the political discrimination decision of the yankee versus cain county illinois held that an ambiguous statement relating to animals plus the failure to follow up and recommendation for a lesser punishment that was available was sufficient to deny summary judgment and peter does this case he has evidence of numerous statements of animals related to political discrimination can you us can you explain to me why a cause of action for discrimination based on his political affiliation nobody prevented him from bringing that so so how we work this over into something that happened in mr dobbs this was promotion went to somebody else and he sent send e mails and even the fact that although mr diaz a thought golf deserved an outstanding rating he only gets the next notch down next exceeds expectations why is that any kind of adverse action against mr dawson based on his alleged affiliation with the democratic party st of all they don't have to be order to be evidence of animists of political excuse me evidence of political critical discrimination animists so that's what we have here is evidence over and over and over again the political of having to participate in political discrimination himself by trying to find out what political statements his suit his subordinate as engaged in which is very difficult for him to do what is he supposed to do go ahead and participate in the political discrimination refuse to participate in the political discrimination it's a terrible situation for the mr dobbs was placed in from the beginning so you think there's discrimination any time somebody even asks you know hey do you like to go to the republican party events are you consider yourself a democrat no this was a statement from the director a director of indot stating that the h manager helen raines who supervised promotions of gough and other all the other people at the vincents district wanted to find out what political statements goff was making on facebook about the candidate for governor all right so let me just back up i mean i understand your needs you seem to have kind of an atmosphere claim but the things that to do snow plowing duty and he doesn't go through the progressive discipline maybe doubts of is something concrete that you can focus on they've created a file on him indicating that they think is  attitude is very bad everybody recognizes throughout this that he's just a pervert geologist correct nothing whatsoever about that but i'm sure not taking a position that an employer including his state employer can't take somebody's ability to work with others into account even if they're surprised at what they do oh certainly judge that's absolutely correct and he was rated highly on that year after year after year the only time he was not rated highly and was only rated as meets expectations was the year that he supported the complaint of mr woodruff's against mr woodruff for political influence and land sales and then within a month after that he was given the only discipline he had in twenty two years and the excuse was use the pretext was use well we told you to carry your cell phone there was no requirement state requirement for him to be on  call like snow plow crews or emergency road crews or anything else there's no requirement for an emergency geologist he was asked to carry his cell phone though and he did but he complained st this is not this is against  policy this is not right you're giving me a duties that are not right and i don't even have duties emergency duties after hours why should i have these additional duties so he complains and he also sits there in these training session communicating through body language and otherwise that he thinks are waste of time no your honor he has not that's a disputed fact he had twenty two years of training where he was never criticized about his training until after his mother's letter to the editor governor's position on syrian refugees which was a very hot topic a large number that was a hot topic in indiana elsewhere but particularly with former governor pence but where's the evidence that mr fowler knew that that the governor's appointee mr fowler follows the directions of the governor follows the the wishes of the governor follows the inclinations of the governor every one would who's a governor's appointee would care about what the mr by two thousand and fourteen mr fowler had even wanted to terminate mr dasa and the h r manager daniel said well here are steps that we should all right yeah and they didn't follow any of them so mr fowler had already made up his mind when this cochran who knew about the letter to the editor in the governor's opposition to it and had received in three allegations are against  succession just after the letter to the editor she jumped on board and said ok well let's give him a suspension this gave mr fowler then the opportunity to say i'm not going to suspend him i'm going to terminate and which i wanted to do back in two thousand and fourteen so really didn't matter whether fowler knew in two thousand and fifteen whether of the letter to the editor which was a public matter or not because he'd already made his decision in two thousand and fourteen and very highly on his attitude teamwork accomplishments spontaneous compliments everything except when they wanted to retaliate against him he was rated he passed all of the trainees and even went to so university to have management class pass that no problems but after the letter to the editor then days after the training they say oh we also say he's disinterested he was never disinterested never rated as disinterested i'll give you an additional minute if you need it mr elli that mr dowsett isn't given the benefit of the usual progressive discipline there's all of a sudden this jump to firing him when everyone agrees he does the job well that he's been hired to do of course we're supposed to take the facts in the light most favorable to him but even putting some facts that the state has drawn together maybe he's displaying at least some people in the management are perceiving that he's just playing an insubordinate attitude but chopping his head off as opposed to giving him a few days off to reflect on what's going on seems seems very strange and he presents evidence that it's because it really seems to stress very much his espousal of mr golfs association with the democratic party respectfully honor the record does show that there and thirteen he gets a reprimand on the cell phone business that apparently resolves itself right away i mean i don't know whether how long you're supposed to hold a grudge about the cell phone but he does it that the cell phone itself is not the basis for termination chose that at least as far as back as two thousand and thirteen there were certainly issues with management mr dobbs of which was one trivial issue yes i know it hasn't been there but you've got to keep your cell phone for some of the recent you know we just decided we if it's said publicly that he was going to comply with this policy and mr das is a person who's in a supervisory role and it created some problems for management in terms of maintaining order within the workplace and then nothing happens for a full year  other than to report the indianapolis star about mr woodruff's profiting from the land sales it's not until a year later that does as defending golf for not coming in to plow i don't know that it's accurate to say that nothing happened through the course of this time nothing in this record certainly certainly nothing that has occurred within the record but the record also shows that in the spring of two thousand and fourteen rescue fowler and certain other decision makers including mr doesn't is that direct these highly placed republicans in these things i'm a known democrat i'm supporting this your gop also known democrat you know you're just trying to purge the the department of politically on favored people  way motivated by these private e mails were so so can you tell me about the evidence that would indicate that salary knew that it was mr douses mother who wrote this letter to the editor yes or no there is no evidence that  commissioner fowler has testified that he didn't even know the letter at all until after he'd made the termination decision there's no way that the letter itself could have influence the decision to terminate the appointment it was instead there's a record reflect mr fowler's political party affiliation no your honor the record does not reflect the political affiliations of any of the defense but it does reflect that mr dols a testified that he's never heard any of the three of them make any kind of counsel should make any difference or anything about the fact that swisher generals not involved in this case i do i don't think it makes any difference your honor that the solicitor general is not involved in this case this is an ordinary employment lawsuit that's handled by the government litigation section that's that's sort of that switch office employment law goes to you it would be doesn't fact go to the section of which i'm a part of yes your honor so the word if you wanted to i simply could animus the worst thing he points to i think is the failure to use the progressive discipline which causes one to say well viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to him did that come about for and acceptable reasons such as insubordination or the like or did that come about for an unacceptable reason i e his political affiliation i respectfully disagree that there was no formal progressive discipline that was involved in this case  comes and goes and finally at the end of december in two thousand and fifteen you get terminate you're supposed to realize that this is a blot on your record for that amount i think that most employees would still recall that they had been issued a written reprimand within the last couple of years but regardless the application of the state's progressive disciplinary policies is within the discretion of the managers and clearly  from the record that the state personnel department felt that further discipline was warranted in including two of the defendants but deputy commissioner fowler determined that in light of his prior behavior and  fact that there had been three instances of of various types of incident behavior within seven days leading up to terminate involving multiple directors at indot as well as outside trainers from another state agency  after hiring and promotion and allocation of roads and bridges and that kind of thing now the judge would ask about to the attitude of mr gaza and he was always complimented by everyone except  those when he complained about political discrimination for instance a appendix sixty his manager says i always appreciate your total honesty pete and your support for terry is commendable this always he always was as calm complimented by his manager on that until she wanted to get on board even when he was terminated his supervisor bill tompkins supported him and said he should not be terminated he should be in that position the promotion of his employee then at page appendix one hundred and twenty six dollars in two thousand and fourteen july goff again confirms that he's been complaining constantly and then you ask about the politics of does it that appendix two hundred and nine attached to the reply brief gaza does a said their issue with me main issues because i'm a democrat i defended one retaliate against her for complaint all right thank you very much thanks to both counsel will take a center