strong performance ratings that's reflected in the record testimony of my colleagues and supervisor at page one thirteen that all changed in two thousand and two when i testified on behalf of the union in an e mail action brought against the agency in april of two thousand and two and then in october of two thousand to my first your complaint against the agency six weeks the filing that complaint my acting supervisor john hall because objective means a very traumatic experience physical devastated by the delayed to investigate it all and then the failure to adequately investigate that serious incident that's the beginning of the hostile work environment that's closely with physical confrontations intimidation such as moreno in human resources department pounding the table while the abuse meet attorney schwartz in the general counsel's office a subordinate of  for failure to investigate adequately and remedy problems but that surely can't make it because if you have a whole i mean that would that would tur responsible for the investigation when we did today in the human resources department and then to the pension area where i work and each stop you see his subordinates acting and it's reasonable to infer from the complaints yana that they're acting because of to monitor everything that's going on and to started proceeding i guess when i heard hears that some somebody feels that something has happened but could be an provided an obligation the agency said until of course the soul is that when you use the company proceeded they have an obligation to investigate i would be the best evidence of them not complying with that up with geishas the acts continue and they continue today so it's not necessarily circumstances which is something need a court in the decisions what's really going on in my environment when the general counsel refuses to act when he has an affirmative obligation to act and we have evidence that they've already been fo morning good morning may please the court the allegations of occasional discord in the spares workplace folder meet the threshold per tell a story hostile work environment primarily because the things about which she complains are fairly ordinary tribulation attorney involved in union activities introduce new political disputes and as a person who frequently represents employees in administrative litigation against the agency as well as performing her duties as in a recent bankruptcy attorney  short the context of these of these this workplace matters a great deal because the incidents alleged here were not abusive and they were collectively not intimidating insulting or ridiculing with a simple and with a su let's be honest lawyers with me type a personalities and they fail to satisfy the objective standard for severity and pervasiveness and one place i'd like to start in terms of responding is this notion of what what work place a still be we're talking about the only things that the proper focus should be on his parents working environment not the entire working environment p v c and other words if somebody sends an email to somebody else that miss baird is not a recipient on a never sees title seven wouldn't reach disparaging comment about her performance or her hair and wouldn't create a it wouldn't contribute to a hostile work environment for her and that's the key it's a hostile work environment for her the kinds of things that she's she's talked about today with one who will wait a minute why wouldn't it and even if she doesn't see it and i get i e mail from a coworker that makes some snide remark about someone else and i'm thinking you know that could happen to me if i complain about their survive do such and such so the fact that she doesn't see it i don't see if it's we're looking at you know what it dissuade a reasonable person then i think what we're talking about is  impact that you might have on your working environment and the the key here is to define the working environment and the allegations and then you have to look for a nexus of their connectedness and then whether they're severe and pervasive and a single isolated remark i  submit and rarely if ever except if it's as we know from one case in this in the fannie mae case one word in the workplace is absolutely forbid but we have cases like bay lock and gross where we've got supervisors yelling at  coworkers and engaging in various you know e mail correspondence flinging a heavy notebook at an employee and doing things that are more directly related to the employee's employment  and even those kinds of things have all been held by the court to fall beneath the level of title seven what we have here is a fairly classic case of title set of been or miscarriage trying to use the agency civility code to create title seven liability and that's something the supreme court has said is inappropriate for the very reasons that the court a six talked about this morning which is it becomes income it gives rise to a hostile work environment every time somebody looks at somebody specific incidents of an attorney during a deposition for example want to break becoming frustrated and pounding a table that this horror of this court is familiar with the litigation scene that is in the context not particularly physically intimidating if the table separates you and there's no nothing else described nor the allegations that create a situation that you can envision as intimidating ridiculing or dismissed it and with prejudice so i'm not saying it can't be considered at all but it can't it can't it isn't logical connected to any of the events here it's also fairly remote in time the allegations considered by the district court here between two thousand and five voluntarily dismissed with prejudice so i believe she did not consider on that basis it's also even about it's not the reason it's not connected it logically to any of these other incidents it's separated in time they're completely different people and there is no other incident alleged that's as physically intimidating the police get incident a somewhat different because it's in a confined space in her office she doesn't appear to have an easy means of escape and it seems that mr pulling it took a step or t toward her so it's a it's upon a mentally different kind of thing there are no further questions we were  impacted and that's exactly what happened here the rules as the court said in your first decision on employment benefits it is clear the agency didn't comply with that obligation and that they treated my clean very differently from the complaints of an employee