promoted and made more money got a bonus why was a police beneficial territory because in the only metric that other measures the workload it were the worst off i mean the the terry issue i mean yes he did receive a home and again i didn't see any evidence like a reduction in pay or anything like that some time trying to find how a jury could possibly rationally be for age discrimination if you tell someone look you're you're areas as  going to have to have some evidence some evidence from which they can infer a discriminatory motive so i'm not suggesting there have to be a while in the monkey but they you have to read the whole situation sacred a jury have and some evidence mention well let me also ask you about that i think that the act or the statement here was asking about how long he planned to be around is it ever appropriate for employer to ask an employee about their retirement plans or is that sort of a per se age discrimination no i don't think it's necessarily per se just connection but i think it very clearly you have to look at the question in context in which it was made and discriminatory know that but their reason was the same as his work was to love white why would that be material the fact that one thought this was a possible solution where another person thought it was the only solution  i mean if i think we want to confine him to a territory where were opportunities were or are within on the ground then then then that would seem to me to be an unsustainable argument if they offered him a territory closer to home that that now and that was a larger but had no more opportunity  it would require mr boehner to start all over again and rebuild the relationship that he had already had in new york with little not apples and apples this was here in the developed territory that in which you know the players and what you were doing for some thirty years which is going to a territory where you don't know that you know with all the players you have to build those relationships you have to start again from square one so surely be the new york human rights law i believe covers everyone over twenty five years of age are you saying that anybody twenty five years or older was asked to plaintiff michael bohl injure was a longtime employee of abbott who chose to retire in two thousand and seventeen after more than forty years with the company rather than explore a possible change in his assigned terror sales territory in response to the unacceptably low workload in his existing territory the district court judge ecan reviewed these events conducted a careful and thorough review of the record and concluded that the plaintiff had not shown any genuine issue of material fact to link his separation from the company to discrimination based on his age and as such he dismissed the plaintiff single claim under the city human rights law the district court construed the facts in the plaintiff's favor as required of summary judgment and applied any of the undetermined legal standards in the more plaintiff friendly way thus obviating the need for it to decide and for this court to decide any of the contested or undecided issues of new york city law that the case may present to the plaintiff has given this court no basis to disturb those conclusions on appeal the plaintiff's burden is to show that he was treated less well than others because of his age and if the plaintiff is unable to link his treatment to a discriminatory motivation specifically is in each his claim fails and summary judgment is appropriate there's no need for this court to examine the prime official case and those  related steps of the inquiry because the district court proceeded directly to the ultimate question of pretext and concluded that there was no evidence of age discrimination here as as has been discussed thus far there two independent series of events that are at issue in this case they are separated by time by decision makers and by business rationale in two thousand and fifteen abbott went through what is called the specialization that is outside the three year limitations period and therefore not actionable the plaintiff does not dispute the timing but argues the continuing violation doctrine states the claim  but there is no specific no sufficient evidence to support application of that doctrine here and then the nd series of events occurred more than two years later in tw response to the plaintiff's unacceptably low workload to important to keep in mind that everyone on the plaintiff sales team experienced a decline in their workload following the tw specialisation and in fact others experienced a much greater percentage decline than the plaintiff did the minimum acceptable standard was eight hundred hours and the plaintiff in two thousand and seventeen was at three hundred and forty six hours and he was the only one below the acceptable minimum threshold so abbott's supervisors that the plaintiff knew supervisors at the time concluded that his territory was not viable but his continuing employment was as the question so far have shown the plaintiff made more money after the specialization and received a promotion a great increase and in response to the suggested a very sensible solution that appeared favorable for the plaintiff he would experience no change in pay or status he would be a side actually closer to home than he was his home in new jersey rather than having to commute to long island there is no requirement in this sales territory unlike in some companies there is no requirement of having existing relationships or a book of business or anything of that nature that's not the way this roll on the other hand and i mean one of long i understand that your honor but but that it that happened to everybody in the two thousand and fifteen specialisation there were various hospitals that had been assigned to one salesperson or another for a not for some period of time before then and the company made the decision because of the way they were structuring the customers in the sales territory that they would switch those customers up so everyone regardless of their age experienced a change in their assigned customers in two thousand and fifteen and that would and that had whatever effects it had and that would have been true for the plaintiffs in two thousand and seventeen in new jersey had he chosen to accept that assignment but again this was not a relation is not a position where it was where one's success or failure was dependent upon having relationships and exploiting those relationships or developing a book of business or a volume of sales the way they were judged as we've seen was based on the workload associated with the territory and there is nothing in the record to indicate that that territory that was proposed to him in new jersey was not viable or that there was that it was just some sort of  tries to make much of the argument that there was some discrepancy in the explanations for the two thousand and seventeen events but in fact the explanations of the two supervisors mr sticky and mr brown were actually quite consistent dickey was the more senior supervisor testified that when they st discussed the issue they did not discuss eliminating the plaintiff territory but simply saw his low workload and discussed the need to find a solution for his low workload mr brown testified that mr satirically told him brown that the plaintiff territory was not viable and that the workload was too low but not what would happen as a result and th it was only in subsequent conversations that mr satirically said that the territory would be eliminated the record is clear on that point and so when mr brown spoke with the plaintiff he told him that his territory was not viable but did not tell him that his territory was being eliminated and that's because mr brown spots a dicky that that was consistent with what his own boss had told him the plaintiff declaration saying that mr brown told him that the territory was being eliminated in the st conversation that actually contradicts the plaintiff's deposition testimony that point as we discussed in our papers and in fact so it was the plaintiff who was inconsistent in his account of those events not the two habits supervisors what occurred in light of that conversation is that the plaintiff chose really not even to engage about the possibility of the new territory and instead he unilaterally submitted retirement papers through human resources and chose instead to accept his  begin receiving payments under his long vested pension and to retain his habit stock and to enjoy an active retirement plan of testified he was not aware of what would have happened if he had dug his feet in and stayed in the new territory and he acknowledged in fact that he might have stayed five more years if he had chosen to stay on and have the new territory and in connection with the tw events and as we noted a completely different set of supervisors issue during those events there are no comments no alleged comments not even a single stray remark or any other reason to suspect that there was an age related motivation whatsoever in connection with the two thousand and seventeen events and so for those reasons we urged the court to affirm the judgment of the district court  we never went down that path until after mr volunteered for them to not be interested in the new jersey territory and he opted to retire so it's very clear that b p only consider elimination territory after