you mean points st i'd like to discuss the proper standard for evaluating whether a plaintiff is engaging protected activity in the district misapplication the reasonable believe standard into direct the court's attention to support the record which is not here's the problem here's the problem i have with your case a don't buy your opponent's argument but if they're mistaken if the employees mistaken about what's going on seems to me pretty clear here that the misuse of federal funds which is what they believed was happening would not violate the false claims honor my position is it's a little bit different and as much as we believe that we wouldn't have to have you know a false claims act violation to be covered but as provided if it was a reasonable belief that there was a false claims act violation that you know given the facts in this in this situation you know it appears that even if if if your punch had a reasonable belief honest belief that there was some inappropriate conduct going on and it wouldn't be something that would constitute a violation of the subset that list lists he's going to examine like and any trust conspiracy or i mean there could be any number of illegal activities that aren't nevertheless you know they were on the track of determining you know whether these funds that you know and then in their interview were coming from federal funds coming from the t v a were being used used to support the the economic development of things and they weren't being used in that form or fashion that lation of the act what you have to prove is that there's been some kind of false claim against the government and there's no there's no suggestion is record whatsoever that they thought that's what it  entity they were told by two county commissioners that this was federal funds on that it was common knowledge that individuals that this was coming ology among the individuals who were directors then and they were they were putting the pieces of the puzzle together and before they could they could do that is when they were there were terminated claim and i don't think that they're under you know there are reading of fans love and other cases that deal with this that you need to have that  unable they did not indicate that there was a false claim made but we don't believe that's the standard that they have to assert that there was a false claim made what do you think that they need to start they had to assert you know that there was a possible or or the employer limited discovery in the case the nature of the funds the spirit of athens that it received from the the tennessee valley authority we we place i think that the district court got sidetracked a little bit in the same way kind of concentrating on what is required to prove a false claims that violation rather than what is required prove a retaliation claim  fine considered federal funds and it would be reasonable for any similarly situated employee to believe that the fines are federal in cases where there is a rico allegation or something like that you know it may not be reasonable at all  mistake of fact about what has happened and their efforts could still be in pursuit of stopping what they believe to be about lay ssion this chapter but i don't understand how misuse of federal funds which is what they believed was happening can can can come within the scope of their efforts to stop one or more act and i believe that if you type of regular people that are trying to bring allegations of fraud to light are prevented from doing so in the very early investigation stages and this is what happened plaintiffs were still investigating they were prevented from investigating internally and they were fired as soon as they requested an audit to understand what was actually going on with the with the money and if that is the standard  i'm sorry i appear to have not been a muted well good morning and may please the court my name is laurence smith and i represent the apple e spirit of athens alabama which is a nonprofit organization that has never received a dime of federal funds or made any claims on the federal government period end of story the parents cannot overcome those two very crucial facts in this case now before i address these arguments and more do tell i want to quickly remind the court about the purpose behind the false claims act it was enacted in the middle of a civil war to expressly address the rampant fraud that was being proposed perpetuated against the federal government it does not protect state governments it does not protect local governments congress did not extend the false claims act at any time to protect against fraud against any entity again other than the federal government and the answer i tell you some provision as your honor is correctly pointed out is part of this federal funds were actually involved right yes or that's correct whether the this court applies the distinct possibility standard or the reasonable belief standard the spirit of athens prevails because for two reasons st that there was absolutely no claim the submission of a false claim against the government they would be protected from retaliation even if they're mistaken about what fact that this was a well founded belief it may be mistaken and reasonable and an employee could be protected for for trying to stop it but the problem here is there's no allegation whatsoever as i understand it that these points as we're trying to stop something that could be construed as a claims that's correct your honor and there's a very good reason that the district court relied heavily on that element of the lock and absence of a claim on the federal government and that's because the record evidence is relationship between spirit of athens and land stand county it was not spirit of athens and any federal agency no relationship between spirit athens and t v a for example the checks that started athens received  were issued by limestone county drawn against limestone county banks signed by limestone county representatives and so there was no there is absolutely no evidence in the record that the appellant believed at any time that spirit of athens had made an actual claim had submitted a grant had submitted some type of required accounting or reporting nothing like that between spirit of athens and the federal government here and absent an allegation that there was a  false claim or a fraudulent claim against the federal government there can be no protected activity and the once retaliation claim fails for that reason other have been appellants attempt to request this court to expand the scope of the false claims act here to really encompass more activity than just what would be designed to prevent fraud on the federal government and here they have failed to identify any case law that would support an extension of the false claims act in the way that they have requested this court to do  there are no cases identified by pan appellants either here at the appellate level or at the trial court level that involved a viable retaliation claim under the false claims act in the absence of either the existence of federal funds or a claim against the federal government and the district court relied heavily on the mccrary being knox county case to determine that an essential element of any false claims act retaliation claim is that claim on the federal government some type of accounting some type of application some type of grant some type of communication from the entity or the employer itself and the federal government and here in this case we have nothing absolutely nothing in the record to suggest that an appellant even during their depositions could not identify anything aside from the annual contract again that was between the spirit of athens and even if we do that the spirit of athens still prevails here because even what the plane the parents thought they were doing which was investigating the misuse of federal funds that in and of itself does not implicate the protections of the false claims act it does not implicate the protections of the anti retaliation provision which again is a part of the false claims act and so we necessarily have to be looking to the false claims act to determine what the scope of that anti retaliation provision is and here we simply have protected activity that falls outside of that scope there's no claim here on the federal government there's no federal hook that would have polled the appellant's behavior their activities within the protection of the false claims but here we don't we don't even have an implication that the false claims act would have come into play we don't have any claims on the federal government so the plaintiffs haven't even identified a belief in a particular claim on this element they don't they haven't appropriately proved that that they had even a good faith belief that a claim was made let alone an objectively reasonable one that even if the court were to adopt that reasonable belief standard under these facts under these circumstances the plaintiffs cannot prevail and they retaliate so we don't we don't need to recheck question do we i mean we don't need to reach the question of whether they're there you know the standard is honest and reasonable belief i think that is the right standard because just taking what they say with the plaintiffs they occur on its face that's right your honor which standard to apply is not outcome determinative here and the district court made that same decision the district court did not reject the distinct possibility standard but rather applied the reasonable belief standard as requested by the plaintiffs to show that even under that more lenient standard that most favorable standard to the appellants their claims failed as a matter of law and that is because there was no claim no no no good faith and no reasonable thought anything about any of that