judgment presented numerous facts some disputed some undisputed that a reasonable jury would be allowed to disbelieve the department's proffered reason for her terminations and that's what we had to present and we did in order for you to affirm the district court's ruling on summary judgment you're going to have to ignore three pretty critical undisputed facts number one on three occasions in a six month timeframe  grievances of race and retaliation were followed by disciplinary measures the longest period of time between complaint indiscipline being two months the second it undisputed fact you would have to ignore affirm the district court's ruling is the president seven is due to tional great van demonstrating knowledge on part of the managers of complaints of race discrimination in retaliation and the third critical fact that we presented evidence  that unfortunately probationers are incorrectly incarcerated from time to time and we had evidence of that and that others who mistakenly calls  incarceration were not disciplined as miss moultrie was disciplined now the district court seemed to struggle with basically two big components of the evidence we presented and found that frankly weighed the evidence to determine that we should not survive summary judgment which is an up self certainly an issue but to get to the substance of those two issues i want to go to that to the knowledge component the district court concluded because defendant mcintyre who was the decision maker missed more trees germination testified that she did not know of ms maltese may first complaint until after she made the initial decision to terminate that we did not satisfy the third prong of the retaliation prima fashion case the causal connection well it goes without saying of course that a decision maker can't retaliate based on a complaint it doesn't know anything about that that goes without saying that stands to reason and although the district court did acknowledge the cases a long line of cases in the eleventh circuit that says knowledge can be shown through circumstantial evidence it then proceeded to basically just dismiss the circumstantial evidence we present and on that point as i understand it mcintyre testified that she she is she right missed me or she was adamant that she had when she recommended terminations of your client she had no knowledge of these recent grievances she did testify that way you and you you were and i had both her depositions and all the discovery you conducted indicated there that that was  timing of all this was incorrect based on her testimony are were you know ma'am they had no document that would actually tell you when she made the decision to terminate ms moultrie there was no e mail there was simply her testimony in the court relied on that that i believe that th is is how it made sense that that the reason she knew then about the grievances was that whoever she was speaking to said well we need to wait on that because we need to let you know that in fact your client had had file grievances so we need to wait before we do any termination given the pendency of that nothing in your discovery discounted that is being the accurate state of affairs did it well except all the circumstantial evidence we presented of it she did testify that way or  not i'm not disputing that but we presented what i believe was pretty strong not disagreeing that exchange occurred where whoever mcintyre was talking to said hey wait you know that you don't disagree that exchange of you know me and i deny our contention is that there is certainly enough strong circumstantial evidence that there but a jury could could reasonably infer from that evidence that we presented that mcintyre is not being entirely truthful  thousand and nine when mr moultrie was part of the first round of grievances against a supervisor in the office who used the n word when when a blitzkrieg of complaints came in about that the grievance review coordinator actually emailed the farm at the time the field operations manager as he's not really supposed to do it's kind of against protocol but he notifies and says hey i think we've got a problem in lawrenceville you need to go over there and take care of that and it was dom any other instances other than that one instance retaliation claims about what was going on in the lawrenceville probation office and i want to cajun he fought it with the georgia commission of equal opportunity equal opportunity and they forwarded his complaint to ms cash in which was i don't think the typical protocol a time machine where what we are that was twenty eleven at that time when he files at twenty eleven complaint ms cash and finds out about it and actually tells his supervisor mr fowler who was also miss moultrie supervisor hey keep an eye on this guy if he messes up if you violates a rule let us know  macintyre herself testified i mentioned this keep in on this guy would be the guy that was your chambers yes ma'am the co plaintiff and again all these things are happening around the same timeframe within the same office with the same chain of command same same set of guitar she admitted yes i heard through the grapevine even though she wasn't supposed to i heard through the grapevine that he had actually filed the march complaint about race discrimination mr chambers like miss mo ie suffered very well he suffered reprimands letters of concern with in a very narrow timeframe within the three month timeframe temple proximity world that we live in here an employment discrimination and despite that the court held as a matter of law that decision maker did have knowledge even though we demonstrated this temple proximity not just with regard to mr chambers but with regard to that he had complained they knew about the complaint and he was subsequently disciplined so and i want to i want to reiterate here to the temple proximity is important on the causal connection piece and knowledge only only rebut that presumption is for you if alice way then for us to the timing then the timing of of the incident that caused her to get fired was that she got somebody arrested should not have been arrested that there probation was a her and she had not bothered according to the defendants to even go try to find the file to make sure so what was the timing of of their decision of what she did with that person that she caused to be arrested he should have been there discovery of that era of that false arrest and all of these other instance if he could waive the chronology and purpose i could certainly try yes ma'am in january two thousand and twelve she is given this list of people in this file to go figure out what johnson's for sure so she'd never seen the file before it's not her probation or she looks for the file she cannot find it we presented evidence on that and interestingly ms mcintyre never even so much question mr moultrie before she fired her to determine message it was dangerous for her she might cut her finger or something looking through the files or nothing nothing like that i don't remember that at the time she was suffering from a worker's comp knee injury and it was hard to get down because the bottles aren't in a fire that they're not in a drawer they're all on days because the probation officer who's actually assigned to him at that time didn't follow department policy and go visit the probation or within seven days his name is is officer ray i asked mr mcintyre about that i said miss mcintyre did you look into what i believe your over time so if you want to finish up that thought and i will hear from you again and i'll sit down i promise i they please the court my name is take gray and i'm an assistant attorney general with the georgia department of law i'm here today representing the georgia department of corrections sharon cashen and marsha mcintyre in the appeal filed by tracy moultrie on appeal moultrie challenges the district court's or knowledge of mulder's grievances prior to deciding to terminate or taking any other adverse action and again this is supported by the department of corrections policy where agreement is upon us watch you talk to us about she said policy whatever that there's this big gripe on there that everybody would have known so if you could respond directly to some of the arguments she's made that yes helpful so first that is first mostly brings up this idea of the grapevine she begins with this notification in two thousand and nine so in two thousand and nine and multiple people filed grievances against an individual in the office called clyde clark herrick the grievance counselor at the time he's a difference grievance counselors and was robert coolly notified a different farm field operations manager called michael craft so we're dealing with two different  individuals right off the bat and two thousand and eight years of a heads up hey there's this issue's going on just want to give you a heads up that's the only this is this is directed to the white officer who is allegedly saying right things yes your honor about african american multiple groups against the same guy three different people i believe filed a grievance against them against this one individual again the department corrections they came in to the lawrenceville probation office investigated it and the individual retired in the midst of the investigation before they can complete it so that situation i was concerned about his ongoing activities toward african americans yes they were in the middle of an investigation and again that was in two thousand and nine with a different grievance counselor and a different decision maker in this case so i don't think you can extrapolate a general practice of this great vibe based on that situation expression in light of a firm policy that every supervisor testified that the policy is that the grievance counselor does not notify the supervisors or the subject of the complaint  until at least at the earliest the investigation actually begins and that's what marcia mcintyre testified as well now the other great find issues that the military is trying to bring up is the chamber's situation now i mean it as is obvious from that explanation that was all centered around chambers none of that shows that there was a standard practice or a grapevine where marshall macintyre was notified through the grapevine about military starman ation again she unequivocally testified that she had no knowledge of these grievances until she made the decision to terminate and notified the central personnel office and that's when they said they were she filed these grievances were investigated to hold off for a little bit and had of the chambers business come to them how did the supervisory people become aware  to the next issue if there are no other questions about the retaliation piece is the be a disparate treatment claim her disparate treatment claim fails because she cannot produce evidence of similarly situated compared outside of her protected class who are gauge in nearly identical behavior and were treated more favorably essentially moultrie was terminated under unique circumstances for many of the competitors that were brought up on appeal and i'd like to take a chance to address how this compares are different but first that determine whether an employee is similarly situated the courts look to see whether the employers are the employees or accused of the same or similar conduct and are disciplined in different ways it's important to know that this circuit holds other compares misconduct let's be nearly identical to that of the pla to break courts from second guessing the reasonable decisions of the employers and to prevent comparing apples to oranges in our case morphy was terminated for negligence and efficiency and performing her job her duties which she prepared and submitted invalid arrest warrant for an individual named john johnston without adequate investigation marshall mcintyre was the decision maker in this case and she testified that there were three aggravating circumstances most damning is the fact that multi failed to adequately investigate the individual no attempt to locate or contact the offender to even see what the status of its receipt what his status was but again what it really comes down to is moultrie had information that was easily and readily available to her in these scrivens i mean it's halfway down the  page in the fourth pages it clearly says probation about me there's no ambiguity whatsoever when it comes if you're a probation officer the lawyers for the probation office that would be in a beacon say this person is no longer on probation however she did not see this either because she didn't was skimming over it or didn't look at all but for that reason she decided or i guess it assumed that he had to have violated the terms of a his probation and for that reason prepared it invalid warrant for the individual which  extradition from michigan all the way to gwinnett county and him sitting in jail for twenty five days had he simply done this minimal investigation describe notes that none of this would happen she likely would stop her job and mr johnson certainly would have gone to jail giving them an appeal window they're not even really at will employees moultrie was an at will boy so we're dealing with two different employed it policies here on that basis alone these individuals are not similarly situated but beyond that these phage was found to have violated a policy that requires certain actions be taken after of valid arrest of an individual she kind of just dropped the ball after a person he was supposed to be in jail didn't get adequate attention after he was in jail here we're dealing with an innocent man who was put in jail who should have been so it two different policy violations two different similar such are not similarly situated individuals the next individual that appellate brings up on appeal is don morehead again the decision maker in this case was michael kraft and not marshall mcintyre's are two different decision makers with more hand there was testimony that she simply made a mathematical error she was trying to calculate the expiration of that individual's probation period there was testimony that there were several intricate periods where his probation had been told essentially he'd escape from prison and i heard this case from custody multiple times in that period his probation was told while he was essentially out on the lam and due to that you had to add up these periods of time determine when the end of his expiration what's michael craft testified this is a mathematical calculation error that could happen really to anyone he doesn't excuse the air but it's not one of completely failing to read described she read this right notes and she tried to make i'd analysis but just came up with the wrong answer but she didn't do it and there was again with her case there was no clear indication this person's probation was revoked on this day she didn't disregard the information of readily available barbara mclean is the last compared with mclean mcintyre was the decision maker but there was a different chief probation officer at that time it was no longer sharon cash it was after she had lived went to a different probation office she did however again with mclean there's no evidence of the record that she described that showed that the offender of probation had been revoked furthermore there was evidence during her in her decorations she testified essentially that there was a waiver that was filed in court in two thousand and nine three years of this individual's probation period but that waiver was not documented in the scribe notes so she was dealing with inaccurate incomplete scribed that's when she was trying to calculate the end of that person's s d probation period so again what the main difference between her between both his case and any of the other comparatives is if you have clear information it was readily available to all she had to do was read that one notation and she would have had the right answer with got inaccurate scribe notes with more hand you had calculations complex calculations that you had to do and then with a nice phase it's completely different policy that she  the scribe there in the record anyone can read them and know that this person's probation was revoked none of that's in dispute and that's the reason that she was terminated and that's been the reason all along for the terminations we have not shifted reasons or anything like that and again it comes down to how egregious it was it was right there it was readily available finally i would like to address mulford's contention that she has presented a convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence such that it could produce an inference discrimination the facts that we're dealing with today as smith there was a plaintiff who was a white male he was basically terminated for circulating a racially derogatory e mail he later finds out that there were black employees who did the same thing but were not terminated however you cannot use them as compared is because he was a supervisor they were not supervisors they were not simply situated however the court found that there were three main things that could lead to a three items of circumstantial evidence that led to this inference  the evidence suggested that lucky justification for firing the pria plaintiff was pretextual again there's no pretext evidence here there's nothing in dispute about the reasons for her terminations you know she heard the situation was more egregious than any of the comparative brought up anticipating and trying to create preemptively indicate that that would not create a yes or are not yes and it's important a pretext means a lot i i mean and it means more than just the law it means you're lying about the reasons for the termination and on top of that i think it was actually discrimination and here there's just no evidence to suggest that the second reason that the court in this movie lockheed martin thought that there was this committee mosaic is that they found that  employees in the last reason that the smith court found that there was circumstantial evidence that it inferred discrimination as that they found that lucky consciously injected race considerations in his disciplinary process when they were just when the plaintiff there were they made a matrix one of the columns in the matrix was a was what the individual's race was so from the onset of the just in a process lucky was considering race consider or was taken into account race considerations into the disciplinary process again that didn't happen here in fact marching back entire corrections officer this is not a matter of she pulls up the she in willy nilly issues a warrant it said active which means the case is active just like this what plays the is argument that that is sort of basic want to one probation officer activity that you read the notes through to make sure that you that there's no problem with the warrant you disagree with that aren't i say in an ideal world absolutely that's what should happen and should in hindsight miss moultrie have done that yes but i also say that department correction probation officers who are overloaded in their cases and being shifted from caseload to caseload make mistakes and it happens more often than we want to the question is not did she make a mistake the question is did other people who were white and did not follow complaints of race discrimination were they disciplined as she was in the answer is no well is your argument is your arguments both racial and because she filed a complaint yes ma'am it is based on both race and retaliation and that's why the second set of compared hers that they don't talk about much and that the district court didn't even really touch on is important because that second set of probation officers who were on this file the johnston file didn't notice he was in jail in correctly in appropriately and he sat there for twenty five days now why weren't they disappoint she didn't even cross her mind why our contention is we've presented enough evidence that she was she knew about mr mcintyre's complaints because that's the great bond in this office and that she was macintyre for fifteen years she found out somehow that ms moultrie had come to see me two days before and she called me and she was angry she was angry that the e a p lady was trying to come to bat from a small  tree there is knowledge this is that was that was when the lady and i forgot the particular suggestion but had made some suggestion that ms moultrie do something correct it was about whether she was supposed to take sick leave or worker's comp and they were trying to work marjorie testified also alerted her to the race discrimination or retaliation issues because those issues were part of her feeling that how this cash is coming down on me and i can't quite figure out why it doesn't make sense  i also also want to say that they made this argument the district court and unfortunately district court bought it and shouldn't have because the difference in people as managers is not that it doesn't mean that the employees aren't simply scituate you can't have so many situated employees for purposes of compared or evidence with different managers especially in this kind of case where there's a there's a system there's an automated system in it and you put in the infractions and you put in the rule violations and then a type of discipline is recommended it basically all made it comes up the two compared that he talks about that mr kraft discipline he followed that recommendation that recommendation was six months of pay cut it five percent and those two probation officers those were their probationers they knew that file they had mange that probation or four months or years and those probation or sat in jail wrongly for eleven months and nine months and the recommended discipline based on automated system was six months five percent now why didn't this mcentire follow that it's argument i gather and obviously disagree this argument there's there's a difference between something falling between the cracks or not paying attention and affirmatively when you're getting ready to do a warrant not reading the things you need as an affirmative morning from a to omission that's his argument and you disagree with that argument but i do but i also say that mr mclean also took out a warrant she was one of our compared his argument again i'm not endorsing his argument is that the scribe notes didn't say clearly on that that a warrant ssion been issued whereas they did in your client what's your response to that argument well i didn't see this crab notes on that one because we didn't get that evidence but but what i would and these are all fine arguments to make in front of the jury to let a jury decide whether this degree of specificity is required or whether in common sense logic that you bring is or juror that this just doesn't sit right our third and final case to