amendment retaliation claim a public employee he must demonstrate that he gazed in protected st amendment activity that he suffered an adverse employment action and that there was a causal connection between the protected speech and the adverse employment action but under my healthy if the preponderance of the evidence shows that the employer would have taken the adverse employment action in any event then there can be no finding of a causal link between the protected speech and the adverse employment action in other words if there are legitimate grounds which justify the adverse employment action it can't be any st amendment retaliation claim now in our case and as per the cases we've cited in our brief there really can't be any question that the suspension was warranted if it's not legally mandated under mt healthy because he would have been suspended in any event this fact defeats the ones st amendment c retaliation claim in regard to his pension likewise in in the civil service section seventy five dollars proceeding which was upheld by the state courts it was expressly and specifically determined that snowden was guilty of this conduct so again under mt health the existence of legitimate grounds for terminating snowden's employment speech snowden's st amendment retaliating claims that he would have been terminated regardless of whether the the village board rescinded his contract because there were no minutes in between the support in the record no minutes indicating that the contract was ever approved by the village board and further the village attorney had advised defendants the contract would be legal but only because it wasn't officially approved also because it would by and for the board when you have a record like this it shows the circumstances under which a reasonable village board with the argument that there are factual questions as to whether they would have terminated and were suspended and anyway well you're out of the standard for undermount healthy is a preponderance of the evidence  certainty isn't mathematical you know demonstration it's just a preponderance of the evidence and when you look at what it in snowden did here i mean he conspired with the mare for this basically kickback scheme you referred to a preponderance standard i mean were you not motion practice here and is is if inquiry whether aid reasonable jerry could have found that he would not been suspended or commanded but for his st amendment activities yes then that would be the standard if there is proof in the evidence which would support a rational finding by a jury that he would not have been terminated then i suppose there would be a question of fact but our record simply doesn't contain that there isn't a village board anywhere that wouldn't fire mr snowden look at what he did here i mean he was indicted on felonies indicted on this community he was not cleared of those constituents why they didn't terminate this guy if you can't be fired for if you shouldn't be fired for incompetence in this conduct i don't know what you should be fired so i mean you know the preponderance of the proof would  not it would be pure speculation for a jury to say well gee you know with all the facts that there are in the record regarding snowden i could see where the village board would just you know suspend him for three weeks or a month or whatever it is this an position should be and would have been terminated that's what the preponderance of the evidence shows a rational juror finding otherwise would be purely engaging speculation i'd also like to point out that in regard to the a lower court found that the jury could find that figure acted the direction the village board simply because he serves at the pleasure of doing so at the pleasure of the board just means that they can fire him if they have a reason to do so it doesn't mean that he's their puppet does literally court lacks jurisdiction to hear this appeal we feel that the court does because of the qualified immunity argument being made that if there isn't a factual dispute over the sally in fact which i've just gone over and part at least to qualified immunity and qualified immunity only and let me let me confine my remarks to that into interweaving the facts as needed the district clerk correctly held that there was a material dispute as to whether the defendant violated plaintiff's right to political association by engaging in a series of adverse employment actions including a suspension and determination triply after assuming control of the village government the district court correctly held the prior arbitron state court findings do not preclude however this is assumed that the reason they suspended him was because of the indictment not because of their underlying animosity as manifest by six months of prior personnel related decisions which included hiring a deputy without consulting with him then paying the deputy a higher salary than a paid him and replacing him in cabinet level meetings with the deputy not easy and that abrogating a contract the prior board made with him relocating his office to what he described as a closet firing  terminating plaintiff for committing crimes even though the court of criminal charges once dismissed in the interests of justice and then after being adjourned the contemplation of dismissal hearing was a did not recommend terminations in this case with regard to the section seventy five proceeding in this regard the parents also claim their newly hired managers sager terminated plaintiffs even though the terminations letters signed by the famous mayor solomon and represented the expressed will of these appellants the district court correctly held the qualified immunity would not apply if on these facts a jury concluded that retaliated troy atomised motivated each of the st personal actions that decision is plainly correct as a matter of law play the pass the right to engage what is what is the plaintiff's on the plaintiff's version of the facts what is the nature of the political association here because as i look at the record your client doesn't in the complaint does it say he was in them ber jenkins party that they were aligned politically understand the nature of the political association between your client and the mayor of course thank you judge for the opportunity in this case it's a small village and when the mayor needed and this was publicly known and describe affidavit and response the summary judgment potion indicates there was great political consternation and the students in the small village and snowdon and the mayor were entirely aligned with regard to the agenda that the mayor and his team were pushing in addition part of the association was the mayor had been accused falsely in a criminal matter and this disposed was the person who stepped up and testified for him the matter which got great publicity and others w requests on the other side during that brouhaha and associated mr snowden with the mayor by dint of that so there are any number of associations which were in fact political in nature as viewed in the villages viewed by those who were making the decisions they associated as the principal deputy for mr jenkins and that's not denied really in this record i wanted to go on if i might i'm sure there may be other questions yeah i  mean i come out healthy argument he is he is indicted for bribery you know you have a public employee being indicted for serious crimes i it's hard for me to understand why you wouldn't to suspend him immediately upon the indictment for these kinds of crimes well it's interesting in this case if you follow the chronology the indictment came about thirteen months after the underlying event and in this particular case the village propounded no disciplinary charges against my client for two years after the indictment the indictment was premised on allegations which the village itself there were you know what happened with the indictment was essentially the end of the day nothing it was a seed that was no vindication of any of the charges in the indictment the marriage eventually in july two thousand and sixteen years i mean it is your argument that this was a politically motivated indictment and therefore we're not entitled to anyway absolutely but even even if one can and we will show that but even if that's even if that's not accepted animists which had surrounded the phishers conduct was objective really reasonable as a matter of law or i may be appropriate where is no dispute as to the material historical facts if there was such a dispute the factual question must be resolved by the fact finder here in my view charges never brought him up on charges for two years and ultimately when they did bring him up on charges two years later that charge went to a politically appointed person marv had made the conspiracy which council reverted to which conspiracy was never proven never established in a court of law that they would hire someone for five thousand dollars to do a demolition of counsel seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of work the fact of the matter is that mr jenkins made that decision with no input from mr snowden everyone has testified to that mr snowden had known her own getting the demolition permit on the well that was the responsibility of the village matters you're not him and the association between the two  jury would do that to say mr sager somehow acted independently that would be ridiculous this was a primary subject of which this group at the sideline curtailed him and punish him because of association with jenkins that because of what he did was because what he did was if one looks even at the facts found minimal he had no involvement in setting up the contract with mr soto and just a car when that was not his role he had no role in permitting the demolition that was not his role he set up the car and surrounding it to ensure safety during the demolition which was his role was not dispute so even working around the facts found by mr newburgh we can still demonstrate to a jury and this is the same situation  have to assume that they have alleged at least retaliatory motive and submitted some proof of it but i think where the pollies go wrong is unfairly minimizing the importance of the section seventy five officers finding of snowden's in something short of dismissal they could have suspended him for a period of time and that they imposed the harshest discipline possible i mean why why does that not create an issue of fact notwithstanding the finding  question isn't whether they could or the question is whether they would of it can't be the case that every time a public employees engaged in st amendment activity right or being discharged for cause an issue of back to exist on the st amendment retaliation there's always  spectrum of the levels of discipline that a municipal government board can impose on a link with employees but when you look at what it is that the employee did would you be in a position to say a reasonable government official in this position would impose this protect or i will be in when you look at what it is snowden did here i mean he may not been convicted of crimes but he was at least incompetent and engaged in misconduct firing is what would have occurred in the affidavits that were submitted on the summary judgment motion by the defendants i think substantiate that it's important to keep in mind also that although yes to the summary judgment motion qualified immunity isn't just an affirmative defense it's protection from being sued it barred claims against everyone except for the plainly incompetent or or or otherwise no misbehaving official the court needs on a qualified immunity argument the district court to make an initial determination as to whether the preponderance of proof demonstrates that the plaintiff would have been fired under these circumstances i mean objective really reasonable government official now in our