gov state university who was discharged from her position from reporting another faculty member in her department for working three jobs outside her fulltime duties as a professor in violation of section four of the collective bargaining agreement between governors state university and in violation of the university professor of professors research and consulting which is a state well i guess what they did was agreed to in the collective bargaining to these the provisions the collective bargaining agreement describes what outside work is and also describes how the faculty member is to apply for permission to work outside by filing this form one hundred in advance signed by the dean the department head and the the president or his designee and also that the teacher is not to work more than thirty percent of his time outside school one of their days a week now all those details are not contained in the statute so what the plaintiff complained of was clearly protected as having been violent the legal principle involved in this case is a section of fifteen dash ten of the ethics act which states that in that form he only needed reasonably believe in evidence that she did not that she did not recently believe that what she was reporting the concept of reasonable belief that a law was being violated is explained very well in three cases that  the employer in the discharge the the interest of the point of the blow the whistle is playing a critical is a critical point to consider when  these cases that decide now in this case governor state university about a year earlier was found guilty by the illinois boards or general for not enforcing this out side jobs she was running a daycare center in chicago she had a consulting business to slow learners and she also had a part time teaching job at another institution three jobs she had no showing up for school she was in need during the day when she was there she was on a cell phone she was on the computer distracted totally from what she was no one not showing up for class when she didn't show up she was unprepared she agreement is much more specific  dollars that is a document that supposed to be submitted twice a year and it's signed by the professor asked me to work outside jobs it's signed by the dean it's signed by the chair head and it's also signed by the president of the provost or his or her designated during this governing govern the state university or the complaint of professor could not produce one single form one hundred to show that she had one through his agent work those outside jobs so there was certainly a very high motivation to discharge the pointless and to sign it so during the depositions the dean the president and the department chair were all very is she was guilty of destructive behavior that's a question the fact the cases are legion we cite for cases which explain this concept very very well actually one of them is from this district paul mature versus international harvester which is probably the paradigm retaliatory discharge case of the st think i can tell you read the briefs i just would like to say in conclusion that the trial court summary judgment in this case is plainly unjust and erroneous as a matter of law it for not knowing the precise statutory citation in her disclosure to govern the state university administration that they were ethics violations and by the way every single employee is required to take ethics violations and they're required report suspicious the purpose of the act is not to punish the employee well to reward the employer who discharges the point of unjustly the ethics act also requires only a reasonable belief as i stated the statute is a general prescription while the union contract is much more specific regarding the same identical topic the trial court made it clearly erroneous erroneous finding that what the point the complained of did not relate to a law when in fact it did there's also a general issue of material fact over the real reason the motive for the discharge was that because of the complaints about the coworker well it wasn't because of disruptive behavior there were two threshold requirements for at the exact violation that was the plain just burden to show and there was no evidence in the record that could support the conclusion that either of those had been met and  and generalities and general principles but at the end of the day within the summary judgment framework she still needed to show us fission evidence was not speculative not conjecture and there was tied to this record she gets inferences but they have to be reasonable and they have to be supported by evidence in the record so that's as with what's missing here we look at this actual record what is it that she said what happened when with the involvement of who we really parse that out and this is done in more detail in the brief meeting of those two elements is that and  of violation of the consulting and by her own account what she says is she was asked you know what laws rules or regulations that she think that this professor giles had violated and she answers that she was concerned only that the professor was violating the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the university because in her view the professor seemed to be working more hours than would be allowed by the union contract at the document of her university employment and council theory is well that's a complaint about this consultant statute that she wasn't complying with the consulting act but if we look at those her internal complaint which is really one remark that she made and then the later inspector general complaining she's not simply not complaining about any violations of this consulting at statue certainly there's no mention of that statute anywhere but a faculty member can undertake it provides for certain procedures for the faculty member and this is only for research and consulting work to get this pre approval and then they also have to later fill out a different form about how much of consulting work and counseled also said that there was to read jobs i believe is referring to she had an ownership interest in a child care center but that doesn't have anything to do with her working in that capacity or spending any time on that and play just complaints was really about the we're talking about two jobs the ellis teaching and the developmental theory work which pertain to the business that she actually pertains to approve prove the process she wasn't complaining here that the professor didn't go through the pre approval she was saying i think my colleague is working too many hours beyond what's allowed by the collective bargaining agreement her complaints had nothing to do with the state law they don't refer to the state laws there's no evidence that she was considering state law that she really believed to be a violation of state law she was focused on more hours being worked too many hours in violation to collectively bargain agreement and nothing to do with the pre approval process that at the record keeping paperwork requirements of the state where she goes you know complaining about she she has to be complaining of what she reasonably believed to be a violation of state law when you review her complaints that's not what she was doing she wasn't not for the type of complaints that she has to make but what she does have to do is be complete for it to be protected activity has to be complaining about what she reasonably believes is a violation of a law or regulation and what she wants to just say i stands five that is she says well i was complaining about the violation of state law this consulting act and or receive prior approval for outside consulting work so that statute is geared towards the receiving of the approval and not it doesn't have to doesn't prohibit anything about what the actual complaints were her internal remark and you know why she complains and whether that can be reasonably construed as alleging a violation of the state law and i would say that when you go look at what they say  that my colleague is working more hours she's doing too much work and that's not permitted by the collective bargaining agreement so her complaint went to the distal factor that has to be shown even if these complaints constitute a protected activity she also has to show that she was improperly retaliated against that her discharge a contributing factor in her discharge was her protected activity and there is no evidence in the record that can support that and i am not going out of time here but it's set forth in great detail in the brief while that is s about these outside jobs was a contributing factor in her discharge and that is what is missing completely from the record and she's all of the evidence show that the discharge was about her unprofessional conduct that came to a head record keeping procedures of the of the consulting that and that's not tied to the fact it doesn't that's not tied to her discharge in any way as i said she wasn't complaining but it's hard to get to talk about that but there are other problems which is that there's no evidence that her supervisors even knew about this audit finding that certainly true for the division chair or the team you can't there be no reason why they would know that the president perhaps you could impute that but it's still there's nothing of the record that they would have any idea of the audit finding and then for the division chair in the dean there's no evidence that they've had anything to do with the decision to suspend or discharge her and then beyond that there's no evidence that the audit could reasonably provide any retell to remotivate had to be tied to the record there had to be something that would show that they were concerned about the audit finding or they were concerned some a future potential deviation something that ties it up but there's nothing there there is some speculation maybe this could  someone in trouble or maybe this could be a loss of funds but it had to be tied to something in the record that there would be some concern about this and that's what's completely missing and to for those act and i thought the consulting act doesn't have anything to do with teaching it's research work consulting the collective bargaining agreement has its own procedures and also some limit number two who played this actually proved that the coworker had taken over one hundred and seventy thousand dollars an ounce i didn't come from the state of illinois as a sort of proprietor