naive this case stalled at the stage where the district court found that we had to be naive about fifty and as reasons for terminating officer anderson that we couldn't really look at the evidence to see whether there was pretext or whether he would have taken the same level of discipline against officer anderson in light of the findings and the evidence in the investigations and that's not the test under the mt healthy but for test the defendant has the burden to show that there is conclusive evidence that unprotected unprotected behavior was the but for cause of the action stated another way the defendant had to show that there was only one reasonable conclusion that the department would have terminated officer anderson and there really is plenty of reason to doubt the end is explanation and at scott's as well and i'd like to amplify some of that evidence for instance i'd like to start with  deposition of the end of which is in the record and i'm talking about pages two hundred and twenty one dollars to twenty two dollars he was asked was ed scott upset when he visited you after there was this discussion with freeman and the text messages the end it said no that's got so you that what d n d did was inappropriate he said no did he say anything to you about this was not the st time glenn anderson was involved in politics to end a said no he was asked to do it scott say it was inappropriate that what he did was inappropriate and he should be held accountable and the end of said no but when you look at this april th two thousand sixteen memorandum at pages twelve million ninety one thousand two hundred and ten the record i mean it's as plain as day he says councilman scott was very upset he said it was not appropriate for an officer to be involved in politics he told me this is not the st time going anderson has involved himself in politics his actions were inappropriate and he should be held accountable for his actions if we were to hold and to half of the standard that he hoped held officer anderson that he claimed to hold officer anderson to himself would say we should not believe the ndaa you know it's this combination of downplaying the significance of the speech and playing up the evidence to support the disciplinary findings when he was asked about disclosing the text messages to dnd he said i was merely reporting to the end that i had received the text messages and i was concerned and i also talked to the mayor and she didn't tell me anything about what she would do and that's a and eighty seven dollars of the record but that completely contradicts with the end as a memo says about that conversation including that scott told him i talked to the mayor and she said she's going to be contacting you to file a personnel complain so once again they're downplaying the significance of the speech and that is reason enough i think to send this to a jury to question whether the whether the reasons given for the chairman nation deserve any credence and of course this also ties in with whether this was an inquiry or an investigation why that matters in this in this case is beyond me  us should it matter to us whether for get you a theory the conduct itself could just of discharge well if that is not that that may be but that may not the but that's not the standard on summary judgment we are also there is evidence to suggest that they may have with how well known this was with the was with the investigation saying all he may have done was been overzealous there's a real question of and he really didn't get any personal benefit from this there's a real question of whether they would have said hey you know glenn what you're doing is great but want to kind of take a step back let's do this step by step and let's do it the right way you know if we need to get permits we're whatever it is there's a real question and that becomes apparent when you go look you know that the difficulty is that there was multiple and best occasions and of course they claim there is a legitimate basis for each and you say well there could have been a different way they resolve and that's true they could have been in your view a more humane process given his record but that's not the standard that we're benchmarking against i mean i lendl really the standard you're benchmarking against is whether you should give one of them is whether you should give credence to the explanation for the for the discipline yes and and when i'm pointing came to a doctor and his attention i'm sorry before it came to doctor and his attention you know her and her dnd chief d n c the chief well one investigation had started beforehand two of them into two it started before speech came to the attention of the chief yes we came on investigation into the investigation as to him bringing his dog the dog that was uncertified to the right but that wasn't resolved until months months this summer after they found out about the speech the same day that at the end wrote this memo to mills to conduct an investigation into the speech investigations save the one concerning plenty of speech found wrongdoing oh right the one that he happened to be cleared on was the one on the speech the day after he was cleared on that they removed his dog and reassigned him to patrol the day after d n a to found out i can't discipline him for this that that gives one you know pause to think he was taking out another way and this canine investigation was the perfect cover will remove his dog they didn't finish that investigation until three or four months later and they only gave him one day off and then they removed him from the canine unit even though in that investigation they said he was dishonest but if you if you read the declaration of the end he says he says because i found dishonesty i had no choice to terminate so he makes this about dishonesty not about building permits even the district court said he may have had approval from the department for these projects but he didn't have approval for permits reading from the building department the one that does it and that investigation there's two things he says that forensics confirm d n d says forensics confirmed that you forged the chief's initials on this memorandum approving these projects as if to say you never had approval is without question he had approval for these projects he received a public award from the chief who gave him the approval she for the previous jeev for this work that was approved but when you look at the investigation the forensics did not confirm that the signature was fraudulent all the report says it may not have been the initials of the person whose initials there purported to be so what dn to do he said i'm concluding that you that you forged to signal his initials he has no basis to conclude that but that's the type of thing that leads one to say well he was dishonest to have to fire him but the evidence to support that finding is questionable that's something that needs to go to the jury do we believe that d and a believed that he was that he forged those initials he has no basis to say it he even he even misquoted the report made it look like the report confirmed that it was signed by somebody else when the report the best that they can come up with a forensic specialist they went to a forensic specialist for this was that maybe it was the initials of by somebody else we don't have to believe he and  reasons and if we don't believe he and his reasons we don't have to conclude that he would have fired him but for the you know absent the speech that's what this case is about the the next one to this issue with outside jobs when you actually work some of your outside jobs therefore you were dishonest to captain wilson this is why when he's on administrative leave he's assigned to home he has a different schedule it affects what outside jobs he can work deposition once the case starts his interview and in terms of hers as i was under the impression he was unable to work some of his jobs that he was accustomed to and anderson who was also interviewed said i may have said i can't work the jobs are outside jobs yet the chief makes a finding that he said that he couldn't work any of his outside jobs and that was dishonest because he was able to work one or two of them so there's no evidence to support this finding and even more grotesque i suppose is that the chief issue the recommendation on that on that investigation of terminations and then in his own recommendation this didn't come from somebody else this was the chief this was the chief coming up with reasons to fire this person that we're not credible and if that's a question harassment of other officers they were exchanging facebook messages that were inappropriate on one particular officers page but when they interviewed this officer he said i wasn't offended the other officer wasn't offended they made comments about anderson anderson make comments about them nobody was if you want to reserve your remaining time yes i'll just make one final point on that yet they found that he engaged in harassment of these people when they made no such claim this is evidence of trying to fluff up this case your owners may please the court mark meyerhoff on behalf of the city of real to want to fill in some gaps and also to correct some statements that were made but st this court should affirm the district court order dismissing this case on summary judgment the district court properly determined to see every city every all to lawfully terminate it clyde anderson after several internal affairs investigation concluded that he violated more than two dozen city and department policies such as giving false information misrepresenting material information and posting offensive homophobic and publicly publically accessible materials on facebook this case can really be synthesised down into two main categories one is disputes and my opponent spends a lot of time trying to attack the investigations and point out subtle inconsistency is in testimony with investigations but what he doesn't do and what he must do under the th circuit authority is tie mr and its anderson's terminations to the speech and as we know from  authority you can't show retaliatory motive report pure speculation and that's basically what we're hearing is pure speculation the speech itself is important the speech  extremely brief conversation between mr anderson and a political consultant in the city of reality show in which mr anderson very briefly at the imperative something he heard on a video of a city council meeting a couple of months before that political consultant then mistakenly in a row initially and accidentally sends that to council member scott and the content of what mr anderson saw in this video of the city council meeting was basically an accusation that happen in an open meeting for the public that the mayor had misappropriated funds in some way and that's what mr anderson tells us political consultant the public can solve an accident he tells a council member scott about this conversation scott goes to the police chief and says can you look into this i don't like the idea of an officer knowing about densely a confidential investigation which didn't exist and then the mayor also contacted the chief and said can you look into this what's important and what you fail to hear is that the chief did order inquiry into this and the import of inquiry is that it's not an investigation it's a preliminary interview of witnesses to see if they need to know it is to be an investigation if the chief had retaliates hoary animists he could have ordered a full blown investigation and terminated mr anderson for that speech and he didn't do it he ordered an inquiry the inquiry took five and a half hours and it came back that mr anderson did nothing wrong and the chief except that that and that was the end of that group of facts council member scott makes no further appearance in this case where robertson makes no further appearance in this case they had nothing to do with the pattern and line of investigations that was t come and that's the nd category of that's the category of events that does meet the th prong of the intestines so that mr anderson would have been terminated regardless of this extremely short conversation he had with mr freeman and that category of events goes something like this he was investigated for bringing a canine to on patrol who was not certified and who had not been trained and that investigation was initiated before the speech he was then investigated for inappropriate unpermitted it's unauthorized structures on the canine yard that investing is was initiated by the city administrator finding these structures accidentally when he was touring the neighboring park and sought ranch in the park the city administrator knew nothing of mr anderson's speech and he reported to the department saying hey i see a trench going into the yard do you know anything about and that initiated that investigation which was by the way investigated by internal affairs not chief dnd and independent investigator both of whom concluded marijuana and these marijuana kits that he has for canine training they found that out by looking at his e mails investing in the canine yard so that had an independent basis that had nothing to do  finding these facts or initiating them that also then led to a finding of all this on authorized dog food and the other investigations including the last investigation which found that mr anderson had posted inappropriate and offensive and homophobic graphically homophobic pictures and comments on publicly accessible facebook pages are you saying that then that's a geisha and after the speech started with this county investigation and then cascaded into each of the other investigations absolutely and that's exactly what the district court found the canine the arder was the st investigation after the speech and that was initiated by the city administrator independently finding this trend and reporting that and that led to that investigation and that investigation led led to the discovery of all these other investigations what my opponents residue is to leave the gap between this speech and these other investigations but he can't do it there is simply no evidence and there's nothing in the record at all that makes that leap council member scott has testified that he had nothing to do with any of these other investigations is no evidence contradicting that mare robertson the same chief the end of the same the argument as if as you have read the briefs is that andersen himself acknowledges that the investigations had some merit that there was a good reason to initiate his investigations from their opening brief and they themselves say that the other were on offer as an uncommitted structures on the canine yard that yeah was concerning that mr anderson had lost a large quantity of marijuana yeah he didn't have authorization to get this dog food but what they want the th circuit to do is to question the severity of the discipline and say that well but chief d and a would have given him a lesser form of discipline except for this speech that the speech caused chief the end of this somehow reached a decision to terminate mr anderson but there's absolutely no evidence in the record to support that speculation nor are there any facts or evidence to suggest that other employees have engaged in similar misconduct and have received a lesser form of discipline which also may have been somewhat relevant in arguing that there was some retaliatory animists here but there's no evidence of that either so the end of the day we have this speech which was looked into conclude it wrapped up and put away the terminating that that speech that he engaged in did not violate any policy at all and the characters involved in that speech had no further appearance in these facts and then we have this cascading investigation that led to other investigations and ultimately led to mr anderson's necessary terminations there was also a statement made about this forging of the signatures i just want to make this very clear on the record as well in that it's the record reflects that safety and the mentions of this in the terminations notice but he makes it very clear it is not basing a terminations upon this suspicion that there may have been a forging of the records the terminations based upon everything else and one of the clarification i also want to make is there was a suggestion that mr anderson had authority to construct all of these unauthorized and on permanent structures on the canine yard and that again chief dnd trumped up that he would like to put on the canine yard scent walls tire walls he never identifies the structures that he ultimately represent it he was authorized to oversee and build in the yard telephone poles stadium lighting and six foot deep holes two vehicles there is no documentation contrary to what mr anderson said that authorizes or even suggest of the basis for his terminations so the reasons for his terminations squarely meet the th prong of the test which dictates that if there was going to be a termination even absent his speech then summary judgment is proper and in this case somebody doesn't certainly was proper in light of all the evidence unless the court has any questions thank you thank you were that mr miles off said perhaps most troubling is the fact that the investigation confirms that the w f initials on the memorandum were not written by the chief but rather appear to have been forged they confirmed that it was not his writing so you have this you just have a continuation downplaying the importance of these a legit dishonesty and finding the other of us has done anything posts the other officer that was involved was not discharged and the facebook investigation said terminations just for the facebook posts that were you know two years old that was not a cascading event by the way that was a lieutenant who went he said i remember some facebook posts and went and looked for them even though they were two years old speculation over the speech this was not the you don't have to buy and this is the point the end is explanation that that was the end of that you know he says i was very embarrassed during this conversation with the mayor we have a deal it's not going to be political speech coming from the department and if any embarrassment discredit or misconduct was brought about on the