position that that is not the only bit of causation that was in this record there is clearly other facts which can established authorization and are that it starts on the reinstate sieberg was reinstated to his job in ninety four there was an immediate problem i think the order was that he'd be reinstated at the same level as all the folks he was hired w with originally that essentially didn't happen because he wasn't given the same grade as the others now we have a gentleman here who then makes complaints about that and so it's sort of an ongoing process he got his job back he received a term appointment which is year by year except drugs until ninety ninety nine but the whole thing continued to happen so to speak during the time affirmatively offer anything in favor of causation and and i haven't really heard anything from you that suggest anything other than well because this happened here and this happened later there must be a connection what evidence is there to suggest that there's a connection other than the fact  said one thing happened earlier and one thing happened later and well i think that again starting with his reinstatement not being similarly situated to expires than soon there it will stop right there what tells us that the dates noted it's very difficult because the parties have different dates so the successful complaint was in ninety four he's reinstated them and what he complained about happened i've forgotten whether it's ninety two were ninety but sometime before he complains in ninety two he's reinstated in ninety four and you say that he wasn't reinstated at the proper level of well that's something you could have complained about of the time but what tells us that the failure to put into the proper level was connected to what was retaliation as opposed to a misunderstanding of the misunderstood the order and did what they thought they were supposed to do and that's where we are that's our now after explaining the passage of time by that maybe as you suggest somebody did miss saunders and the award or something like that but that's a significant i don't agree with that and basically if you have never been around to return to work which is a fairly strong statement by and by someone from the employer my question is what does that statement mean in the context of your claim because it does seem like it would raise a factual issue if it were attached to some adverse and climate action but i can't figure out what that is right well i follows the problem that takes some time then we're very very much closer to ms well these actions in september of ninety seven i believe is when that alleged harassment started to occur so there's not  first look at the operative date really as when he's reinstated and there's nothing but problems since then for for mr seabird and that's the difficulty is i employee eight tries to buck up and live with his situation while making appropriate complaints does the passage of time while he does that mean that he has no claim and that's protect employees from discrimination in the workplace along with that goes the right of an employee to file a complaint of discrimination without fear of retaliation however the fact that an employee discrimination does not give that employee a free pass for the rest of his or her life it does not mean that anything that the employee disagrees with that happens afterwards is retaliation federal employees i should say are limited to the issues that are raised in investigated at the agency level is weak for each claim of discrimination there are elements of proof that must be met and several issues of retaliation as a result he has to show that he engaged in prior protective activity after that there was an adverse action and that there was a cause a connection between the prior protected activity and the that the length of time between the prior protected activity and the failure to hire him in january february of one thousand nine hundred was to launch create a causal connection that the court would find the cause of connection despite the fact that years had elapsed there was absolutely no evidence presented that a legitimate reason given by the navy for not speaker one of those permanent positions was pretextual mr seabirds undisputedly which at last on the list of applicants for the position and the individuals who chose the people for th testimony that somehow his entire application was not considered he tried after the position had closed to resubmit information and the human resource department advised them that at that point they were not able to do that because it would not be fair to the other applicants that they had to wait think they had to raise each applicant on the information that was given to them at the time and which is what they did and there is no evidence after he filed his march one thousand nine hundred ninety eight claim that he was retaliated against because he was not selected for a permanent position he filed another claim saying that after that his current supervisor at the female supervisors retaliated against him by criticizing his work between march and approximately the end of april when he was reassigned to another supervisor complaint they were not on the record in the ego completely miss files with the agency invention those those those particular statements in his response to the summary judgment motion there is no evidence that those statements were made but assuming for evaluation in the month and a half the street that he complains that she was criticizing him there was absolutely no adverse action so even assuming argue when joe that she made those statements there was no a the only thing is that mr sieberg continues to say that everything that happened to him after he was reinstated is a result of discrimination i would like to point out though because i think it's been a little confusing here four he wasn't hired he grieved it and the navy agreed to reinstate him that we in statement in any concerns he has about whether or not the navy reinstated him issues that we have discussed this morning