who has long had its during the time period relevant to this case had long sought to achieve the rank of sergeant he was found pre qualified for that rank as early as two thousand and fifteen and was placed on the the city chicago's prequalified candidate list for a promotion to sergeant in two thousand and fifteen he remained on that list all the way up through two thousand and seventeen the event where the the events relevant to this case really ossified this case alternately is about chris logan's denial of that promotion to sergeant in march th seen on the bases the city's alleged basis of him having more than seven days suspensions in the prior calendar year it's that denial of promotion that is the adverse action that motivates this entire case and it's that denial of the promotion in march th teen that we believe forms one of the bases for the district court's error in this case namely the district court found that the whistleblower act claim was ordered by the one years statute of limitations from the illinois tort immunity act it is plain just ultimate position here that the court misapplied that doctorin here because it ignored the continuing violation rule that the quintessential but this is a quintessential case for the continuing violation wall to apply mr casper and how yes is it a continuing violation as opposed to the here's the issue with that chris logan has no control over when this city conducts promotions and he has no knowledge of when the city is going to conduct promotions he has no way of but that doesn't impact or change the analysis that the consequence of not getting the promotion is exactly that that is a where there is a continuous set of acts by the same act or better of a similar nature and this faulting case applied that rule to say that the one you're statue limitations cannot apply where you've got repeated acts by the same actor and they're of a similar nature and that's exactly what went on in this case with the multiple suspensions that were proceeding from reading and may again and again and again that all added up to the denial of the promotion in march two thousand and seventeen now in the reply brief i pointed out something interesting and i can see it's in the reply brief i can see that but in a way the continuing violation in this case really looks like a form of equitable tolling and that's another basis that should be applied in this particular case because i go back to the fundamental premise why would chris logan file a lawsuit after september two thousand and sixteen over a denial over a promotion that hasn't occurred that he doesn't know will occur and that he has no idea when will occur it defies belief that he would run to court to file a lawsuit over a promotion that hasn't happened yet and he has no idea when it's going to happen but your ethical tolling argument really seems to be based on on no notice but the policy here which he certainly had noticed was crystal clear about the potential consequences of suspension so i don't know how you could argue no notice and equitable to tolling i understood your equitable tolling to be crowded in a lack of notice which is not what's called in talks now and even if it did again on the facts here this city's palace e with respect to internal candidates promotions was very clear that they couldn't be promoted if they had a certain number of days to suspension but again and that's where i come back to the point even with that policy and sure we can see logan made at the notice of the policy he still doesn't know when the promotions are going to occur you know has no idea so yes he was on a list that had a one year timeframe it expired in two thousand and seventeen so he know if it was going to come up it was going to be within that one year period that the list was in effect but respectfully that's not quite true because the list had been extended several times he was originally put on it in two thousand and fifteen and the list is good for your but then that was kept getting extended so i noticed that it it's been extended but he still knows under that list that there is a timeframe but  he doesn't know when the promotion is going to occur but yes but i want to go back to your discrimination claim you've brought a claim for gender discrimination and for race discrimination our case law under gender discrimination is clear that if you're not in a protected class that you would have to show that the city here discriminates against men or that there is something fishy going on the city raised that in it brief and i did not see any response to that in your reply what evidence do you have here on your gender discrimination claim that the city just criminal acts against men are that there was something fishy going on here misunderstood mr casper are you not appealing that district court's ruling denying or granting to city summary judgment on gender discrimination i'm sorry i wasn't clear i am not appealing ok this was this was error because the court did not liberally construe the the record in favor of plaintive there is a huge gap a genuine issue of material fact as to what occurred in that meeting between chris logan and mr casper the district court when you say that the district court i think didn't take the district court did consider what logan said to reddy i don't think at least it is your argument to the district court got wrong what logan said he told granting or is your argument that the district court didn't  didn't read it in the same way that logan did because i think the district court does consider what logan said to reading instead i just going to assume this is true and then he the district court goes on to say this doesn't come anywhere close to an objective belief of reporting sexual harassment this is staying away from my girlfriend type stuff is nothing to do with harassment but that's not what logan testified for his depositions that he answer your question i would say that i do believe the report did not fully read or slogans deposition and it just took out one statement from that as the basis for a ruling logan testified in his deposition and it was more than just a way for my girlfriend given that there's no dispute that ms diamond had a different employer how do you get around the object of prong of retaliation specifically how could it be objectively reasonable or objectively reasonable given that there are different employers here and title seven if you have the same employer i guess my response to that would be that logan himself suffered the retaliating from the city of chicago after does that address the objective problem because for retaliation there isn't a subjective and objective problem well i think that's where we go back to the credibility issues i mean we have three people that are involved in this and reading him so what we've got to look at is his testimony about this conversation with logan too i mean reading is amazing he denies that logan made any statements about diamond beyond just saying oh i guess you met my girlfriend readings as there was nothing else having that conversation at all well we had to know how could it be and i bothered to interrupt mr cassar but you're going back to the subject of problem how could it be objectively reasonable for logan to believe that there was retaliation here under title seven given that they didn't have the or there has so there's they don't have the same player here and i get that but i guess the question i'm posing is why should that make it different so let's do a hypochondriac the law mr casper it makes a difference so i'm trying to find out what your argument is why there is an issue of fact on the object of reasonableness prong given that they have different employers because i'm looking at it from logan works for the city of chicago logan reported sexual harassment to the city of chicago logan suffered the adverse actions from the city of chicago now i understand diamond had a different employer but we have his supervisor was harassing another city employee but he's complaining about his supervisor harassing someone who doesn't work for the city how can that be objectively reasonable your honor i would i would like to submit that that there's a good faith argument for interpreting this law more a little more broadly than that what so if just big so i thought if i have a supervisor who's harassing a customer who doesn't work for me like viciously harassing and i report that to the company then the company fires me are we saying i don't have any kind of retaliation claim for that that is you only have a minute left you want to say that for rebuttal but i would i would just submit it's  your honor just to please the court mr logan committed several very serious infractions in which he abandoned his post misrepresented his time and treated a member of the public discourteously he was denied a promotion he received discipline for these serious infractions which made him ineligible to receive a promotion under the city's internal hiring policy the city's decision to deny him that promotion was plainly illegitimate and the district court properly granted summary judgment to defendants this morning i will explain that mr logan's title seven claims fail on the merits i will then explain that mr logan's illinois whistleblower act claim is time barred and in any event discrimination or retaliation he failed to present any evidence to show that the city's reason for denying him the promotion was pretextual and he failed to present any evidence of any discriminatory or retaliatory intent on the part of any of the defendants notably mr logan does not dispute that under the city's internal hiring policy he was ineligible to receive the commotion nor does he dispute that he committed the very serious infractions that led to his discipline instead he argues that he was targeted for discipline unfairly and that he was to say that he was disciplined more harshly than similarly situated officers but as we explained in our brief mr logan has presented no evidence to support either of these claims i'm in regard to mr logan's title seven retaliation claim the only as we explained in our brief again it is undisputed that the only a lleged complaint that preceded the discipline in this case was the conversation with that mr logan had with deputy commissioner reading regarding ms diamond and as we explain even as we  as the district court also explained even accepting mr logan's view of the events that led up to that conversation he simply had did not have a subjective or an objective belief that he was opposing conduct that was  seven and as your honour's pointed out title seven requires an employer employee relationship and that was simply not present here as miss diamond worked for the u s customs and border patrol were protection i'm sorry under the federal government and deputy commissioner reading work for the department of aviation and i would also like to respond briefly to mr casper's comment that title seven protects  contractor if a not employee does harass an employee and the and that employee's employer fails to remedy that harassment that could potentially implicate title seven but that was not the case here there was no instance of for example if miss diamond had complained her own employer about deputy commissioner readings harassment that would be a different matter here but that was not simply not the case here this was involved  deputy commissioner reading allegedly flirting with ms dimond and there was no employer employee relationship to fall to bring that conduct under title seven and even so i would like to point out  that even if this court were to find that that particular conversation constituted a recording of your protected title seven that was protected title seven conduct there is absolutely no evidence in the record of any causal connection between may and reading him and that analysis your honor at that text message i believe that occurred around april two thousand and sixteen and that was indeed  indicated that there had been some discussion perhaps between deputy commissioner reading and may about ms diamond but there was no evidence in the record heat of the county follow conversation regarding that text message the contents of any conversation so it's really unclear from that particular text message what had occurred what had been conveyed to may what he knew about ms reading i'm sorry deputy commissioner reading  ability the inability of a witness or a party to recall the details of a conversation that sort of lack of clarity regarding the details of the conversation or the details of a particular event in a case is not sufficient to raise a genuine issue of material record about saying they couldn't remember the details or what happened next and the text itself makes clear they're talking about fact he's kind of making fun of him for logan colorado now to the extent that that particular tax shows knowledge on their part of mr may of any alleged reporting of sexual harassment again that the fact that there was sort of lack of any recollection about the details of that conversation really does go to doesn't create a genuine issue of material fact and that piece because there was no evidence there was nothing in the record that there was any conversation that you know that that conversation involved any detail of you know mr logan reporting to deputy commissioner writing that he was you know reading was flirting diamond so it was just unclear there's no recollection of of the contents of that conversation to demonstrate that mr may was even aware of any reporting i'm to the extent that that text message could be used to show some sort of a cause of connection between the conversation and the discipline in this case even if we were to say that that conversation showed some sort of you know animosity on the part of deputy commissioner reading in history logan over this conversation it is simply still too far attenuated in time from the discipline in this case and you know this court has held that a period of several months between  and so in this case even by the time even in july two thousand and sixteen at the time that deputy commissioner reading and other defendants began looking into mr logan's absences and that that again was still a period of three months or so between this text message and the and looking into that those infractions and then subsequently disciplining in september so if so that was still far too long to support an inference of violation theory what's important is that if there was there has to be repeated injurious conduct that service continues over a period of time  indeed as you're as you're pointing out there may have been some instances leading up and until this discipline but the important point is at the time that he was disciplined that that was the the final  adverse employment decision from which damages did flow so the even if we were to consider anything preceding that as some sort of continuing violation what we're looking at is the statute of limitations would begin to run at the time of that adverse employment action and your honor mr casper did point out that there are argues that the decision to deny him the promotion was the adverse employment action in this case and i would like to point out as we do in our brief that that was not as a specific decision that was not at the station that was made by any of the defendants in this case and in fact it wasn't even really a decision that the decision to the denial  the motion was really a ministerial act performed in the human resources department that was done for every candidate on the pre qualified candidate list it really just involved looking up to see if they had any discipline in the proceeding twelve months would make them ineligible for that promotion you know determining based on the records that he was ineligible so there was no separate adverse decision that was made in march two thousand and seventeen that would be considering he'd be considered sort of a separate adverse actions a separate discrete action that would trigger the statute of limitations from starting all over again it was really as as your honour's pointed out it was an additional ill effect from the discipline that he received in september two thousand and sixteen and i would also like to point out that you know even accepting mr logan the issue that he was unable to file his complaint until he was officially denied the in argument that you know that it was unfair simply unfair to enforce the staff should rheumatisms against mr logan in this case a simply without merit i'm at the time of the suspension mr logan was i notice that the city city's hiring policy and he was on notice that he would be ineligible to receive any promotion that may arise in the next year and in addition at that time at the time of the suspension he believed that the discipline was a result of retaliation based on that prior conversation with with mr between deputy commissioner reading of news about ms diamond indeed in early october two thousand and sixteen already he had filed internal complaints with the city alleging that he had been retaliated against based on that conversation about ms diamond so there was nothing preventing mr logan can filing a complaint at that time  based on that his is his belief that he had been unfairly disciplined based on discrimination and retaliation and for that reason his illinois whistleblower act claimed it's time bar and as we also explained in our brief his whistleblower act claim is also without merit for the same reason his title seven retaliation claim fails on the merits he simply failed to present any evidence that he was retaliated against that he was disciplined in retaliation for reporting a violation of the law and for that reason his his summary judgment was proper on mr logan's whistleblower act claims and if there are no further questions your honor we ask th vs stratosphere and day vs court cases which the cited language here does suggest that harassment of non employees can be a basis for liability and also in the day case an employee mean gaijin protected expression under the retaliation section even if the challenge practice does not actually violate titles so the answer is question that would be the legal basis for that argument as well as what i stated before about an absurd result to interpret it otherwise thank you very much for your consideration thank you mr kemp kasper thanks to both counsel the case will be taken under