"I'm not familiar with the precise details of that citation; do you have a copy of the ruling?"

"I do. But while Heaven is correct that 'Ashraf Jabar,' if they are indeed an alias for a cleric of Mephistopheles, does have limited remit as a port of last resort for arbitration, such inexpert rulings have traditionally considered significantly less persuasive even when the identity in question is authoritatively accepted; between the limiting factors of Louisa's own lack of knowledge and failure to exhaust all reasonable alternatives, it does not weigh very strongly upon the question of if their belief they were acting Lawfully was reasonable and is outweighed by other factors like the factual case of the matter and existence of alternative courses of action that did not violate the oath."

"Fine, Axis v Noëlle doesn't apply. But Rafaela Eligio is an Evil servant of an Evil god, and per Heaven v Hell -9560, that means they have partial culpability for 'acts in furtherance of an Evil cause' that 'depend on the wilful deception of the agents of good... and result in negative changes in alignment,' which is in turn partially exculpatory for Louisa."

"That's bad case law. It's overly broad in its application as it is and you're stretching it beyond the bounds of plausibility. Plus, it requires establishing that 'Ashraf Jabar' is an agent of Mephistopheles or some other evil divinity, and that going from Lawful to Chaotic is a 'negative change in alignment.'"

"Hell has indeed frequently argued in opposition to the so called 'no bullshit' ruling before, but it's never stuck and it remains valid case law to this day. As for the question of Ashraf Jabar's identity, are you conceding that the truth is decision relevant for alignment such that this court should authorize a fact-finding mission to determine the truth?"

"While the argument for Lawful to Chaotic as a negative alignment change for the purposes of Heaven v Hell -9560 is indeed much more poorly supported than that of Good to Neutral or Neutral to Evil, that's not the same thing as unsupported. Per Abadar and Asmodeus v Urgathoa -8600, if both parties to an agreement have a revealed preference for Law - such as by both following Lawful gods - going from Lawful to Neutral can indeed be considered a negative outcome under some circumstances, though the details of Abadar and Asmodeus v Urgathoa are sufficiently different from our current situation that the test therein isn't applicable."

"A nonstandard cite from 13000 years ago? At least the other ones are common enough that I've heard of them. What are you trying to pull here?"

"Nothing, Your Honor. I have the transcripts available if you would like them, and my usage is in line with general policy that 'where no directly relevant precedent exists... the nearest applicable such case should be supplied and modified as feasible to comply with the principle of stare decisis...' that's from-"

"I know where it's from, just give me those papers."

"Alright, I see the argument but the case being made here is in fact extremely sketchy. If it ends up being decisive, I'll make a ruling on it, but if it's not I'd prefer not to stretch precedent beyond its limits without cause. Anything else before we move on to other matters?"

"Actually, Your Honor, I have something to add. Heaven v Hell -9560 doesn't apply in this case because it presupposes an Evil act from the part of the 'Evil servant of an Evil god' in order to bring that part of the precedent into play. Since this doesn't qualify as Evil, whether or not Lawful to Neutral is a 'negative alignment shift' is immaterial."

What are they trying to pull here? Okay, actually, trying to avoid that precedent does make some sense from the perspective of Elysium, but it should be obvious the stakes are much bigger than that. If Elysium really considers itself to be damaged by the precedent, they can talk about it with Nirvana and Heaven afterward and arrange some sort of compensation; in the mean time, she can at least deal with this argument after shooting Elysium a look to shut up.

"Traditionally, an ambiguously Neutral act from a sufficiently Evil source can be assumed to be Evil for the purposes of some precedent, including this one. See Asmodeus v Sarenrae, -7604."

"That would indeed hold if I was saying it was a Neutral act. But I'm not - I'm saying it was Good."

"Okay, you're going to have to walk me through that one."

"My case is simple, Your Honor. When attempting to determine the alignment of actions coming from unclear motivations, the two primary considerations are the methodology and the outcome. In terms of methodology, Eligio chose to work with a follower of Iomedae, who he would have had strong reason to expect to take Good actions. Furthermore, in pursuance to this he harmed nobody - and indeed as a supposed cleric of Abadar, he sold access to healing spells to people in need at extremely low prices. This is even more altruistic than an actual Abadaran cleric doing so, since unlike a Neutral or Good cleric of a Neutral god he had no ability to channel positive energy and could not spontaneously replace unspent spellslots with cure spells - it came at real personal cost. Certainly falsely imitating a cleric of Abadar is Chaotic, but not Evil. That in turn leaves effects, of which the primary outcome of him faking a ruling on Axis v Noëlle was Louisa getting several other Paladins together and defeating an Evil cult, rescuing several towns in the process, that's a Good outcome. I'm almost positive that if it were instead a Caydenite running the scam on Louisa there wouldn't be doubt of it.

"Good outcome, Good methodology, presumptive Good action."

Are they... setting groundwork for a ruling on Eligio's trial? Not better than Chaotic Neutral, surely, but compared with Hell or Abbadon that would still be an enormous step up. It still rubs them the wrong way to be using someone else's trial to do that, at the expense of the person on trial, but if it weren't for the potential precedent being set here they could see the straightforward good argument for it, and Elysium is well known for disdaining social rules or precedent if it ends up getting the result they want - it would be incredibly infuriating if the results in question weren't far more Good than Chaotic. 

Nirvana still can't support the argument, and not just because they aren't sure how to definitely not get in the way while trying, but this does at least seem like plausibly a better outcome than if Elysium hadn't sent a lawyer in the first place so they'll keep silent for the moment.

"Hell concurs with this argument."

There's something of a grin on the Deimavigga's face. It's not a nice look.

"Heaven objects to this line of reasoning."

"In your estimate, is your objection likely to effect the relevancy of Heaven v Hell -9560 substantially?"

"No, Your Honor."

"In that case, we're already getting off into the weeds here and I'd rather get back on topic. Does anyone have further novel arguments to make on the specific valence of Louisa making and breaking the oath, or can we move on to considering other relevant aspects of the decedent's life?"