arguments the dish a court dismissed plaintiff's entire case against his former employees for harassing him terminating him based on discriminatory as well as retaliatory  reasons the evidence and the what california law showed the did this record erred in doing so now this is an important civil rights case and this court has consistently held in employment civil rights case that very little evidence is necessary to survive summary judgment in such a case because the ultimate question is one that can only be resolved through a searching inquiry one that is most appropriately conducted by the fact finder upon a full record at time of trial to determine what the true motive was we we examine this case or the court district court examine this case to the beyond there was a framework clients employment upon does not dispute that the crux of this issue at least as to the retaliation claims in violation of fair employment housing act as well as california labor code one one zero two point five is one of the evidence that they can engage pretextual a they conducted an independent investigation they invent they talked to all of the witnesses they went back talked to a couple of people twice your client was spoken to twice there's a written report as to all the reasons as to why they were going to terminat provide in writing the reasons why there are safety concerns and why he needs to be transferred out or he needs to be some kind of remediation and they defend a police do nothing to address the safety concerns know they don't separate him they don't transfer him they'd they really don't do any kind of investigation well they did do an investigation council they went and they went and talked to the to the outside contractors who said this guy's been harassing them  one gal said he's been he's been stalking me and she suggests at least the way i read her testimony was that he was using the lack of the the fact of the she was wearing a hard hat a sort of a reason to go to go after and sto her they talked to a number of people who said they were very uncomfortable but he was out of control when he spoke with him that he used bad language on on occasion and that he may have been nominally complaining about safety concerns always somebody just has conducted an outside investigation that brought somebody in here to to do all of this so where's the pretext so your honor that was an investigation into allegations against him but allegations against my client mee heaven and none of those not one of those letters says he's been discriminated on the basis of his race and so i understand that and that is why i'm starting with retaliation your honor that he made safety concerns saying that there was a  hostile work environment that his safety concerns were not addressed when he raised he doesn't complain of a hostile work environment he he doesn't like a supervisor that's clear and he actually writes very polite letters a guy actually writes extremely well i agree your hon and he makes these two other very very articulate letters and he does not complain of race he does not complain of a hostile work environment we complained of safety concerns and they're not being addressed and that's that's why i'm focusing on this but t pretext also comes the direct evidence that the people his his coworkers the people who interact with mr allen and with my client mr off while they see that his safety concerns have is just retaliation because he's complaining of safety concerns there's actually two separate causes of action i'll move on to claim to know because there are the court this record is a same analysis for the section one one zero two point five claims as well as the charges the first time was in september of two thousand and thirteen and the defendant's policies were notified as of october twenty first two thousand and thirteen of the claiming of racial discrimination soon there consistently and in writing i don't again i don't see anything that he ever filed with anyone that says i be discriminate on the basis of my race except for the so there are see the discrimination and that's part of the record  those none of the none of the letters none of the none of the interviews with the investigator prior to his term a nation did he complain about being sent on the basis of race i have a couple of declarations from from some of his coworkers he had a good faith basis to go to the e e o c and alleged racial discrimination so i understand that in the internal interviews which he says the more very curt he did not explicitly say that he was being discriminated honor ok so so the latest information the latest evidence when he was put under deposition after he filed b o c charges he says i don't have any evidence i don't i don't i'm not claiming race discrimination against mr allen my supervisor or national origin fact and not be disposed of and a summary judgment for there is limited information do we need you we have evidence that mr allen was in fact the decision maker when it came to your client's terminations he was a participant in their bed because he made  report and in this  his employment and then terminated based on his word but i thought the terminations was conduct that was occurred after an independent investigation and was actually instituted by other folks higher up in the company you say independent it wasn't  outside it was an internal i miss yes that's fair right and then miss fisher but independent of mr owen i guess is what i was trying to convey the other words i understand what you're saying that he's maybe mr allen got the ball rolling but my understanding was that other folks then took took over the responsibility for investigating whether the charges against your client had merit and then somebody else made the ultimate decision to terminate him based on that investigation or he mr all and certainly participated influenced the decision his duties he's got to make if he thinks that there's something wrong now it may be that it's motivated by race but that would be the person that's why h r would come in investigate the whole thing that's why they that's why they interviewed everybody and concluded that it was not motivated by race that it was motivated because of your client's bad behavior towards outside contractors and that there was a prefer that was a repeating pattern there that needed to be addressed and mr allen was not part of the ultimate decision to terminate short that was that there was a complaint by mr allen about about what he'd done after they had a bad incident but where's where's mr allen's role in terminations other than doing what a supervisor would be expected to do well he certainly participated issue but there is there doesn't need to be direct involvement my supervisor mr allen does not need to be the ultimate decision maker the dominguez versus dominguez curry case it's just requires influence or what's the what's the influence of participation other than the fact that he had to cooperate in an internal investigation but he lied that mr online yeah yes and you have evidence of that yes what's the evidence the evidence is that my client states that he he did not make the allegation he did not make you not say what he said and also the four people that were interviewed by ms fisher couldn't corroborate  he did and all of these contractors came about after he made his initial e e o c complaint and so that is why one of the issues is i wanted to pose but i thought you agreed that there was a legitimate basis for firing him but only that it had that it was pretextual i thought that's how you started out i start out the digital court found that there were at least owen might have had some racist motivations for his interactions with the plaintiff so that you can address why that nonetheless summary judgment was properly granted your sure and i think there are a couple points on that and the first is that as as your hon noted one of those decorations was from two thousand and twelve which was more than two years before he was terminated and the other one was for something you think that mr owens a racist views kind of dissipated between two thousand and twelve and two thousand and fourteen that's the remark towards mr raphael which she obviously interpreted as looking clued right was racist but without telling us what the remark what's right ms levy's conclusion as to what what the meaning of that remark was doesn't tell us anything what the judge found was that without evidence of what was actually said we can't tell whether that was a racist remark or not and her opinion her unsupported opinion doesn't constitute evidence of racial discrimination i would also note that  own but it certainly is supportive of the point of so we do right that somebody who was sitting right there and heard the remark interpreted it to be really based on race where i would have two points on that the first is that her pinion as to whether or  right next to her on the bus when the state was made mr rafael was asked did you ever hear mr allen make a racist statement would you and he said no so mr up mr raphael didn't even think it was a racist statement based on his deposition testimony with the nature of the remark being race based right it is more income country in that he at least says the remark was somehow based on a bias against people from the caribbean he again he doesn't say what the remark was and his opinion that it was a biased remark against people from the caribbean again i just don't think it's substantial evidence when it's uncorroborated it's unsupported by any facts but but don't you think his subsequent statements in that same paragraph which are quotes don't you think those are connected to what he was  declaration it's not all clear that those were part of the same comment he references one specific comment that was made on a specific occasion that he interpreted as being derogatory towards people from the caribbean the other statements that he references are essentially and that's mr owens job as his supervisor is to evaluate his performance if you believe that his performance was not up to snuff and that he couldn't give him the tasks that someone who is more competent he could get to that doesn't mean he's racist that simply means he's doing his job as a supervis well maybe but i'm just looking again at that first sign that basically on a daily basis i mean i'll just read it if you have a friend who says prior to twenty eleven in my presence more knowledge made derogatory remarks about he viewed as biased against caribbean people and then he says and on a daily basis he said to mr raphael was stupid and didn't have a brain something along those lines first all that was again four years before the terminations of mr off mr all and held those beliefs he certainly waited a long whoever drafted that declaration put them in the same pair and this gentleman i took it was not to pose this general was not suppose this declaration was submitted in opposition to the motion for summary judgment he had been identified prior to that what about the evidence of mr holland's involvement in the decision to just to be clear he reported that comment to human resources mr off admitted making that exact comment that mr allen reported mr ruff ill conceived that both in his deposition in termination there is no evidence the mistral of played any other role in the termination other than first report in the comments and then and then frankly cooperating in the investigation by being interviewed other folks within a char or above made the ultimate decision that's correct ms fisher made the decision conducting the investigation made the recommendation discussed it with management and management decided in line with ms fisher's recommendation that he should be terminated and i would this was not the only incident we're talking about there were prior incidents again that he's admitted he engaged that that led up to this and it's not all about mr although there were three independent contractors from three separate companies who also reported that he was behaving aggressively and bullying and intimidating that three separate contractors from three separate companies separately reported this this isn't all about mr all unless i believe frankly those i think you're focusing on the right things they think those are the issues that that are sort of see here i think i've addressed those if you have any other questions i'd be happy to answer them what about the the issue of the safety complaints that incompetent that he was not a good supervisor that he didn't want to get department they were not directly related to safety he complained the primer safety complaints he made were the ones that where he was frankly haranguing the contractors for not wearing helmets not wearing hard hats those are the primary safety complaints he made he hasn't pointed to any specific statute as he would have two eleven two point five only applies to those you're making a legal response to all the reasons we've been discussing all along there were there was good reason to terminate him he hasn't demonstrated that was a pretext for anything to the extent he made a complaint about he was saying that the evidence of pretext is that there was hostility to him or whatever you want to call it retaliatory animist towards him for having made a fuss about stuff that he should have made a fuss about that's what i took from his argument i think that's that's a fair reading of what he said i believe that his point was that he made a complaint itself which somehow was evidence a pretext i think that at best that's a protected act i don't think he even did that because i think the complaints that we saw were or were not about safety issues about mr allen being incompetent even if he had  he would have to have a reasonable leave that it violates some law or statute he hasn't alleged that there's no evidence of that anywhere and then finally i would say that the reasons that were given for his germination in the investigation that led up to that for very clear hadn't shown that those were a sham in any way and that's where you have to get a pretext you have to show that the decision makers were somehow influenced by the fact that he had made a safety complaint sometime before and he's ok thank you counsel thank you it's really tells who was part of the ultimate decision so she clearly had knowledge of the protected activity and she was involved in the term nation decision she was also no evidence that she did that you don't like people who make them correct or not we have to sort of assume that you know your fear is there is evidence in the fact that as the head of human resources he's the one who gets to tell people what to investigate what issues to investigate and as my point was before that and is there evidence that she told people to investigate people who made the complaint my point is that she refused to investigate my client multiple complaints but that doesn't does that follow from that that she had retaliate or animus towards him i mean my question yes you could say maybe she incompetently or stubbornly didn't investigate his complaints but is lead to an inference that there was retaliatory animist towards him there you can just ignore stuff i mean a lot of people do i'm not saying this photo is incompetent but what i am saying is that they are suggesting that there was that she was mad enough or whatever and whatever the word for anim was animated enough by by that to do something that she shouldn't do which is which is firing for something else that's correct on her my but what how do we get that how do we get that inference where we get the inference that there's the comparable kind of argument as i have to making we're supposed to compare how they treated him versus how they treated the people he was complaining about is that these are all that's correct your honor and that the nature of the complaints mike client complained that he had been singled out he had been bullied and treated rudely by mr all of those never even investigated him never even took the first step of talking to him about those complaints versus