings with the right people. She
always sort of led with kindness and thoughtfulness. It was
the easiest fact section to write, and as Kayla just
pointed out the fact that they that the hospital was
talking about plans for discovery and having a twenty six
f conference the very same day they moved to compel
arbortration made the fact section.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Even easier to write. But when we got the appeal.

Speaker 5 (09:15):
And I started digging into the issues, it was pretty
easy for me to tell at the beginning that we
were likely to win.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
I was fairly confident in our.

Speaker 5 (09:26):
Ability based on the precedent both from the Sixth Circuit
and really across the country, talking about how once you've
litigated in district court for several months, once you filed
this positive motions, you've given up your right to arbitry.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
But it was easier to sort of tell that we
were going to win than to explain why.

Speaker 5 (09:47):
Although there's a ton of precedent, that precedent is not
always precise in whether it's relying on federal law, and
if it's federal law, if it's relying on the Federal
Arbortration Act, the FAA, some maybe common law source or
some maybe judge made claim processing rule. There's some opinions
that suggest state law might have a rule of course

(10:09):
anytime you're in the arbitration context. One of the follow
up questions is who gets to decide this? Is it
going to be the core to the arbitrator. So we
had lots of precedent on our side, but that precedent
was at some points conflicting or at some points, to borrow.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
A word from the Academy, maybe a little under theorized.

Speaker 5 (10:27):
So that led to some of the hardest conversations during
briefing with Kayle about sort of how to frame the
issue up. It always struck me and for the other
appel layers on the call that this was really an
issue of forfeiture that we didn't know, you know, and
it didn't really matter whether the hospital did this intentionally.

(10:48):
Once you've gotten to the thirteen month point. Once you've
gone through two full rounds of motion to dismiss briefing,
it's too late to asserterate to arbitration. Although it naturally
felt like forfeiture to me, the cases almost uniformly talk
about talk about it in terms of waiver, and so
that added another layer of complexity or ambiguity to exactly

(11:12):
the right analytical framework to apply, which is part of
the reason why. And this is not to skip ahead,
but ultimately the Rationality Panel went with We focused mostly
on the text of the FAA, which uses the language
in default in section three, which says in section three

(11:32):
and four. Of course, one section deals with moving to
staycase pending arbitration, the other one involves moving to compel arbitration.
The Supreme Court has said you interpret the two together.
The in default language appears in section three, and reading
it together with section four, the upshot is that if
you're in default of your agreement to arbitrate, you can't

(11:52):
move to compel arbitration. So we sort of seized on
that language both looking at ditch areas from the nineteen
twenties and nineteen thirties around the time of the FA
as enactment, looking at early cases from the thirties and
forties which we thought were ultimately very helpful on the
in default language. And although I continue to think, and
Judge Murphy and his concurrence also continues to think that

(12:16):
this most neatly maps on what we would think of
as a federal common law forfeiture rule, the panel and ultimately,
you know, certainly our brief supported the notion that the
case was properly decided under the text of the FAA
and the in default language from section thirty. So you know,

(12:36):
that sort of was probably the hardest decision in terms
of how to brief the case, at at least this
particular issue in the case. Once we got our panel assignment,
which happened I think two weeks before the argument itself,
which was back in February, I was certainly hardened, but
maybe a little bit fearful to see Judge Murphy on
the panel, only because he had written a number of

(12:57):
opinions on this or for sure versus waiver distinction. We
also had a Judge Davis and Bloomcats on the panel,
and when we got to the oral argument itself, which
was actually not held in the six Circuit Courthouses road
show at the University of Cincinnati, which was another element

(13:18):
of fun. You know, oral argument for me was a
real illustration of the principle that judges are going to
ask about what they're most concerned about, and you got
to meet them where they are and respond to them,
and if you have the time leftover to make your points, great,
but to use their questions as a signal, because all

(13:38):
of their questions for the entire fifteen minutes I talked
were about this distinction between four fortu and waiver. So again,
after the argument, I felt pretty good that if that
was the thing that was troubling them, if that was
the thing they were concerned about, that spoke well for
a reversal. But in terms of the precise logic texts
of the FAA, Federal Common Law eight law, you know,

(14:00):
we certainly had a theory for why we won under
all of those buckets. And then, as I mentioned, the
panel opinion sort of took that first bucket and ruled.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Under the text of the FAA.

Speaker 5 (14:13):
It is the first, or at least sort of the
cleanest federal pellet decision, certainly in the last twenty years
to decide an arbitration waiver slash forfeiture case on these grounds.
It is also a case, certainly if you practice in
the Sixth Circuit in the way of Morgan versus Sundance,

(14:34):
which is a Supreme Court case from I think twenty
one or twenty twenty two that dealt with a very
similar issue, and remove the requirement of prejudice.

Speaker 2 (14:46):
Before Morgan Versus Sundance, you assessed.

Speaker 5 (14:49):
Arbitration waiver by looking first to the conduct of the
litigan and then secondly as to.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Whether the planet was prejudiced by the defendants failure ritration.

Speaker 5 (15:01):
And so Morgan versus Sundance changed that long standing rule
in a way that unsettled precedent in a number of circuits,
and Clustermann represented the six Circuits opportunity to say that
first prom looking to whether or not the defendant has
acted and consistent with their right, arbitration still remains good

(15:23):
law even though Morgan removed the prejudice requirement. So in
that respect, the opinion, in addition to the clarity provides
in the texts, the FAA provides additional clarity on the
long standing federal common law rule that continues to apply
in the Sixth Circuit and every other circuit and applies
both in religious liberty cases like this one, but really

(15:43):
employment cases from all across the spectrum.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
That was the majority opinion.

Speaker 5 (15:50):
Judge Murphy's concurrence was sort of music to my ears,
and that it picked up on the theory that we
laid out in our briefing, which was this really all
which sort of maps onto a federal common law forfeiture standard,
and he explains the difference between forfeiture as a federal
law rule and the arbitration context versus waiver as a

(16:11):
state law rule looking to the source of the right,
which here would have been under Michigan contract law. Judge
Bluempats wrote a separate concurrence, so we had a majority
in two concurrences suggesting that the distinction between forfeiture and
waiver was more complicated than that, and certainly more complicated

(16:32):
on a transubstantive level looking outside the arbitration context. So
that's a little bit about the three opinions in the case,
and certainly the panel and how the argument went. But
the most important headline is that we won, and we
got some presidential opinion clearing up an area of law
that had left a lot of ambiguity and certainty both

(16:52):
since Morgan versus Sundance, but even before and now, if
you find yourself in the position of representing a plaintiff
against the defendant that has litigated in court before moving
to compel arbitration, you certainly have the case to cite
that gives you support under the text of the FAA
that the defendant is in default of their right arb trade.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
Thanks Kevin, before we go to Q and A. And
by the way, there's a Q and A feature down
at the bottom of your zoom screen where you can
type in questions, so please feel free to type those
in because that'll make this even more of an interactive discussion.
It might be interesting to touch just briefly on some
of our other arguments because waiver slash forfeiture was our

(17:38):
main focus in the appeal, but we had a lot
of other arguments as well that we considered, and the
one i'll mention, and really this also goes to the
impact and importance of this case is that arbitration is
just not the right forum for constitutional rights disputes. It
might be the right forum for strictly workplace matters matters

(18:02):
involving income benefits, those sorts of things, because the primary
remedy is monetary. But for keses involving constitutional rights like
this one, it's you know, money is involved potentially, but
it's not the key remedy, and there's no ability to
seek injunctive relief or any of the other sort of

(18:24):
remedies that constitutional claims bring. And there's also not the
precedent setting value that is very important in cases like this, where,
especially on this particular issue that's controversial right now, a
lot of religious healthcare providers are concerned about, you know,
being forced to participate in procedures that violate their conscience.
And so I think the ability and really valories commitment

(18:47):
to wanting to help and wanting to set a precedent
so that this doesn't keep happening to similar people of faith.
I think it's just significant. But I'm curious Kevin, for
your thoughts on kind of the strategy behind which arguments
to highlight the most, and then which that we sort
of included but maybe didn't keep front and center.

Speaker 5 (19:10):
Yeah, so I think this is particular argument Kle that
you're referencing turned out to be run in two of
the brief, the.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Panel didn't reach it.

Speaker 5 (19:18):
I'm secretly happy that I didn't get too many questions
about in our argument, because I do think is a
much more difficult issue, in part because.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Another impact of Morgan Versus Sundance.

Speaker 5 (19:31):
So, before Morgan Versus Sundance, there's tons of Supreme Court
and lower court opinions seeing things along the lines of
arbitration clauses are due special solicitude. We are going to
strictly enforce arbitration clauses, perhaps even more strictly than we
would enforce other contractual clauses or other contractual rights. Mortar

(19:52):
Versus Sundance sort of walks that back and says, no,
we didn't really mean that. What we meant was arbitration
clauses are due the same weight as any other contractor right,
no more, no less. Right before the.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
FAA, before nineteen twenty.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
Five, you had lower courts frequently discarding arbitration clauses or
reading them to have somehow less forced than other clauses
in the contract.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
The FAA has passed.

Speaker 5 (20:18):
To correct that, and that's consistent with the role of
plays today. So Morgan Versus Sundance clears that up when
it comes to applying arbitration to the context of a
constitutional right or constitutional dispute, there's still a lot of

(20:38):
pre Morgan precedent talking about how if the parties have
agreed to arbitrate, that's a binding agreement and it'll be
sent to arbitration no matter what. You know, everyone on
this call knows that arbitration clauses are notoriously binding, hard
to get out of, and that's good and bad, you know,
for clients on both sides of this spectrum. You know,

(21:01):
it's good in the sense that arbitration has traditionally been
thought of as a way to achieve a faster, cheaper,
more informal resolution of claims. To Kyla's point, it's sort
of an odd fit when you think about classic constitutional
and certainly classic impact litigation, where you're really looking for precedent.
Monetary damages are not the sort of relief you're seeking,

(21:24):
and because of that, there are certainly lines of precedents
suggesting that if you are a plane of for the
constitutional claims and you've agreed to arbitrate, you probably need
to uphold that agreement, but you're probably not bound by
it or you're achievement. You're probably able to then if
you're not happy with the result, you get an arbitration
to return to court, which was sort of a separate

(21:46):
argument we made that also reinforced our primary argument.

Speaker 2 (21:49):
Which was, of course, if you stop all this now and.

Speaker 5 (21:51):
You send the plaintiff to arbitration after having already spent
thirteen months in district court, there's really nothing that's going
to stop us all coming back to district court here
in another six, eight twelve months once that arbitration concludes,
which sort of illustrated how silly it was after thirteen months.
Then there would have been i should say, to allow

(22:14):
to allow the hospital to go at a arbitration. So
it was always nice when you can make a backup
argument that is both good and mutually reinforcing with your
first argument, which was certainly the way we sort of
pitched it. So still an unsettled area of law, definitely
less precedent on that point than there was on our
first waiver slash forfeiture point. I still think, you know,

(22:37):
probably the right answer is if you've agreed to arbitrate,
you're going to have to do that, but you can
always return to court and seek separately for different relief
on your to vindicate your constitutional rights. Luckily we didn't
have to get that in this case, but I'm sure
it's a live issue that will return.

Speaker 4 (22:57):
Exactly. Well, one other thing i'll mention just real quick
before we go to the Q and A is we
had some great amakus briefs in this case. We had seven,
which was a really strong showing of support, and we're
very grateful for those. And I think they helped to
demonstrate the importance of the case to the Sixth Circuit.

(23:18):
I think it would have been easy to look at
it very narrowly, and I think that the briefs from
a variety of perspectives helped the court to see the
underlying importance of the case. And also it was a
nice opportunity for those additional arguments that you know, maybe
weren't our primary argument or weren't our primary focus, to

(23:39):
still be made. So just a thank you to the eniqui.
The states of Kansas and Nebraska fileds for US, the
Manhattan Institute, Religious Freedom Institute, Christian Medical and Dental Association,
Catholic Medical Association, and a group of similar organizations. Some
arbitration experts who weighed in and then the Foundation for
Moral Loss, So if any of we were on the call,

(23:59):
thank you. And I do think it's a good reminder
of that for these types of cases and megast briefs
can really make a difference, especially when they're from a
diverse group of people and organizations, just helping the court
to see things from from different angles.

Speaker 5 (24:15):
I'll certainly echo Kayla's thanks, especially to the extent anybody
who contributed those briefs is on the call. I also
have to give a word of thanks to Kayla and
her team at First Liberty, because they really were the
ones who did such an exemplary job to help assemble
such a wonderful coalition. And I'll just tell a funny
anecdote about the Megas briefs, which is maybe more in

(24:38):
the vein of a practice point or a practice tip.
The other side, I think, probably surprised to see seven
green briefs on the top side, ended up filing a
motion to strike them, which is of course a curious
strategy because it ensures the panel is going to read them.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
But they did file emotion to strike them.

Speaker 5 (25:00):
Emotion was denied, and of course the panel had to
read them to deny that motion, and presumably read them
again during the consideration the merits. So they were both
helpful and this is one of the rare cases where
we can guarantee they were.

Speaker 4 (25:11):
Read absolutely.

Speaker 5 (25:16):
Well.

Speaker 4 (25:16):
Let's turn to Q and A. We have some good
questions in the chat and feel free to add more
if folks have more. The first one, how could a
pro arbitration ruling be immediately appealable as opposed to a
non final interlocutory order. That is a great question. I
actually went back and double checked the record on this one,

(25:37):
and the hospital's motion to arbitrary it was styled as
a motion for summary judgment, which was odd because we
hadn't done any discovery and usually you save emotion for
some rejudgment until after discovery. But because they styled it
that way, and because the court dismissed the case, it
was a final order, and so we were able to

(25:57):
appeal it right away. And now actually heading back into
discovery at the district Court, and we anticipate that we'll
have another round of actual summary judgment motions once discovery
is concluded.

Speaker 5 (26:10):
Yeah, there's certainly you know Spirizzi from I think it
was last term, might be two terms ago from the
Supreme Court addresses this point, so that's worth looking at
if you're addressing a similar issue in one of your cases.
It was sort of a nice style point for us
that they filed their motion captioned as a motion for
summary judgment, because it let me make the point that
if you're using the word summary judgment, you're too late.

Speaker 2 (26:33):
That is probably not the way they should have styled
their motion.

Speaker 5 (26:35):
They should have styled an intersection for the FAA, and
the judge Murphy's opinion talks.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
A little bit about that.

Speaker 5 (26:41):
But because of that, and because of the District Court
dismissing the case, both sides of the planet for the
defendant asked for dismissal, not a stay. So that's how
we winded up being in the Sixth Circuit.

Speaker 4 (26:56):
Next question, did the defendants move for arbitration in an
attempt to avoid precedent here? More broadly, is there a
bright line in the litigation process in which arbitration is
no longer available under this holding?

Speaker 2 (27:10):
Yeah, so I can address that.

Speaker 5 (27:12):
As to the first part of your question, I don't
think they you know, I don't really know, but I
doubt they move to arbitrate solely to avoid precedent. There
is a lot of great precedent, including a Seventh Circuit
opinion of it says defendants can't play heads. I win, tails,
you lose when it comes to arbitration. They can't wait

(27:34):
to see how a case is going on the merits,
and then only after they've taken that first bite at
the apple or the first swing of the pinata and
realized it's not going their way, can they switch horses
and take the case into arbitration. And that sort of
is a nice segue to the second part of your question,
which is, you know it's always going to be case
specific where that line is. But once a defendant has

(27:57):
gotten a pretty conclusive signal from the record about how
the merits are coming out, that's generally where courts, both
in the Sixth Circuit around the country draw the line.
There is a helpful discussion in Joe Murphy's majority opinion.
The six Circuit has always phrased it as a totality
of the circumstances test. There's no one single bright line

(28:20):
factor that.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
You can point to.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
I had tried to draw out, and the majority opinion
I think supports this view that if you filed a
twelve B six motion you dismiss seeing a total and
complete victory. That line appears in some of the opinions
seeing a total and complete victory on the merits. That's
definitely a bright line, surefire indicator of forfeiture slash waiver.

(28:45):
The opinion talks about how just a motion to dismiss
might not be that indicator, because sometimes emotion dismiss is
on twelve B win standing grounds, and that's a little different.
Sometimes there's a mixture of claims that are arbitrable and
claim that are non arbitrable. That might be a reason
why emotion to dismiss if it's only going to the
non arbitrable claims might not have the same effect. But

(29:08):
I do think to answer the th rest of your
second question, if you look at the opinion in the
sixth Circuit, if you file a twelve B six motion
seeming total complete victory and the merits, I don't know
how you could then credibly switch to arbitration under this opinion.

Speaker 4 (29:26):
Can I ask a follow up question on that, Kevin?
I remember when we were researching all the different cases
on this issue, some of the cases seem to focus
really heavily on the timing, so they would say, well,
six months went by and that's too long, or only
three months went by and that wasn't long enough. And
then other cases focused on the actions of the other side,

(29:49):
so for example, did they start discovery, did they take depositions,
did they file discovery requests, or you know, again the
types of emotions that the other side filed. So I'm curious,
based on your read of the opinion that we got,
do you think that the timing is more significant or
the actions that are taken by the party trying to

(30:11):
assert arbitration.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
Yeah, I think totally the actions.

Speaker 5 (30:14):
I mean, thirteen months was a great number for us,
because if you looked at the president, there were like
the six month range. Sometimes it's forfeited, sometimes it's not
eight months.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
But once you got sort of above.

Speaker 5 (30:26):
A year, I'm not sure that I found any opinion
that said it wasn't waved or forfeited at that point.
So the thirteen month was a nice grace note to
sound there. But even the courts that focus more on
months are using that as a proxy for actions, and
especially given the way modern district court litigation works and
how slow some courts are in the backlog, and some courts,

(30:48):
I think it's always going to be more persuasive and
certainly more consistent with this opinion to focus on actions.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
But to your.

Speaker 5 (30:54):
Point, once you've started discovery, once you've gotten through that
dispositive motioning a total complete picture in the merits, you know,
those are the right things to emphasize. If there's just
been some early threshold litigation personal jurisdiction or something like
that might be a little bit harder of discovery. And twelve,
the six motions are all pretty good indicators that the

(31:17):
district court has started to engage with the merits and
the time to move to arbitration is done.

Speaker 4 (31:23):
Okay, Another question for us was this more of a
bilateral arbitration agreement or was it more of a unilaterally
imposed employer policy. And this is I think an interesting
question because it gets to this idea of whether there's
truly consent or truly an understanding of what someone is signing.

(31:45):
I think most of us, when we sign contracts of
various kinds, we might not even read the fine print
or know what an arbitration agreement is or what it means.
So I'm curious just kind of your thoughts on that.
I'm not sure it was just positive here because it
was alid agreement that was signed. But if you have
any thoughts about sort of the ability to consent or

(32:06):
just yeah, whether and it certainly.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
Comes up in the cases, and you know, Kille, to
your credit, you certainly litigated very well and very able
in the disrecord.

Speaker 2 (32:17):
It's a tough as a matter of facture. In this case,
it was sort of what you would.

Speaker 5 (32:23):
Think of as a typical contract in bodhesion, as you know,
presented an employer of presenting a contractor an employee. That's
a form, it's a line for you to sign it.
You know, it's not the sort of thing that you're
having your own counsel look over and negotiate and go
back and forth on, you know, maybe anything but the
top line salary number.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
So in that respect, it's a very typical.

Speaker 5 (32:43):
Boiler plate employment contract that you know, you see both
in the healthcare context and in the non healthcare contexts
in the six Circuit and across the country. As to
whether that makes a legal difference, there are certainly ways
to try and argue that it should.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Those things tend to.

Speaker 5 (32:59):
Take you down the road of an unconsciability argument, which
is generally a state law argument and is generally not
an easy one to make for plaintiffs. So that's part
of the reason we didn't press it on appeal, and
I think, you know, I don't have any regrets about that.
I think keeping the focus on this was a vout

(33:19):
agreement and thirteen months it's just too long, was the
right way.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
To pitch it.

Speaker 4 (33:26):
Right, agreed. Here's a fun question. Do you think there
was something in discovery they were trying to hide? The
answer is yes, there's always something in discovery that everyone
is trying to hide. We'll find out because, like I said,
we're about to start discovery, and I mean, the reality
is discovery is long and difficult and expensive for everyone.

(33:47):
And so my guess is that this was largely a
decision of convenience for the hospital that they wanted to
dispose of the case without having to go through all
of that, and probably without the public exposure that comes
from you know, high impact litigation like this. One interesting
point that I'll note, which is not connected to our case,
but I think shows the shifts even in the culture

(34:09):
that has happened since Valerie lost your job and soon
is that the University of Michigan has stopped performing gender
transitions on minors under the age of nineteen, and this
is in response to investigations and sub penas and pressure
from various agencies in the federal government unrelated to our case.
And so we think that's very interesting just in terms

(34:31):
of the timing that became public just a few months ago.
And of course, the university still needs to accommodate religious
healthcare providers because there's there's always going to be certain
procedures that do violate the conscience of healthcare providers, and
they do still perform gender transition treatments on adults, and

(34:52):
so it's definitely important for us and for you know,
providers like Valerie to continue to pursue that ability to
be accommodated and to have their constitutional rights respected. But
I do think it's just interesting that timing and the
change in policy that has happened since we started this
case many years ago. A question for you, Kevin, what

(35:19):
about having an affirmative defense denied pre trial? Would that
work a waiver?

Speaker 2 (35:28):
Bastically?

Speaker 5 (35:29):
It depends on what the affirmative defense is and how
thoroughly you litigated it. I mean, the word we used
as often as I could defensively do so in the
opinions was that this was a vigorous motions practice. In
our case, they were sort of zealously filing motions to
the point where at one point Kyle's team filed a

(35:51):
motion for leaf toying to amend. I think I'm getting
this right. At one point they sought leave to file
a reply that they were not otherwise entitled to, so
they both filed the emotion to file apply, and then
they were filed the reply itself. So like these people
were not shy about writing briefs and throwing emotions on

(36:13):
every conceivable issue, if you know, to sort of put
on the defense hat and say, if I was counseled
for a defendant and wanted to make a threshold procedural
issue that was not related to the merits, and I
was careful about the way in doing so, both in
terms of approach and also in terms of substance, saying

(36:35):
that you you know, there's certain opinions from the Seventh
Circuit and the Eighth Circuit to come to mind, and
there might be several others that you can't just reserve
your arbitration right and then do whatever you want.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
If you file a subject of twelve p.

Speaker 5 (36:49):
Six motion and you drop a footnote saying we all
reserve the right to arbitrate, the Court's not going.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
To take that seriously, nor probably should they.

Speaker 5 (36:56):
But if you were to come in with a very
limited threshold restrictional issue that was not tied to the
merits at all, such that.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
The courts resolution of it didn't give you a window
into what they were thinking on the merits, I.

Speaker 5 (37:08):
Think that's going to be an instance where that level
of preliminary litigation probably doesn't.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
Work a forfeiture waiver.

Speaker 5 (37:18):
The more of a window you're getting into the courts
view on the merits, the more you start landing in
forfiture land.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
Okay, that's very helpful, and I think that answered our
next question, which was about what about twelve twelve rule
twelve motions that are not necessarily based on the merits,
So something focused on personal jurisdiction for example.

Speaker 5 (37:39):
Yeah, probably one. You know, those are all like a
little better. But if you file multiple of those and
or yeah, multiple rounds, I think then you're going to
start to stretch the credibility, right.

Speaker 4 (37:56):
Right, that makes sense. What about the issue of knowledge,
because in this case, it seemed like the hospital didn't
know about the arbitration agreement or possibly didn't think of
it or recognize it because they just waited so long
to bring it up. And yet at the same time,
the hospital wrote the arbitration agreement, and so of course
they knew or should have known. So can you speak

(38:18):
a little bit to that issue of knowledge? And could
there be a situation where a party legitimately did not
know about the existence of an arbitration agreement and would
that somehow help them to avoid a waiver or forfeiture.

Speaker 5 (38:33):
Yeah, and I think this gets to the heart of
why to me it always appeared more as a forfeiture
than a waiver. When you're in waiverland, knowledge matters, when
you're in forfeiture land doesn't. And sure, you know, the
University Michigan is a huge organization. They've got lots of lawyers,
lots of litigation. It's certainly possible that these litigans knew

(38:54):
nothing about the arbitration clause until finally getting ready for discovery,
pulling the contract and reading it. And you know, maybe
that would mean they didn't waive the arbitration, right, except Kayla,
to your point, when the hospital's drafted the agreement, there's
constructive knowledge there, So I'm not really sure that works,

(39:16):
but it's certainly better for them. But I still think
from a forfeiture perspective, it doesn't help. And that's part
of the reason why I think it's right.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
To analyze it under a forfeiture rule.

Speaker 5 (39:25):
It's going to be really hard if the defendant comes
in and says, look, we just didn't know about it,
or I'm just the attorney, my client didn't tell.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
Me about this. It's going to be hard to test.

Speaker 5 (39:35):
That and to tell whether or not they're telling the
truth and what they knew and when they knew it,
which is why you've got to assess it under an
objective forfeiture standard that isn't going to turn on particularized
notions of subjective knowledge.

Speaker 4 (39:51):
Do you think that this opinion will have an impact
outside of the narrow context of arbitration.

Speaker 5 (40:00):
As a place to look for the answer to that
would be Judge Murphy's concurrence. He wrote both the majority
and the concurrence. I think he thinks it does, and
he you know, I think I said this already. One
of the reasons I was both excited and fearful to
have him on the panel. Was he had written so
much about this and thought so deeply about this issue,

(40:20):
and his concurrence certainly underscores that that both in the
arbitration context and outside the arbitration context, one of the
ways to distinguished prot forfeiture and waiver is to look
at the source of the right and to trace that
back to the subject of law the right comes from.
I think he probably views it as applying outside the

(40:41):
arbitration context, and I think the thrust of Judge bluecasts
concurrence is not so fast.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
And you know as to what a majority of the.

Speaker 5 (40:52):
Sixth Circuit will do and as to what other circuits
will do, I think it's difficult to tell. But certainly
the intuition of to the last point we discussed forfeiture
being no knowledge and waiver being knowledge, I think this
confirms that that intuition applies alive. And while in the
arbitration context, which was not totally clear in advance, given

(41:13):
how all of the opinions almost uniformly use the.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
Word waiver, would you say that there's a circuit split
on this issue, or did the sixth Circuit sort of
fall into line with all of the other circuits. And
I guess that could be kind of a broad question,
so let's focus it since Morgan, do you think there's
a circuit split, since Morgan versus Sundance about how the

(41:37):
waiver law is supposed to apply, or do all the
cases kind of point in the same direction.

Speaker 5 (41:43):
I think all the cases point in the same direction.
And certainly one of the notes we sound in the
briefing was if the sixer affirmed, it would have opened
to a circuit split and taken the losing side of it.
But I do think although not all of the opinions
have been as precise about the distinction between waver and forfeiture,
is this one, and certainly not all opinions have addressed

(42:03):
it in terms of the text of the FAA, I
think they all. The thrust of all the opinions is,
once you filed a dispositive motion seeking a ruling on
the merits, and once you combine that with the passage
of a non and significant period of time, you've given
up your right to arbitrate, whether under the FAA a
forfeiture standard a waiver standard.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Okay, that's helpful if I remember right. Justice Kagan and
Morgan b Sundanced called it waiver or forfeiture or what
have you, which I thought was just a great way
of putting it.

Speaker 2 (42:39):
Yeah, I think she threw a stopple in there too.
I mean, that was.

Speaker 5 (42:44):
A case that also my firm litigated, and it was
one that you know, in the Supreme Court, these issues
were more fleshed out and got a little bit more
played than they did in the Eighth Circuit. And you know,
Morgan is a wonderful opinion by Justice Kagan that reserved.

Speaker 2 (43:00):
There's a lot of those issues.

Speaker 5 (43:01):
And resolves the case on the narrowest grounds of whether
the prejudicing grave is a proper lens to assess the waiver.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Forfeiture or stopple or what have you question.

Speaker 5 (43:15):
And I think that ambiguity that Morgan recognized the left
open is a big part of this case and this
opinion and why we were able to prevail.

Speaker 4 (43:29):
When you read the concurrences, you mentioned that Judge Murphy
wrote both the panel opinion and a concurrence, which is
always fun, and then there was an additional concurrence from
one of the other judges. Do you think they signal
that there will be more doctrinal refinement in this circuit,
and does that impact how you think about arbitration timing
in future cases.

Speaker 5 (43:50):
It's sort of hard to see exactly how that arbitr,
how that doctrinal development will play out, because to your
point about a slippe split, these issues you're analytically interesting,
and they made it difficult for us on the front
end to precisely explain why we win. But they didn't
change a result that I was always pretty confident in,

(44:13):
which was that we were going to win. And so
when you have an issue that's not really outcome determinative,
it's difficult for me to see a court going on
bank to resolve this. I think also as the fact
that you have two concurrences, which are fairly rare when
the author of one of the concurrences is also the

(44:34):
author of the majority, suggests that a lot of these
things can come down to intuitions about forfeiture waiver or
the proper role that state law should play in the
analysis that are both complicated and can be adiosyncratic. So
I think this was a huge step forward, and I
think re orienting things around the text of the FAA

(44:55):
is certainly the right direction to go in other slippits
if this issue comes up, because that's something it doesn't
turn on intuition.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Or at least it's posted.

Speaker 5 (45:05):
But you know, as to some of the more complicated questions,
I think we'll probably continue to see some concurrences, some
a lot of the articles all sort of.

Speaker 4 (45:14):
Passion that out, yes, we welcome the law of the articles.
And it's interesting you mentioned the text because I do
think this is at its heart a textualist opinion. It
essentially says there's a lot of confusion, there's a lot
of intuitions and sort of different ways that courts have
handled these situations because it does very much depend on
the specific facts and the timing and all of that.

(45:37):
But I think at its heart to go back to
the text of the FAA, which talks about default, I
think that's really helpful and that's at least encouraging for
me as a textualist to see that, you know, judges
truly are trying to get the law right here, they
were careful about it, and ultimately coming back to the
text can sort of anger us so that we have
more predictability, which I do think there's value in.

Speaker 5 (46:01):
Sort of an obvious practice point, especially on a real
society talk.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
But if you've got.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
Text that's relevant, even if it's old texts, even if
there's not a lot of recent opinions addressing it, lead
with it or make it your second arm, because I
think the panel you could see sort of an oral argument.
They were struggling to piece some of the precedent together,
and this gave them a really nice hope to latch
onto and is ultimately the direction of.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
The majority opinion took, so that.

Speaker 5 (46:30):
That choice was ultimately a fruitful one for us, as
it is in almost every case agreed.

Speaker 4 (46:36):
And that's something that really struck me at the oral
argument was that the judges were truly searching for guidance,
and one of them actually asked, you, you know, tell
us what to call this and how do we think
about this case? And I just thought that was powerful,
that they truly did want guidance and you gave it
in a very helpful way. And I think, you know,

(46:58):
going back to that text, it really does or the
judges and it helps them. And that's part of our
rule as advocates. We fight for our clients, we fight
for what's right in each case, and we're able to
help judges to create better opinions that better aligned with
the law, and that's you know, that's a really fulfilling
goal when it happens. One more question here, If a

(47:18):
plaintiff who has an arbitration agreement files a law suit instead,
are they at risk of a breach of contract counterclaim?

Speaker 5 (47:29):
I guess I don't know that I've really thought about it.
The problem that immediately jumps out to me would be
what the damages would be in that situation, especially if
it's a contract that doesn't have a liquidated damages clause
or something like that. I think it's much more likely,
and given the overwhelming thrust of the dynamic in this case,
in these cases, that an employer is going to be

(47:52):
wanting to avoid the burdens and expense of federal court litigation,
They're going to avoid the burdens and expensive discovery. That
rather than seeking to bring more litigation, because of course,
for you're counterclaiming, you know, you sort of think that
the primary claim coming at you is valid, that rather

(48:15):
than invite that litigation and invite discovery, they would move
to get to arbitration as quickly as possible. That's the
laces that they should, and of course when they don't,
and when they wait thirteen months and when they get
a view of how the court thinks about the merits,
and only then do they seek to arbitrate, whether they
knew about it or not. I think the answer before
this case was pretty clear, but now it's crystal clear

(48:36):
that they've forfeited the right to arbitration.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Bink.

Speaker 4 (48:45):
We've covered all of the questions in the chat, so
feel free to send more if members of the audience
have them, But I guess I'll just ask kind of
one closing question for you, Kevin. Are there any big
takeaways that you've learned from litigating this case and especially
from doing the oral argument. We've addressed some.

Speaker 2 (49:02):
Of them already, you know, in terms of briefing lead
with the text be.

Speaker 5 (49:09):
Claire, especially if you're in the peal coort, the difference
between forfeiture and waiver, even if the law isn't clear.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
You know, I was always pretty clear on what I
thought it should.

Speaker 5 (49:17):
Be, and I think that helped frame the way and
I thought about the case, the way I briefed the case,
the way I argued the case, and the panel largely
picked up on that when it comes to our argument itself.
You know, once I found out about the panel and
found out it was Judge Murphy, I certainly went back
through and re read all of his forfeiture slash waiver

(49:40):
opinions and was ready to talk about them, which I
think to move the.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Ball down the field a little bit and the more
broader takeaway I would say.

Speaker 5 (49:50):
You know, this case was a wonderful opportunity for us
to get involved with First Liberty and to team up
with great lawyers, and we certainly learned from Kayla and
her team and the way they litigated this and District Court.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
The way they run it.

Speaker 5 (50:04):
To us, it's also just a wonderful opportunity to get
to know a client and a person like Valerie, her husband,
her kids. We all had dinner the night before the argument,
and it was a very concrete reminder for those of
us that work in the private sector and are representing
companies and.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Entities that are not always a real person.

Speaker 5 (50:25):
To connect you back to a real person who's been
through a multi year saga trying to indicate her constitutional
rights and religious liberty and to be able to secure
a tangible and positive outcome for her was the most
meaningful thing of all. So I'm grateful for the opportunity
I have done it. I'm grateful for Kayla and her

(50:46):
team for having the trust in us to Clement Murphy
to do it. And hopefully it won't be the last
time we get to work together.

Speaker 4 (50:53):
Well, I know it won't be, and I appreciate you
saying that. That's very kind, and I guess that's just
something to mention for folks who might be interested in
these types of cases. At First Liberty, our entire model
is built off of amazing volunteer attorneys like Kevin and
so the reason we're able to take so many cases
and we try to win all of them when we can.
Obviously it's not always up to us. But the reason
we're able to take them and to help these wonderful

(51:16):
clients is that we have attorneys who donate their time,
who work at private firms probably like many of you,
and are willing to do cases with us pro bono,
And we try to do a lot of the heavy
lifting to set up the case for you, but we
definitely try to give you the most exciting opportunities. Like
Kevin here was able to do the oral argument and
did a great job. So if you haven't worked with us,
you know, it's certainly a great opportunity. We're always looking

(51:39):
for new volunteer attorneys, and if there's an area you
know that you have expertise in, that can be very valuable.
One of the reasons we reached out to Clement and
Murphy is that we knew they were experts on the
arbitration issue because they had just litigated Morgan by Sundance
in the Supreme Court, and so that was incredibly helpful
to have their teams deep bench of experience. We've got
a few minutes left and had a couple more questions

(52:01):
come in, so we'll just hit those really quick. Any
read on the trial court's reaction to having its arbitration
order quashed, that's fun for you. Yeah, that's a tough one.
We don't know yet because we haven't officially started discovery,
so we might get a sense of that as we
have scheduling calls and that sort of thing. But a
note of hope, at least for us, is that before

(52:24):
the trial court ruled to send it to arbitration, they
did rule for us on the motions to dismiss and
so we think that's at least encouraging that they read
the facts in the light most favorable to value as
they were supposed to, and seemed relatively favorable. So I think, yeah,
hopefully there's not hard feelings there about being quashed, especially

(52:47):
since this was more of a procedural issue as opposed
to I think it can be difficult when you get
a merits ruling overturns and then you have to go
back to that court. You know, that can be a
little bit awkward, but we'll see, we'll see how it goes.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
And then it's sort.

Speaker 5 (53:02):
Of a curious feature that, you know, the districtration written
a pretty long and pretty complicated and pretty involved opinion
of the motion dismissed that let most of the claims,
and certainly in the core claims proceed to discovery.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
So you know, I guess it's possible that she felt like.

Speaker 5 (53:17):
Her hands were tied on the emotion of compel arbitration
in the emotion for summary judgment, And it's possible, at
least conceivable to me that she might be happy to
see you all back, But you'll find that as.

Speaker 2 (53:29):
Sooner than may.

Speaker 4 (53:30):
That's right, that's right. I certainly hope so, and then
is there any chance of a certain petition? I believe
the deadline for that would be ninety days after the opinion,
So technically we could still see one come in, but
I would be surprised since the hospital has wanted to
avoid litigation. It seems like a certain petition would just
prolong everything. What do you think, Kevin, I.

Speaker 5 (53:53):
Agree, that's a question for the hospital. I don't see
a certain splod here to to that point. We already
discussed if they file sir petition, we'll.

Speaker 4 (54:03):
See, yeah, And then we had another question about the
free speech claims. So this is an interesting one and
it might come up again now that we'll be back
in the district court. I think the main reason that
the district court dismissed our free speech claim originally was
that there wasn't a specific situation where, or at least

(54:25):
from the court's reading of things, there wasn't a specific
situation where Valerie was forced to use pronouns that she
that conflicted with biology. And that was the basis of
our claim, was that the hospital told her you have
to use pronouns that are, you know, preferred, regardless of
what you think about it, and regardless of your faith,

(54:46):
but that didn't actually happen in the sense that they
fired her in the same breath, So we think it's,
you know, a perfectly strong compelled speech claim. Because the
issue of pronouns has been litigated a lot, especially since
since we filed, there's been many rulings saying that you
can't actually compel people to speak names or pronouns or
messages that go against their beliefs. I think that's becoming

(55:07):
more and more settled as an area of First Amendment law.
But I think this particular case was just an interesting
timing because in the same breath as they told her
she would have to use preferred pronouns, they also fired her,
So there wasn't necessarily a chance for that to play out,
but it certainly might come up again in the future,
and I think as a matter of policy, it's an

(55:28):
important thing to watch for in these types of cases,
because of course, employers can have policies about how their
employees interact with each other, but at the same time,
they can't force employees to say things that go against
their conscience. And that's where having something like a religious
accommodation can be a really great live and let live solution,
and that's what Title seven allows for. That's why we

(55:50):
suit under Title seven because it allows for employers to
make their workplace rules and govern their business and the
way that they need to. But when they're able to
commodate religion without there being a substantial increased cost on
their business, they have to do it. They're required by law,
and the Supreme Court has made that clear as well.
So I think that's the beauty of religious accommodations is

(56:12):
that it truly is a live and let live solution
in the employment space. And there are a lot of
great cases on the compelled speech issue. We've got another
one in California right now called se versus Gray, which
is about students and whether students can be forced to
speak messages about gender that go against their faith. And

(56:32):
we got a win on a preliminary injunction and then
that's up on appeal now as well in the Ninth Circuit.
So definitely an issue to watch, and I think in
the healthcare space it's especially important because, like I mentioned earlier,
there's the religious belief aspect of healthcare providers that don't
want to be forced to see things that go against
their faith. But there's also a medical aspect that's very significant,

(56:55):
because if a provider doesn't know the biological sex of
their patient, they might prescribe the wrong dose of a medicine,
or they might miss an important cancer screening, for example.
And so it is definitely an issue that for their
litigation is needed. And since we're going back to the
district court, we will be trying to get to a
ruling on the merits on these types of issues because

(57:16):
we think that they're important for many other healthcare providers.
Right now, Kevin, do you want to take our last question?
Is there any partisan left right tilt in the judge's
opinions on this issue or is it entirely politically control?

Speaker 5 (57:34):
I think it's entirely politically neutral, you know, Judge Murphy,
Judge Bloomcatz, Judge Davis, I think probably type of five,
the full spectrum of the Sixth Circuit, and they all
agree on the tactual basis that formed the holding of
the majority opinion, and the disagreement between Judge Murphy and

(57:55):
Judge bluemcats on the what really do we call this
and how worldly does it apply?

Speaker 2 (58:01):
Is I think perfectly not important.

Speaker 5 (58:02):
So this was really a case I think where the
judges were presented with a difficult legal question and do
their best and gets the right answer.

Speaker 4 (58:14):
All right, well, thank you all for joining us. Thanks
for the great questions and the great discussion. We really
appreciate your interest. And thank you to Marco and to
the Federal Society for hosting this event. We really appreciate it.
I'll turn it back over to you Marco.

Speaker 3 (58:27):
Well, absolutely, and thank you both for that fantastic discussion
and the benefit of your time and expertise today. On
behalf of the Federal Society. I'd also to thank you
your audience for joining us. We greatly appreciate your participation.
For information on more upcoming events, please visit our website
or all major social media platforms at FEDSC.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
On that note, we are.

Speaker 1 (58:48):
Adjourned thank you for listening to this episode of fedsoc forms,
a podcast of the Federal Societies Practice Groups. For more
information about the Federal Society the Practice Groups. Come a
Federal Society member, please visit our website at fedsoc dot org.

Speaker 5 (59:08):
Mm HM