feb of two thousand and fourteen i was diagnosed with hodgkin's lymphoma cancer stage three my doctor gave me a note to be out of work for six months to do chemotherapy arm she gave me another not to be out another additional time for september and on october of two thousand and eleven i received a letter from new bert that i was that my dad has ended and that i have no more medical benefits i'm just seeking damage ma'am so the argument below was that when you came back in in after your medical treatment and you came back in two thousand and fourteen and they did not they would not rehire  you and that you applied for a number of positions yes met mine and they said below that the reason they didn't rehire you was they had a policy of preferring people who were working for them then as substitutes who are part time employees so what what what evidence what is your basis for saying no that's not the real reason the real reason is they were discriminating against me based fourteen years of experience and why should i have you know why i should not be consideration for a job and i don't think i should have been be actually be rehired when you go to the processes when i was side may please a car gerald smith for the appellee use i think as your honor started to point out that the claim before of a district court was based upon these hiring decisions that were made in two thousand and fourteen and if in the in the record the district put forth a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for those decisions there was a policy or a practice in place at the time and it had been in place for many many years prior to give preference to current employees who were then applying for lateral transfers or for full time positions and as was set forth in the record before of a district court in each instance in which mr williams applied for a position in two thousand and fourteen in fact a current employee was hired for that position so there's no disputing that the policy was in place and there's no dispute in the record that the policy was followed in each instance no evidence the policy was not written down and that's right it was not written down it was not it was it was a practice that was followed but there is no evidence to suggest that it was never not followed and i think the district court was correct in discounting the lack of a written policy i e you know that the district court's decision was quite clear that cou as long as you can prove that it is in fact a real practice it's not something that was manufactured after the fact but lack of writing is not dispositive of anything and in this case the only evidence in the record regarding hiring this is in shows that they were all made consistent with positions he was officially retired so he was he was not a current employee not even a member of the bargaining unit with regard to the issue of experience and this was brought up as a criticism of the policy in the papers before the district court the driving the driving force behind the power of the practice was to give preference to current employees now one of the rationales for that practice was that current employees generally have the level of experience that the district is looking for but it really was a preference for current employee not in preference for the most experienced employee and so there certainly could be in certain situations a criticism or even a finding that well that policy might lead you to miss out on the most experienced employee but that wasn't the point of the practice and ultimately that criticism that maybe this practice is not in the best interests of the district maybe not getting the most experienced employees is certainly not evidence of discrimination but his experience was with the district it was and you're absolutely right your honor but the practice was he was not a current employee at the time he was retired and so again it goes back to this idea that the practice was followed and the practice might create blind spots or loopholes and maybe that's what happened in this case but there is certainly no evidence that the practice was implemented here in order to discriminate against an individual because of their disability you're right there might have been an argument by mr williams that he was more experienced i will know it in the district court did as well that there was no evidence put forth by appellee appellant or his counsel regarding the qualifications or experience of the individuals who were in fact hired for their positions it's undisputed they were current employees there's nothing in their record to lead us to allow us to determine whether or not you could even measure that experience or qualification that is she was never raise by the appellant during in a district court and i think it would have been the burden of the appellant to do so because if it's their burden to show that this policy was a pretext for discrimination it's their burden then to show that the policy was either ad hoc or was inconsistently followed or somehow used as a mechanism to discriminate against appellant because of a disability and there's no evidence in the record to show that if your honour's don't have any other questions i'm happy to rest upon our papers  thank you mr williams would you like to have two minutes of additional time if you'd like to speak say something else we call it rebuttal appreciate it thank you and on the fact that i he said  yes yes ma'am yes ma'am and i think he he knew that i had cancer and i think he figured that i would be a risk and that i will go out again that's my thing of left if he said i was trying to manipulate retirement and have me sign those and they also told me to file for disability which i did and then after i found out for disability they told me and when i started applying for the positions they a