our th case this morning is damian perkins versus milwaukee county good morning mist and good morning may it please the court we're here today because milwaukee county refused to hire john tree hamilton's brother to clean its buses even though the parties agree that there were openings for such a job and that mr perkins was qualified for that job those are some of the only things that the parties agree upon in this case there are a great number of disputed summary judgment to be admitted that he has the authority to do that if you don't comply with local rule fifty six dollars he does however his interpretation of the local rule fifty six point one is different than other judges in the district as i point out with the documents in the appendix what we did in responding to the defendant's proposed findings of fact was risk refer specifically to our proposed findings of fact number which contains the full text of the proposed fact along with citations to specific points in the record i wouldn't i think you're right about the citations to the record that you know cooperated them by reference yes but you cross referenced so many paragraphs it is difficult to piece together exactly what your responses how you're saying it's different i mean it's not like you just say look at i propose findings of fact one you say you know one for eighty nine and then that leaves the court to try to look at those four different paragraphs and figure out exactly what you're trying to say in response so you're right of the record citations but your prose answer isn't particularly clear well and part of that is due to the nature of defend his proposed facts as well because many of them cover what are essentially three or four different facts contained within the one and only geisha and such that it required proof of different parts of the record in him referring to the separate why did you do it right why don't you just write out  objection and record cite there why do you take the shortcut well because the the specific objections to those findings of fact were so lengthy that it would have probably quadrupled or quintupled the length of our responses to the defendant's proposed fact and we believed that that would be more confusing to the court to be handed an inch stack of a document response to their facts and that since we were required by law to file the separate fifty six dollars statement of proposed facts that it made more sense instead of repeating everything with the citation to refer specifically to those proposed facts let me skip ahead i have a question about the record so it's clear from the record that radnor and kalmar knew that he was knew who he was you know his brother was a knew about the family's protests yes is there any evidence that they knew about your client's specific role  that he had made statements i mean and the google me stuff doesn't quite carry it at this point right there has to be some evidence that they were aware of at the time so they just kind of a general awareness of the controversy or were they aware of any specific role your client played  they did they were aware of his involvement in the protests they did not give specifics in their testimony but they knew that he had been involved in those and if you take a look in the appendix at the end of the appendix in the different articles and magazine stories and media accounts he was very prominently featured in those and that doesn't answer the question of what they knew i mean they knew that his family was protesting and that his family stops traffic you know that they're going to john's comment but did they know that he what evidence is there that they knew that he specifically not just that his family generally was participating in this i don't i know we addressed the issue at pages thirty one and thirty two of our brief whether there is evidence that they knew specifically about him they knew who john terry hamilton was mr perkins identified himself brother and we can establish that they knew about the protests and that they specifically knew that he was john terry hamilton's brother whose family stopped traffic in the streets i don't i think we should get the benefit of the inference particularly at the summary judgment stage that they knew specifically about mr perkins involvement on behalf of his brother advocating against the policies and walking police department ok do you want to address police sued and whether malaki county is the right entity yes  we did a lot of preliminary research into this issue and the problem is that no aki county essentially is has outsourced operation of its buses to morkie transport services however they have retained the funding authority through the marquis county board and the oversight authority over the bus system in general what they have delegated to m t s specifically is the hiring of individuals to perform the jobs at mc ts so that the supervising entity the entity that owns all of the means of the employment and the buses and all of the transit components is still haunt the county case and the purpose and citing that case was because it lays out very effectively the timeline how it happened how milwaukee county system was taken over by morkie transport and then as part of our proposed facts which the defendants did not dispute we point out that they even proposed the fact that mt yes has the final hiring authority as to the employees but they are still supervised by milwaukee county who signs the pitcher i believe it's marquee transport why don't you just m t s very good question and there's a very easy answer because our case is one for  if it standing in the shoes of the county can be liable under ninety three dollars it was not immediately clear to us that that was going to be effective and so because the controlling authority with the funding governed by the that that the proper entity for service would be malarky county i mean if the at the very end of the quote we cite points out that ownership is not just viewed it and the court held as a matter of law that milwaukee county retain such control over the company that the buses were operated by the county which would mean that in order to bring an effective st amendment claim we would have to sue  proper defendant do you want to save some time for about oh yes court properly granted summary judgment dismissing the complaint the court st found with respect to the proposed facts that your honor has already addressed with counsel that because plaintive violated the local rule with respect to responding to plaintiffs and defendants in terms of the way we respond that we are to respond within it admit or object and a specific reference to that portion of the record whether it be an judges and i'll be honest i think that some judges enforce it some other judges don't i know that with the examples counsel provided in in the appendix that actually two of the cases dating back to two thousand and ten in two thousand and twelve where the eastern district court judges noted councils or the parties plainness violation of local court has is very clear that the district court has discretion in enforcing and applying the local rules it's an abuse of discretion standard there's nothing in this record before the waukesha county malaki county it is not a proper party the if you go back to the complaint which is what starts the matter and which is what we were responding to at summary judgment and just to kind of a little provide a little bit of the procedural history the summary judgment deadline was before the discovery getline and so on september th we filed our motion for summary judgment based upon the allegations in the complaint and the allegations were against milwaukee county as being the alleged employer that mr perkins was seeking employment with the complaint also allege employees of the la county at the time we filed our motion for summary judgment plaintiff had not conducted any formal discovery by way of written discovery or depositions the depositions were not conducted and till after our motion for summary judgment was filed milwaukee county and the record is clear even after that that discovery your honour's them walking county was not the entity with with whom mr perkins was seeking employment ms kellner was not an employee of milwaukee county ms redner was not an employee of milwaukee county and the district court properly concluded that milwaukee operation buses you know those kinds of thing yes and that may well be the case unfortunately your honour's the record is silent as to other than what the defense presented by way of the record is silent as to any greater information with respect to the relationship between m t s and milwaukee county gypped more specifically answer the question that discovery was not conducted by plaintive moving onto the st amendment claim the constitutional claim the court concluded based upon the pleadings that it was a retaliation playing speech is constitutionally protected that the individual has suffered a deprivation likely due to her speech and that the speech was at least a motivating factor in the employer's action into trimming whether or not speech was constitutionally protected the question is whether or not the speech was a matter of public concern so question of law the court looks to the content form and context of the statement here there is no evidence as to the claimed specific protected speech as your as your honor pointed out and it's noted was noted by the district court and it's in the briefs when asked the question about the specific speech the the testimony was it was too numerous essentially google my name but did they have to be aware of suspicious effects statements i mean if they knew and it's clear that they did know who he was and that his family had participated in protel and the record in terms of what what ms ratner and what ms countered knew was that they were familiar with the name don tre hamilton and ms read more had testified that she st heard the name got to hamilton in december she did not hear mr perkins name until january and the record is clear in terms of their testimony that while they were familiar with the name both ms countered ms radnor that they didn't have knowledge or information as to what if any such support mr perkins may have provided supporting his brother's civil rights so it was a general knowledge not a specific knowledge and in terms of the claim speech your honor even if we look at what the plaintiff has alleged issues with respect to the attachments to the mr perkins appendix if that's what they're now relying on there's no there's no evidence in this record that mr tell her written ms radn knew of any of that had that knowledge which is which is necessary and necessary element for the retaliate there is no evidence in the record that either missed killing her or ms ratner made the decision with respect to not advancing mr perkins in the recruitment process but alternatively there's no evidence in this record that any claim speech again nonspecific undefined and from defendants and respondent  standpoint not sufficient to while if i is as constitutionally protected speech but but just making some assumptions for argument's sake there is no evidence in the record that that any speech was a motivating factor for the decision not to advance mr perkins and then finally your honour's with respect to the authority causing the constitutional deprivation setting aside all of the other evidence three issues your honour's a policy maker as you know is responsible for establishing final government policy or points that out while the while mr perkins makes a lot of arguments he never answered the central question under monella as to who the policy maker was and because seconds the portions of the record relating to the prior responses to summary judgment propose facts in the four cases neither is it to the two cases that addressed it one was in a footnote and the other one was a side note and none of the facts were deemed admittedly in those cases this is that this is a different sanction than  what would ordinarily be provided in particular in the odd case the court specifically set forth the background information noting that he had accepted our proposed funny effect as true as he needs to do under rule fifty six now alternatively in this case if if the court disagrees with our position on the plaintiff's proposal on the plaintiffs propose fanny facts and our responses to the defendant's facts we proposed and now facts to establish liability on the part of the defendant that the defendant admitted in their responses and so there is still a basis for liability on that ground and finally there's a there's a very important distinction that i just want to highlight for a few remaining seconds between defining who the final policy maker is and determining it as a matter of law now this court on appeal must determine as a matter of law who the final decision maker was but we can't do that based on the factual disputes here as both parties dispute who actually made the final decision not to hire mr perkins there was his initial interview and then the responses and then after he came in to speak with the people of the county in the individual defendants they specifically ordered people under them not to hire them not to hire mr perkins and received confirming authority from the highest level  whom had been delegated the responsibility for hiring to not hire mr perkins thank you counsel the cases taken under advise