Lincoln National Life Insurance Company v. Imperial Premium Finance Company, LLC , 778 F.3d 1205 ( 2015 )

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[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 13-12559
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 9:11-cv-80427-DMM
STEVEN A. SCIARRETTA,
As Trustee of the Barton Cotton Irrevocable Trust,
Plaintiff–Counter Defendant,
versus
LINCOLN NATIONAL LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY,
Defendant–Third Party Plaintiff–
Counter Claimant–Appellee,
ROBERTA COTTON,
Defendant,
SANFORD L. MUCHNICK,
Third Party Defendant,
IMPERIAL PREMIUM FINANCE LLC,
Non Party–Appellant.
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________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(February 26, 2015)
Before ED CARNES, Chief Judge, and RESTANI, * Judge, and MERRYDAY, **
District Judge.
ED CARNES, Chief Judge:
J. Alfred Prufrock saw the moment of his greatness flicker and the eternal
footman hold his coat and snicker.1 If there had been an insurance policy on his
life like the one that gave rise to this case, Prufrock might have seen beside the
footman a grinning speculator rubbing his hands in gleeful anticipation.
We are all, in the long view, born astride the grave. But allowing parties to
use life insurance policies to bet on when an unrelated person will drop off into the
grave raises public policy concerns, which have led to restrictions on the practice.
One of the principal restrictions is the requirement that the purchaser of a policy
have an insurable interest in the insured’s life. As often happens with regulatory
*
Honorable Jane A. Restani, United States Court of International Trade Judge, sitting by
designation.
**
Honorable Steven D. Merryday, United States District Judge for the Middle District of
Florida, sitting by designation.
1
T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” ll. 84–85 (1920) (“I have seen the
moment of my greatness flicker/And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and
snicker”).
2
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restrictions aimed at thwarting the operation of a market, evasive schemes have
arisen to circumvent the insurable interest requirement. Imperial Premium Finance
LLC used one of those schemes, which led to a criminal investigation of the
company and also to it being subpoenaed in a civil case arising from the scheme.
In response to that subpoena Imperial designated a corporate witness to be
deposed, as provided in Rule 30(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and
that witness also testified for it at trial. After the trial was completed, the district
court imposed a monetary sanction against Imperial based on the court’s finding
that the company had in bad faith prepared the witness selectively in order to
further its interest. This is Imperial’s appeal of that sanctions order.
I.
Although Imperial is not a party to this lawsuit, the company’s actions led to
it. Imperial’s primary business involved stranger-originated life insurance
(STOLI). A STOLI policy is a speculative investment device that entails gambling
on the lives of the elderly. In its purest form, a STOLI transaction works like this:
A speculator secures an agreement with a person, who is usually elderly,
authorizing the speculator to buy insurance on that person’s life. The speculator
usually gets the policy in the largest amount available and pays the premiums,
hoping to profit in one of two ways. One way is if the insured dies before the
premiums paid exceed the death benefit. Under that scenario the sooner the
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insured dies, the fewer the premium payments that are necessary to obtain the
payout, and the greater the return on investment. The other way the speculator can
profit is by selling the policy to another speculator for more than the premiums
paid up to the point of that sale.
Imperial’s business was not a STOLI scheme in its purest form. Instead of
buying a policy on a person’s life outright, Imperial provided financing for life
insurance premiums in the form of a loan whose terms allowed Imperial to
foreclose on the policy and become its owner if the borrower defaulted. The
typical loan had a term of two years, a relatively high floating interest rate, and
“substantial” origination fees, all of which made the borrower more likely to
default. For example, the $335,000 loan Imperial made in this case had an interest
rate that floated between 11 and 16 percent, and it had origination fees of nearly
$112,000 — more than a third of the loan principal.
As mentioned above, most states try to prevent STOLI transactions by
requiring purchasers of insurance policies to have an insurable interest in the
insured’s life. See, e.g., Ala. Code § 27-14-3(f) (requiring an insurable interest at
the time a policy becomes effective); Fla. Stat. § 627.404(1) (requiring a person
purchasing insurance on “the life or body of another individual” to have “an
insurable interest in the individual insured”); Ga. Code § 33-24-3(h) (requiring an
insurable interest at the time a policy becomes effective). But see Tex. Ins. Code §
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1103.056 (allowing any person, including a corporation, to purchase insurance on
any other person’s life so long as the insured consents in writing). Seeking to
evade those insurable interest requirements, Imperial drafted its loan agreements to
require that during the term of the loan the policy be held in irrevocable trust (with
a trustee chosen by Imperial) for the benefit of the insured’s relatives. The
structure of Imperial’s loans made them a sure bet with nothing but upside. If the
borrower managed to pay off the loan when it came due, Imperial got its fees and
interest, walking away with as much as a two-thirds return on its investment in two
years. If the insured died before the loan matured, the arrangement ensured that
Imperial could collect out of the policy proceeds the loan principal, the fees, and
the interest it was owed. That was usually a substantial sum.
But it often was not as much as the value of the policies themselves, under
which the beneficiary stood to collect hundreds of thousands or even millions of
dollars upon the death of the insured. The ticket to that jackpot for Imperial was
the clause in the loan agreements allowing it to foreclose on the policies in the
event of default. In part because of the loans’ oppressive terms, most of Imperial’s
loan customers did default. As a result, Imperial knew from the outset that it stood
a better than even chance of not just collecting the interest and fees but obtaining
by foreclosure ownership of the policy and the full amount of the policy upon
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death of the insured. And it would all be done, Imperial thought, without violating
the letter of the laws designed to prevent STOLI transactions.
Imperial’s carefully designed scheme to get around the insurable interest
laws did not keep it out of trouble. Part of its practice was to “assist” prospective
insureds in filling out the insurance applications, and that is what led to trouble.
Because insurers want to avoid issuing policies that will be used in a STOLI
scheme, they typically require applicants to disclose any intent to seek premium
financing. Knowing this, perpetrators of STOLI schemes often make what the
Florida Department of Insurance describes as “misrepresentation[s],
falsification[s], or omission[s] of material facts in the life insurance application.” 2
And Imperial was no exception. It eventually admitted that when its employees
thought that truthfully disclosing the financing arrangements would harm the
chances of having a policy issued, they “facilitated and/or made misrepresentations
on applications that the prospective insured was not seeking premium financing.”
That fraudulent behavior came to the attention of the United States Attorney for the
District of New Hampshire, who in 2011 launched an investigation into Imperial’s
business. That investigation resulted in an April 2012 non-prosecution agreement
with Imperial. In return for not being prosecuted, the company agreed to give up
2
Fla. Office of Ins. Regulation, Stranger-Originated Life Insurance (“STOLI”) and the
Use of Fraudulent Activity to Circumvent the Intent of Florida’s Insurable Interest Law 2 (Jan.
2009).
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its premium financing business, fire or accept the resignations of the employees
responsible for that business, and pay an $8 million fine.
With that background in mind, we turn to the facts of this case that led to
Imperial being sanctioned.
A.
In late 2007, Florida resident Barton Cotton met with insurance agent
Dennis Felcher because Cotton wanted to buy a multimillion-dollar life insurance
policy and finance the premium payments. Felcher referred Cotton to Larry Bryan,
who Felcher knew was “doing that kind of work.” Bryan contacted Imperial about
financing the premium payments for Cotton. Imperial, of course, was interested.
In April 2008, Cotton granted Bryan’s company WealthModes the exclusive right
to procure, finance, and sell insurance policies on his life.
The next month, Cotton and an irrevocable trust in his name applied to
Lincoln National Life Insurance Company for an $8 million life insurance policy.
Consistent with Imperial’s standard practice and in order to evade Florida’s
insurable-interest law, the beneficiaries of the trust were Cotton’s wife and
children. Cotton falsely stated on the insurance application that he was not buying
the policy for resale and that he would not use a third party to finance the premium
payments.
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Lincoln issued Cotton a $5 million policy, which became an asset of the
Cotton trust. Bryan advanced the premium payments to the trust until Imperial lent
the trust $335,000. The trust used that money to repay Bryan’s advance and to
continue making the premium payments. As usual, Imperial’s premium financing
loan had a floating interest rate between 11.5% and 16%, and the loan agreement
authorized it to foreclose on Cotton’s policy and become its owner if the trust
didn’t repay the loan by its maturity date. Because of the high interest rate and an
“origination fee” of nearly $112,000, after less than two years Imperial’s $335,000
loan to the Cotton trust had ballooned to more than $557,000.
In May 2010 the eternal footman came into view –– Cotton was diagnosed
with esophageal cancer. Cotton’s bad news was good news for Imperial because
the value of a STOLI policy varies inversely with the life expectancy of the
insured. Imperial began marketing Cotton’s policy for sale. The loan used to
finance the policy reached maturity and became due on August 6, 2010, and Cotton
died two months later. At the time of his death the trust had not paid back Imperial
for the loan, but Imperial had not yet foreclosed on it, which left the trust for the
benefit of Cotton’s family as the record owner of the policy.
After learning of Cotton’s death, Lincoln launched an investigation which
turned up the fact that Imperial had financed the purchase of the policy on Cotton’s
life in order to market it to speculators under a STOLI scheme. Concluding that
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was enough to amount to fraud in the procurement of the policy, Lincoln refused to
pay the trustee of the Cotton trust the death benefit.
B.
In April 2011 the Cotton trustee sued Lincoln for the death benefit. Lincoln
counterclaimed, alleging fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and civil conspiracy.
Imperial made a second loan to the trust to cover its litigation costs but, as we have
mentioned, it was not a party to the case. Still, Imperial asked its outside counsel
to represent the trust.
During discovery, Lincoln sought to depose Imperial under Rule 30(b)(6) of
the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. By that time, Imperial was aware that it was
under criminal investigation. Because the topics included in Lincoln’s subpoena
touched on subjects related to the criminal investigation, Imperial’s managers and
employees exercised their individual Fifth Amendment rights and all refused to
testify in the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition in the Lincoln case. As a result, Imperial
sought from the court either a stay of its deposition or permission to prepare and
use an outside witness to testify as a designated corporate representative in the
deposition and at trial. The court allowed Imperial to use an outside witness for
that purpose.
Imperial hired John Norris, an independent economist with a history of
testifying as an expert witness, to serve as its designated corporate representative.
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Imperial provided Norris with some 20,000 pages of documents, and its counsel
met with him to brief him on the corporation’s knowledge about the topics listed in
the subpoena. 3 Imperial’s managers and employees were as reticent with Norris as
they were with Lincoln. None of them would talk with him, so Imperial
communicated with Norris through a single lawyer in its general counsel’s office.
Along with that official preparation, Norris also did some “slight Googling of
Imperial” and “found some general background information” about the company.
Lincoln deposed Norris for six hours on January 4, 2012. During the
deposition, Norris was often unable to answer questions apparently because
Imperial had not briefed him on the answers.
Lincoln later subpoenaed Imperial to testify at trial. The topics in the trial
subpoena were identical to those in the Rule 30(b)(6) deposition subpoena.
Imperial told Lincoln that it would again provide Norris to testify. To prepare,
Norris reviewed the deposition transcript and the attached exhibits, but he did not
seek additional information about topics on which he had lacked information
during the deposition. Imperial’s outside counsel, who was responsible for
3
Imperial said that its outside counsel billed 72 hours of attorney time and 56 hours of
paralegal time preparing Norris to testify at the deposition. Norris himself billed 50 hours of his
time preparing for and testifying at the deposition. According to him, he used that time to review
the subpoena and pleadings and to go “through th[e] documents in the context of” the topics in
the notice of deposition.
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educating Norris, did not ask him to obtain any additional knowledge in order to
testify at trial.
Near the end of the trial, Lincoln called Norris as a witness. During the
course of his direct testimony, which spans 31 transcript pages, he was unable to
answer about 20 questions due to his lack of knowledge. Norris volunteered four
times that he had done nothing “to further [his] understanding” or to “seek any
further clarification” about materially identical questions that he had been unable
to answer in his deposition. As he put it, “the thought never crossed my mind in
the course of preparation.” On cross-examination, the attorney for the trust elicited
testimony that Imperial had financed the premiums for 183 Lincoln policies. After
cross-examination ended, the court asked Norris about the mushrooming loan
balance, about the interest calculations, and about the reasons for commission
payments to insurance agent Felcher. Norris knew next to nothing about those
matters or the loan. He tried to arrive at some answers by performing calculations
on the stand, but he could not get it right. He arrived at the wrong amount of
interest by incorrectly characterizing more than $78,000 in fees as interest. He also
had no answer for the question about the payments to insurance agent Felcher,
explaining that he had simply not asked Imperial about that.
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The jury returned a verdict in favor of the trust. It found that Cotton and
others had conspired to commit an unlawful act 4 and that Cotton had made
material misrepresentations on the application for insurance, but it also found that
Lincoln had not relied on or been damaged by the misrepresentations and similarly
had not been injured by the conspiracy. The jury also specifically found that
Cotton had not intended to “assign[] or transfer[] [the policy] to someone with no
insurable interest in [his] life.” The court entered judgment for the Cotton trust for
the $5 million death benefit and $850,000 in attorney’s fees, 5 plus costs and
interest. Of that $5.85 million, the trust paid approximately $2.24 million to
Imperial for the principal, interest, and fees it owed on Imperial’s two loans. The
remainder of the judgment went to Cotton’s wife and children as beneficiaries of
the Cotton trust.
C.
The morning after Norris testified at trial, the court expressed concern about
his and Imperial’s conduct. The court characterized Norris as having been “blatant
in his failure to follow the rules” for a designated witness. Imperial, it said, “hid
4
The verdict form suggested that the unlawful act might have been an act “such as
procuring a policy that lacked an insurable interest at inception, or misrepresenting material facts
to Lincoln in the application for the Cotton Policy.” But the form did not specify which of those
acts (or what other act) the jury found Cotton and others had conspired to do.
5
Under Florida Statute § 627.428, an insurance company that loses an action for payment
of a benefit must pay the plaintiff’s reasonable attorney’s fees.
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behind” Norris, meaning that it hid facts harmful to it by not briefing Norris on
them. The court notified the parties that it was considering sanctions against
Imperial and Norris, and it invited briefing and argument on that issue.
After Lincoln and Imperial filed briefs on the issue, the court held a two-
hour hearing. During the hearing, the court offered Imperial the chance to present
evidence and argue against sanctions. It observed that Norris had given “one of the
worst performances by a witness that [the court had] ever seen,” that he “didn’t do
his job as a witness,” that he “was basically trying to help Imperial to the detriment
of everyone else,” and that he had prepared only “to help his client’s side of the
litigation.”
After the hearing, the district court issued an order assessing sanctions in the
amount of $850,000 against Imperial. The district court explained that Imperial
was the driving force behind the litigation and its selective preparation of Norris
constituted bad faith. It said that the company’s “promise of an educated and
independent witness was simply a ploy to allow [it] to escape scrutiny, yet still
benefit.” The court found that Norris had “exhibited deliberate ignorance to any
inquiry harmful to Imperial’s interests while at the same time trying to
affirmatively help the Trust and Imperial’s counsel at every opportunity.” It
reasoned that because Imperial had created the issues that led to litigation, Imperial
and not Lincoln should bear the costs of the plaintiff’s attorney’s fees. The
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$850,000 sanction left the main damages award to the Cotton trust undisturbed but
inverted the award of fees under Florida Statute § 627.428, in order to “prevent[]
Imperial from obtaining attorney’s fees and costs from the party harmed by its
inequitable conduct.”
II.
Courts have the inherent power to police themselves and those appearing
before them. Chambers v. NASCO, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 46, 111 S. Ct. 2123, 2133
(1991). The key to unlocking that inherent power is a finding of bad faith. Barnes
v. Dalton, 158 F.3d 1212, 1214 (11th Cir. 1998). Once unlocked, the power carries
with it the authority to assess attorney’s fees as a sanction for bad faith conduct.
Chambers, 501 U.S. at 45–46, 111 S. Ct. at 2133.
We review a court’s exercise of its inherent power to impose sanctions only
for an abuse of discretion. Chambers, 501 U.S. at 55, 111 S. Ct. at 2138; Eagle
Hosp. Physicians, LLC v. SRG Consulting, Inc., 561 F.3d 1298, 1303 (11th Cir.
2009). An abuse of discretion occurs when the district court “applies an incorrect
legal standard, applies the law in an unreasonable or incorrect manner, follows
improper procedures in making a determination, or makes findings of fact that are
clearly erroneous,” or “when it misconstrues its proper role, [or] ignores or
misunderstands the relevant evidence.” FTC v. AbbVie Prods. LLC, 713 F.3d 54,
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61 (11th Cir. 2013) (citation and quotation marks omitted). Imperial raises three
arguments for reversal. None have merit.
A.
First, Imperial points out that Lincoln did not object to Norris’ Rule 30(b)(6)
deposition testimony and had asked him questions on the same topics at trial. It
contends that Lincoln thereby waived any objections to Norris’ answers (or
nonanswers) and was estopped from seeking sanctions. Even if Lincoln did waive
and was estopped, the district court didn’t waive and wasn’t estopped. Lincoln did
not raise the subject of sanctions or impose them. The district court did. And
district courts have the inherent power to bring up the question of sanctions and
answer it. See Roadway Express, Inc. v. Piper, 447 U.S. 752, 765–66, 100 S. Ct.
2455, 2463–64 (1980) (court may assess attorney’s fees on a finding of bad faith);
Muhammad v. Walmart Stores E., L.P., 732 F.3d 104, 108 (2d Cir. 2013) (“[S]ua
sponte sanctions . . . should issue only upon a finding of subjective bad faith.”);
Willhite v. Collins, 459 F.3d 866, 870 (8th Cir. 2006) (a sua sponte award of
attorney’s fees “is permissible under a court’s inherent powers as long as the
person being sanctioned has demonstrated bad faith”); In re Itel Sec. Litig., 791
F.2d 672, 675 (9th Cir. 1986) (“Sanctions may also be awarded sua sponte under
the court’s inherent power.”).
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B.
Second, Imperial contends that the sanction was not merited because
Imperial and Norris complied with the Rule 30(b)(6) and trial subpoenas. That
depends on what “complied with” means. Imperial claims that it educated Norris
on each of the topics in Lincoln’s subpoenas, but this is one of those cases where
“a little learning is a dangerous thing” for a party’s purse.6 The district court found
that Imperial selectively educated Norris and acted in bad faith in doing so. We
review a court’s finding of bad faith, and the subsidiary factual findings that go
into it, only for clear error. Mar. Mgmt., Inc. v. United States, 242 F.3d 1326,
1331 (11th Cir. 2001). Under clear error review, we will reverse only if “after
viewing all the evidence, we are left with the definite and firm conviction that a
mistake has been committed.” Travelers Prop. Cas. Co. of Am. v. Moore, 763
F.3d 1265, 1268 (11th Cir. 2014). We are not.
The district court determined that Imperial had acted in bad faith based on a
finding that, among other actions, Imperial had selectively prepared Norris, not
that it had failed to prepare him at all. The court pointed out that Norris was
prepared to answer questions in ways that were helpful to Imperial, but that he
lacked knowledge when the questions turned to areas that might cast Imperial in a
bad light or otherwise harm it. Preparing a designated corporate witness with only
6
See Alexander Pope, “An Essay on Criticism” l. 217 (1711).
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the self-serving half of the story that is the subject of his testimony is not an act of
good faith. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 30(b)(6) (“The person[] designated must testify
about information known or reasonably available to the organization.”).
A contrary result would allow Imperial to convert the investigation into its
admitted criminal behavior into a stroke of good luck. Imperial’s own employees
who were knowledgeable about the transaction that gave rise to the litigation could
not take the stand and offer non-answers like Norris did, at least not without
perjuring themselves. So the company seized on the existence of the criminal
investigation as an opportunity to craft a perfect witness for its interests: one who
was knowledgeable about helpful facts and dumb about harmful ones. As the
district court pointed out, that all-too-clever behavior is not far from the long-
disallowed use of the Fifth Amendment as both a sword and a shield. See United
States v. Rylander, 460 U.S. 752, 758, 103 S. Ct. 1548, 1553 (1983) (a court must
not “convert the privilege from the shield against compulsory self-incrimination
which it was intended to be into a sword whereby a claimant asserting the privilege
would be freed from adducing proof in support of a burden which would otherwise
have been his”); Arango v. U.S. Dep’t of the Treasury, 115 F.3d 922, 926 (11th
Cir. 1997) (same). The district court did not err, much less clearly err, when it
found bad faith in Imperial’s calculated preparations that produced the one-way
witness that Imperial designated to testify for it.
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C.
Third, Imperial contends that the sanction imposed by the court violates its
due process rights because the $850,000 sanction is “unjust and unrelated either to
any harm caused to Lincoln or the alleged misconduct committed by Imperial.” 7
To make that argument, Imperial claims that its only misconduct was its designee’s
testimony at deposition and at trial. But that’s enough, and there was more.
Imperial was, as the court found, “the driving force behind the litigation” and was
“at the heart of” the conspiracy that the jury found. Lincoln would never have
needed to go to court in the first place but for Imperial’s misconduct. To address
that misconduct, the district court tailored its sanction to “prevent[] Imperial from
obtaining attorney’s fees and costs from the party harmed by its inequitable
conduct” — that is, Lincoln. In these circumstances it was not an abuse of
discretion for the district court to determine that assessing attorney’s fees as a
sanction was both just and closely enough related to the harm that Imperial caused.
7
Imperial also argues that the district court should have complied with the rules
governing civil contempt, which allow contempt sanctions only to coerce compliance with the
court’s order or to compensate the complainant. See Martin v. Guillot, 875 F.2d 839, 845 (11th
Cir. 1989). Sanctions imposed for contempt of court are not, however, the same thing as
sanctions imposed under the court’s inherent power to police against bad faith conduct before it.
Different rules apply to each. See Chambers, 501 U.S. at 46, 111 S. Ct. at 2133 (distinguishing
between attorney’s fee awards under the court’s “inherent power to police itself” and the
“sanctions available for contempt of court”) (quotation marks omitted); In re Mroz, 65 F.3d
1567, 1575 (11th Cir. 1995) (same).
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The district court did not require Imperial to pay Lincoln’s own fees, but
only those of the Cotton trust that were shifted to Lincoln under Florida law as a
result of the judgment against Lincoln. In other words, because of its misconduct
Imperial was required to pay the fees of the party that had to prevail in order for
Imperial to recover on its loans.
The district court’s findings were not clearly erroneous and its imposition of
sanctions was not an abuse of discretion. The sanctions order is AFFIRMED.
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