held responsible when it empowers an employee with complete and under review of the authority and the employee uses that authority to cause constitutional harm here the district gave fredrick inc pl to conduct a reduction in force free from any oversight over here he used that power to engineer the firing of an employee whose complaints about fraud waste and abuse in the government anger mr  causes so what we have here are a combination of positive events right we have governmental action mr king in his final policy maker a is undisputed that he acted in his final policymaker capacity but for someone to get on the river less they have to be placed in the position that has to be right but the supreme court  he did we're not talking about that right now what we're talking about is what you did here well now the court is focused on what the government did wrong it doesn't matter government here is mr king i'm sorry government here is mr kingdom right correct and so the government mr king did several events which was the outcome one of them is transferring him to out of right the moving force i don't like comes out of my head the moving force i don't know what moving force means this is or has explained repeatedly that it means proximate cause and there's nothing about proximate cause  mr king corrected the title extensively of the job that mr thompson held and that that was the action that caused time a nation and do we know whether he was found passing maker on that and or whether the c m government that one of my questions for you in that regard was there were some administrative the by thomson three the appeals related solely to the reduction force i've been litigating this case for a very long time i remember quite well the administrative judge said we're not talking about anything other than the reduction in force and when it became clear that the issue that's now before this court was outside of the purview of the of the administrative appeal there was no utility to pursuing it but the judge judge was was absolutely adamant that that would not be included no no that's not my question sir my question is did you challenge the transfer before the ministry to the judge in the administrative judge said no i deal for the district of columbia and and in that regard it doesn't matter what none of these other aspects of the case matt turns on not whether there are multiple calls it events in bryant county there were both governmental and non governmental positive  despite that the court still permitted liability because mondale does not limited liability to circumstances in which the government is the solo wrongdoer but a bigger mr king is the person who transferred thompson to the river position when he is a governmental actor yes so that's not a non governmental event where the transfer is non governmental in a sense that it was not performed at least according to the argument of the defendants by a final policy so it is still governmental but it's not final policy maker action in that mean that's the whole point is to if it's if if it's performed by someone who is not the final post the maker then why isn't that fatal to you under no truce proof because because my now does explained it and i don't think that this work has addressed the sort of concurrent causes problem that we're discussing but the th circuit broken jones versus williams the conduct of two or more persons can operate at the same time there aren't we're talking about whether mr king is the power policymaker for the relevant action here joran not and regular well yes but what we're talking about is a relevant action we don't want to call a trap that the district has laid for us of assuming that the relevant action is just the transfer that transfer there wasn't a transfer there was or there was a move that was made to take thomson from a job where he had job security into a job that was read whatever you want to call back the question is did king have final proximate cause is not concerned solely with the immediate direct cost when we look at proximate cause whether we use a but for stand or whether we use the the transfer into the doomed position would have been meaningless but for the fact that the very day before mr king had slated that position for elimination mr king knew what he was doing and intended the outcome in pemba are the core of the supreme court held that when the policy makers are intense and action i beg your pardon i think i'm talking about not a single personnel decision so that's consistent with your we look at the whole picture of how this happened generally referred to as three steps now if in looking at that nd step it's a reclassification as it was originally characterized is there any question that king was the final policy maker as to read classifications from my perspective no has the district just argued that the c m p a applies to re classification that's interesting you know ok now if it's a transfer we found in our partner opinion that mr king was transferring people around as part of  and so that he was a final policy maker as to transfers implementing the rest now the transfers there were to protect people i don't know why it would be any different it was a transfer to harm somebody and so as to the transfer if it's a r implementation transfer was he not the final policy maker he was then why are you running away from this problem you've got him creating a spot you've got to either reclassified or transferring the raft and then you've got him executed i don't i don't understand why you spend so much time trying to avoid that i suppose i might just sort of fall into that trail your honor we argued in our brief that  to the transfer slash reclassification is that we don't need to get into that because the process was not just look at post a look at whether this collection of personnel decisions which everyone has broken into three stops clearly a transfer related to the roof no one can argue that a reduction in force is about eliminating positions not personnel that was not the case at the into the doomed position was part of the river as we have contended from day one then yes mr mr king was acting according to his final policy in doing the transfer the question of whether or not he's policy final poll to make real legal question so what law regulation statute or he we that there be a reduction in force the d c council complied by passing this law that that allowed for the reduction in forces of various agencies to have been by command of the agency had with zero involvement zero of how it writes i don't recall that statute saying anything about classification from the class no it didn't i don't think that in and out of my eyes this decision making associated with a reduction in force so narrowly but i don't think it has to have done in order to empower mr king to act with final policymaker authority be specific that were the case and it seems like thompson three with him so the it very seriously and we addressed it very seriously and argued there we argued that mr king was a final policymaker as to all respects but we also take the view that it is it is conceptually incorrect to assume or to take the position that each step each causative event i don't think so i do not believe you know whether it applies to an internal agency transfer where for the time he was still there put aside to get the constructive removal part he didn't have a change in job responsibilities pay to the extent that mr thomson would react and that the reflectors lation says there are no rights attending the ref was there any claimant could there have been any claim that taking away those rights with due process is not that you get a hearing is that you get whatever the government says you get if we step back maybe a little push a little bit harder we may well say here's a guy and now the law changes to deprive him of those rights i do not believe that we you know i forgive you i think i don't know whether we made the argument that the law of the underlying law was itself improper or at least as applied to someone in the position of mr to correct at least as applied speaking more broadly i think there are lots of good morning and if it please the court i'm mary watson representing the district of columbia just are we classified whatever you want to call it and that position had not been rebuffed the rd stop there would have been no constructive removal you would agree with that it takes all three steps to have the constructive removal is just that the transfer knowing what had happened before and knowing the three separate was coming transfer in someone into a doomed position that is step three is what becomes a constructive removal the transfer by itself without that rd st the ending would you agree that if in fact step three had never happened if on the after the day after he moves mr king into this position of sorry mr thompson into this position if on the rd day mr king and said wait a minute i don't holes and we certainly recognize that he hasn't had a property interest in his position prior to the at will statute and acted but it seemed very odd to me in your brief to sort of say this was a human resources job because when you talk about construct every move nobody sends a memo to human resources that says wink wink nod nod this transfer or this reclassification it's a construct let me ask this question let's suppose he had not been transferred to a position that was really he was just reclassified to some other condition but he didn't merely reclassification that was and i know we know he has no got provision of any property interest and nothing to challenge the deprivation of the property interest here comes because everything amounted to that it should consider apart from the word of the statute the fact that mr king was moving people around i take that to be transfers maybe it was reclassification to protect them from their wrath and i didn't undoubtedly during that time period of nine thousand six hundred and ninety seven time period undoubtedly some of them were transferred into or reclassified into a position that was subsequently  n during that time period what position did the district of columbia take when any of those if any of those were challenge before  the district of columbia take the position that the request for cation or transfer was governed by the see him yea government has created an independent board to review personnel mistakes then it is not them that is the policy making it's not the policy making of the individual decision makers who make a mistake when they are going there i mean the bottom line here is rest position and then execute arrest took place none of those individual actions implicate a property interest he has a property interest protected by due process in this case because he lost his job if if you're application of a ref to someone who has a property interest in their job something that would trigger at least as applied to such a person due process right guys the property interest is created by the because it does get sort of reality on the ground he had the kind of job that i think a reasonable government professional would think this isn't going to be read because this is a necessary function even when we get down to bare bones in the financial existence of this position is going to be here and in fact it didn't continue to be there after mr thomson was removed the security officer position and security systems administrator position so i guess the question is where where and how to and i guess you're saying well it evaporates as soon as it's encompassed within the realm because you know this is something that is the property interest original position was going to be rough he was in that position he had a property interest in his career service here property interest in his job and what triggered the concerns here was that they had this riff going here that they had the authority to go and they still here in this ng because he was denied a constitutional proper here and he was just reffed there was no property interest it's it's it's that's the point it's a it's a theme collective personal decisions that were manipulated to deprive him of his property interest all happen to be if those three steps are ones that were in their nature put aside the fact that you couldn't shove m thomson into this program but in the nature of their actions were the types of things that he had the authority to do then it seems to me the government doesn't get out of monella by saying well everything he did he had the final independent authority to do so because it turns out to be illegal as applied to him he's not the final policy maker i don't think that or let me put it this way if there were no c m p rights as to each of those three steps individuals is there any authority that you that says that a constructive terminations is governed by  unconstitutional parole replication the court said that was not the board's policy that that was the district's policy because it just said that the board cannot go parole without in process so to hear the district has said is a final policy maker as to the relevant actions what was beginning if sorry if someone is a final pick policymaker as to the relevant actions that harm somebody made this argument that oh yeah maybe or it seems like nobody was seriously disputing that he made that argument or indeed that it accurately described at some level what happened but i'm interested in your position because i had thought that you had sad as the position of d coherent at least that he has no use for the request haitian and he has no use for a term asian in the red i thought that was your position and i don't think meaning to taking individually isolated but if his argument is as it was that those two things together were a ruse as you know a scam ref then under let it in this court's earlier decision and fitzgerald he can argue that oh yeah that i wasn't ready i was really live here the fundamental reality the real reality on the ground that mr johnson had no you gave up your rights the judge was very clear not interested is it possible th yes and there are countless cases where you know this court will drop a footnote saying something i was super clearly it's in their official capacity so you know we're we're we're recognizing it that way  were all with related or did not cause him if taken it out of my right step to cause no harm but if he's been caught up in the river and if the river itself so here mr can i say he was damned if you did and damned if you didn't he had no remedy other than this suit and the district has done lots of technical reasons for finding that it's not going to be held responsible that who or what the district did was wrong it happened because of mr king's final cause and making authority but for that authority this never would have