relations office on the day that he was fired are defamatory at all and secondly if the court were to reach the issue of damages is the two million dollars compensatory award in the six million dollars puta boards are they grossly excessive particularly in light of the supreme court's recent surveys recently in reno versus rogers the supreme court stressed that hope are you telling me that i be terminated for roast insubordination and he also listed three other grounds under the employment and none of these words are dispute completely contrary to the whole idea of the innocent instruction the real question is can these words terminated for cause be innocently construed in this both or not defame a tory for another fundamental reason and that is there's simply no getting around the fact that these words would never have been said  mr lay sean if the man did that they've been made public and on this point the restatement of torts and the case law are all under stake about when an employee is fired in demands that the reasons he made public and the employer does just that then there is no defamation as a matter of law mr relations reasons to avoid this mainstream law mainstream law for decades distillations cites not a single case that has ever rejected the restatement section five eighty three and what is more the restatement is based on sound policy and the basic principle that you can't recover or an action that you can sanity so there's no real reason to reject the re is really rooted in that same basic policy that is what the employer has told that he has fired that's a stop sign and at that point the employee has a choice you may ask discuss the reasons for the terminations privately but if for any with other reason he decides for whatever reason to demand that those reasons be made public then the employer is entitle to answer that public challenge in public without being liable for defamation finally mr lation argues that his questioning falls well it is it's not for two reasons your first the whole issue of this exchange the questions that were raised those were not in the not contain the the questions that he tries to invite a defamation so this is not something that could have been raised to answer the second the second reason is that whether words are  particular words defamatory that's a question of law for a court as opposed to if there was an issue about what was said or more or who said what or where the lifestyle of the the whole question of invited defamation in this case where there's no issue about what was said that's something the courts have decided is a matter of law and i would i would offer they the to the cases that we said in our brief that charles case from the court of appeals florida decided this very issue as a matter of law as did the williams case from the supreme court of the search both of those courts by one section five eighty three the restatement that was no issue about what was said and they both held as a matter of law over the charles case and the williams case that there was no defamation because the idea that this was an innocent inquiry under the restatement really doesn't doesn't fit here because the innocent inquiry has to go to whether you're asking we need to know  earlier defamation that's that's the key that we as we've said in our briefs that the restatement illustration that's this almost exactly the charles case in the williams case that this almost exactly the idea is that this is on having those those reasons made public for whatever reason then you have put yourself at risk of a defamatory answer that that's that's the whole point of that it was but he doesn't contend that they are he must rely on words beyond his office but there's absolutely no evidence of any of it which we were spoken outside his office he's left with what he's referred to as somehow work out there but as it turns out that's true stage all evidence is nothing more than an return phone calls and that's not evidence of anything people might not return a phone call for any number of reasons that have nothing to do with def said well the only thing that he told the recruiter was that he was terminated and terminated suddenly and he was difficult to steer him as we've noted in the brief just telling that saying that someone is terminated gentleman was working and the atmosphere the environment what was routine and accepted in that and in the arena where he worked in terms of whether or not someone being terminated suddenly would bring out for cause would indicate something either involv the fact that he was terminated whether it was for cost or not so and they the expert was not put forward as an expert as to whether there was defamation he was there to talk about medication damages he never identified any any evidence at all of anyone saying anything defamatory outside the office and that this gets back to the green case again and that's where the supreme court's emphasized that  were invited the supreme court still came out found that the the proper war period of damages for that type of conduct in those types of words was about eighty two thousand dollars way reprehensible and when you have a situation where there's no physical injury there is it's only there's only evidence that these words were spoken once there's no evidence of any other time with these words were spoken these these numbers obviously it's not a scientific determination but when you have the court this court is so busy remitted the one billion dollars unit of award for here and something that's come out already basically the defendants don't dispute that their statements concerning the reasons mr lay she was terminated fox they don't dispute that the statements were made with actual after terminating him and making the defamatory statements defendant by defendant other deal officers arranged meetings with mr relations customers to discuss his departure and i'll talk about that a little more detail later and finally although they dispute the amount of punitive damages as you just heard they don't dispute that punitive damages are appropriate for the kind of conduct at issue its case now and when you view this case against the backdrop of these things that are not disputed defendants claims that a great injustice has been done or that illinois law has somehow been turned upside down i just fall flat and that the broader issues that they are one of the sports of the side really are not presented here what this case is really about is a businessman who had a thirty year career a stellar performance since joining the deal in two thousand and one he had nothing but excellent performance reviews and expanded responsibilities and a new three year contract in january of two thousand and five certainly after that he raised questions concerning aggressive tax practices of the company practices defended by game devised i and then everything changed of the defendants thereafter spent the better part of the next year trying to craft a plan to get rid of mr lation and not just to get rid of it but to get rid of him in a way that would enable them to avoid their contractual obligations and that's a plan that could only succeed if they manufactured false and defamatory reasons for terminating him and a properly instruct jury and a kind of jury as judge burke described it found that that's exactly what happened here now mr poor raised a couple of several arguments to try to avoid the consequences of this conduct the first one is that there were no defamatory statements made at all i think they make a defense make a couple of fundamental mistakes in presenting that argument first they treat the credit curve out of for cause piece of  statement and treat an isolation as if it's the only thing that was said and as if it was said and in the context it provided no no insight into its meaning at all and then they read this court's decision in st was terminated for cause mr lation what stance that you've gotta be kidding me i did respond by saying you are terminated for costs under the terms of your employment agreement so it was my good not lation that brought up the agreement the nation followed up on was human resources of loyalty and then the rest of the conversation occurred in the presence of both kramer and you get out so there were four cars wasn't set until duping came in and neither was the you know the willful misconduct and the rest of it no possible innocent construction of for that part of what they said and there's no dispute that they intended to convey in a defamatory meeting meeting both by getting a new power another senior deal executive at mit it that they knew they were making we're talking about actually right it was crystal clear at trial that they were being accused of crystal clear of the sequence of events but the sequence of events in the office was a stock if they had invited defamation defense or consent defense they clearly could have and should have been raised at that time judge burton softened the post trial motions when he was considering the post promotions he noted that the the issue had not been raised he said i want to follow up waiver but then he proceeded not to decide because it wasn't properly presented and they haven't suggested the an issue here but the time of trial this was all crystal clear the law is very clear the defense is like consent can't be raised for the first time after a trial and in fact the defendants themselves recognize that because they may also be raised t qualify privilege defense at trial they you know they asserted to the trial the jury they requested a jury instruction the jury was instructed and the jury rejected it there is no reason why disinvited consent defense should be treated differently qualified privilege or really other issues like that and to the contrary we are invited if defamation is recognized as a defense and illinois is not one of those states about talk about at the moment it requires the resolution of a variety of factual issues as to what we don't know is we can't make a determination as an actual matter whether there was consent the restatement itself comments see for example says the consent is to be determined by quote reasonable inferences from the conduct in light of the circumstances trial wait for the verdict to come in wait for the jury to be discharged and then months after the trial suddenly raise an issue that presents factual issues and ask the court to throw the case out based on that  can't consent to something you can't invite something you don't know what's going to happen and when you're making an honest and honest inquiry about the reasons for something unless you have some reason to to think it's going to be defamatory but restated provision simply does not time somebody makes an honest inquiry about some sort of a decision in this case an employment decision they're basically giving the other the other party an absolute license to defame to say anything at all that they want to matter how outrageous no matter how fal i think what the restatement is actually saying is if there's if you know what's going to be said or if you have some basis for thinking that something defamatory is going to be sad then you you know then there's a defense subject to the will concede that there are some exceptions where the court didn't really seem to least did not identify the evidence indicating that the plaintiff had some reason to know and the charas case that mr or repeatedly mentioned may be one of those but in virtually all of the other cases there was some meeting or hearing and i want to find out why plaintiff showed up with her lawyer so you know it's it's a pretty fair inference that she she knew something was up from that and the other case all have facts very similar to that let me turn if i if i might to the damages question that up but let me just say one more thing on this there is absolutely no dispute that mr lation in fact was surprise i hear and not only was he surprised but mr cramer the person that siddur that he didn't do it he felt the evidence was sufficient and to overturn that they have to show that he he abused his discretion in making that decision but they can't do that for several reasons first the record contains substantial evidence of emotional distress  know ation they don't address at all there's no student or illinois law that compensation for that kind of personal harm is an important component of a defamation recovery in a case where an individual has been defamed and obviously that's what we have here their main argument is that there is no basis for inferring as the jury and judge burke did that defendant spread their defamatory statements beyond the confines of the office that argument i submit just ignores the evidence of the record a trial stablished that mr lation had an outstanding reputation in this relatively small industry not a first name basis with the senior executives of all the major firms you know his his sixty five and then promptly yes i get put it at trial talk to quote all the customers that wallace lation had relationships with that's transcript beloved seventy two court to change the so in fact they implement their plan perfectly they call the determination for us and then within the next few days after the meeting in the office by candy bar or other deal executives arrange meetings on short notice point there's no there's no question that they met with and talk to customers in the days following lation determination technique about flew from germany for that express purpose a placid thirty three spells out that's what they were going to do no six million dollars let me talk about that the the the reason and i also want to talk about the differences between this case of slope and city but let me let me address your question directly the evidence here showed a washstand in carefully planned scheme to harvest relation due to a personal vendetta by gangs and or within which was pressed by to a trial about a tax issue and the desire to avoid their contractual obligations that scheme included as an essential component fabrication of these defamatory reasons for terminating him reasons that were admittedly false knowingly harmful were and were made with that status were made with actual malice no that is included the plan included promptly contacting his customers as i just mention it also included multiple acts of section over the course of many months in just in just pick one example they had lation present a long term plan for spelling out his determination plot by deceptively concealing the they were able to implement terminations and the defamation suddenly and without warning in a way that would inflict the maximum emotional personal and economic harm on this relation and it was a and absolutely no evidence of any defamation of vance that that supported the plaintiff's claim that there had been a premeditated scheme to harm him there was also no evidence at all of any financial motivation for the defamation there was no connection testimony that he was pale and visibly shaken in the aftermath of this and there was no contrary evidence at all so we have that and then in terms of economic harm as as i was explaining there's there's substantial evidence that this  no motion for directed verdict directed verdict motion would have been made on this whatever reason wasn't but the fact that it was raised in a motion for jihad will be under section twelve zero two says maybe that's not the way to do it but it's still preserved for appeal was the most  reason for your if you know you've been terminated this case goes one step beyond them because here is relations to hold your terminated for cause under your contract and when he knows we hears those words only wages were there is that if there is some kind of identifiable defamation outside the office we can talk about well mr know devour mr vigeland that with the customers first they did defend certainly was the jury found he was walking so for those reasons rather with a illinois supreme court found that a million was was too much certainly six million would be