case number five for this morning use manual against ne miss work good morning your honors i may please the court this is not a summary judgment case the events that led to mr mann while filing grievances and preparing a lawsuit and the events that followed that protected speech show there is a genuine issue of fact engaged in a concerted effort to punish men while for complaining about their misconduct three events that occurred after one was pretty protected speech are particularly noteworthy st key witness in prison employee jennifer judgment decision and remain the case for their proceeding it is important to remember the standards at issue in this case all inferences are in minimal favor and it is the defendant's burden to show there is no genuine issue of fact but the events that wilson also testified that the day this stealing of the last two papers happened which was june th two thousand and fifteen it was the same day that manuel had sent a follow up letter to miller and the same day that former lawsuit and on that basis alone that unsubstantiated allegation the prison officials wrote a shakedown slip for men will sell for an alleged petition and no point in the record does it show that there was ever a petition found him and will sell yet the petition was the basis for the shakedown and one of the charges that was used to justify meanwhile the extreme punishment and then after the suspicious creation of the state downs that we have the suspicious execution of the shakedown slip the slip sat there for ten days until miller confronted meanwhile about his grievances then with binding speed to finality decided to execute the shakedowns like defendant i was the same correctional officer who had originally investigated the assault so he knew about the events that were the basis and there is a distinction in the role they played but we would argue that they both played a role in the shakedown the subsequent events that happened and the legal standard here for ninety three dollars liability which comes from converse as goodloe is that defendant has to have cause for participated in the deprivation and so we think there is sufficient evidence to show that both miller and nalley participated in the deprivations that happened even though they were acting at different points in the series of events recipient of the grievances so she is she there's no question that she had knowledge about the protected activity and then she confronts men while anime or nine minutes later the shakedown slip that was written ten days earlier is executed by the finale she said she dealt with grievances she was the counselor that meanwhile had to send the grievance to she was the gatekeeper to his ability to perceive that agreements process and she was not answering his grievances she knew more than  do there's more direct there's direct evidence that she knew about the protected speech but there's a lot of indirect evidence that nally knew there's testimony from the prison employee that even the warden had known about meanwhile his lawsuit and it's important to remember that we're talking about one small housing wing that's a drug treatment program of the prison so and this court has said that when there's a small universe of employees it's a reasonable inference that a great find exists and so we have that reasonable inference because  is a small wing of the prison we're not talking about we're getting around the entire prison and then we had the direct testimony that even the warden knew about the lawsuit and that's why he had directed another inmate to steal the last two papers so there is a lot of indirect evidence about nellie's knowledge as well and then in order to execute the shakedown he had to have read the shakedown slip to know what he was looking for in the cell and the basis for the shakedown slip was witness statements about minimal so there is evidence as to his knowledge and further evidence of that knowledge is the extreme punishment that happened because of what now we found and meanwhile cell he confiscated a handful of items and the shakedown record that he wrote even says that the char substantiated and it appears that there was no subsequent investigation once he took those items he took those items he immediately cuffed meanwhile and sent him into segregation for investigative purposes according to the record but then the record shows no subsequent investigation the only evidence that defendants have put forth is that there was the alleged prisoners who broke the witness statements down and while cell allegedly said that they actually didn't write those statements but that's surely now lee's word in th offender disciplinary report there's no actual document the record that shows that these prisoners did say that and then the report that nellie wrote serves as the sole basis for the punishments that men will suffered very big room and that microphone records for doesn't really helpful for my apologies your honor and made style is always subject to search and here there was no evidence that the search was conducted for retaliatory reasons days before the search a department employee documented and incident involving man well according to your incident report and shakedown slip she had been approached by an inmate who reported that man well had approached him to fill out petition papers that search was conducted and identify contraband identified handwritten and typed letters addressed to the court a cassette tape and trading in a  letter demonstrating trading and trafficking well meanwhile argues that the disciplinary charges and his placement in segregation were unwarranted the disciplinary report issued to him reflects that a reviewing officer and hearing investigator reviewed and signed off on the disciplinary charges as well as his placement and segregation based on the nature of the offense finally it was not only that issue of punishment it was the adjustment committee after hearing who found man while guilty of forgery contraband on authorized property and petitions postings and business ventures according to the final summer court the adjustment committee impose discipline occluding a period of segregation revocation of good time credits in the dis e and there was no evidence that any of that now is action and conducting the search was motivated by his protected activity he points to it he points to a few things in the record that he suggests create an inference of causation but he doesn't tie analogy to any of those actual events he suggests that the timing of the nine minute delay between his gist of that conversation that he had with miller was that she told him to stop sending letters because she had more than fourteen days to respond to his grief and the shape and the shakedown of his girl occurred nine minutes later but there's nothing ty that conversation now he wasn't a part of that conversation it wasn't referenced in the can only didn't subsequently reference that conversation when he conducted the search there is simply no evidence tying those two together  in the cells are subject to search at any time when there was evidence in the record based on the preceeding disciplinary incident from june th that he might have contraband and contraband was actually found  man was protected activity there's nothing suggesting that he knew that that conversation between miller and and man well hadn't even occurred but even so there's really that the timing of that doesn't  mean that that conversation itself is not the protected activities or to look at the interval of time between that conversation and the search doesn't really tell the doesn't really tie the search the conduct that he's alleging it is wrongful to his protected activity he started to open his grievances long before that there's no evidence that it it's anything other than a coincidence and there's no reason to infer like i said that that he had knowledge of the conversation that that now we had knowledge of the c an oral grievance it was an simply so i want to know yeah from his perspective he did he wasn't the one initiating the conversation it was miller telling him that he had more than that she had more than fourteen days to respond to his grief and so i don't think you that documents that where that that had to be and that was uncovered with the search were to handwritten letters to types documents to the district court there appeared to be declarations and a note regarding trading and trafficking and there was evidence that people that were named that the two purported authors of the handwritten letters both submitted statements that they didn't author that they were involved in the proper i mean that was the same that was the same case with respect to the law librarians testimony and suggests that now he was hostile towards prisoner litigation but her testimony was actually that he made some comments to her to the effect of that she shouldn't be helping inmates file lawsuits and there was no in between that conversation and the ship and the search of his cell and so that doesn't really go to hit that doesn't really implicate causation in this case it doesn't create an inference that he was motivated this occasion to search man  just want to make a few points and the st one being that this court held in mays versus spring more in a follow up to a grievance is actually protected speech in the conversation between miller and while it's considered a follow up to the grievance the whole point of the conversation was her telling me while she was upset about how much she was following up about his grievances so that is protected activity and that is when the clock would start for suspicious timing in this case as a defendant nally i think it's important to consider the legal standards doesn't have to be direct evidence that he had actual knowledge of the protected activity a reasonable inference of knowledge is enough and that comes from writings versus riverside medical center and the court has found in other cases that suspicious timing