incorrectly granted summary judgment for longstreet on the causation element of sweets st amendment retaliation claim this is a case about an employee who was fired for protesting an elected officials favoritism of rich people over poor people in the performance of his official duties this court has previously instructed litigants that circumstantial evidence of causation and st amendment retaliation case may include suspicious timing a statements behavior comments directed at other employees in the protected group and evidence that the employer offered a pretextual reason for an adverse employment action in this case suite has designated evidence that touches upon each one of these four examples starting with the th example and working my way backward in this case longstreet shifted or piled onto his reasons for terminating suites employment at least three times and sweet designated evidence to call every one of these reasons into question on the day sweet was fired longstreet told her that there was less work for her to do and a mismatch between her skill set and the job's requirements but this has been contradicted by suites former direct supervisors testimony that following suites germination there was more work for everyone else to do as well as longstreet's own testimony wherein he admitted that suite handled more phone calls than any of the other c s hours and that he wanted them to do it like her because she knows how to control the situation and get done what needs to be done then following sweets germination longstreet's chief deputy proffered to the indiana department of workforce development its wheat was fired because of a few collection error where she cost the town over a one thousand dollars but there is no evidence that anyone ever confronted sweet about this alleged out error prior to her firing let alone any evidence that sweet was responsible for it in fact longstreet testified to the contrary that he wasn't sure if she was the one who caused the  finally when moving for summary judgment in the district court longstreet affirmed that swete was also fired because she bullied a co co worker however there is no documented evidence that this ever happened it was never mentioned this week prior to her firing and not only sweet but whether steve sweet statements were made in her capacity as a private citizen and whether or not they're protected by the st amendment certainly your honor and i think for that we looked at the supreme court's decision in two thousand and fourteen and wayne versus franks and their the supreme court clarified that it's that the question of critical question in these sorts of cases is whether the speech issue itself ordinarily within the scope of an employee's future not merely where it just concerns those duties and in this case if you look at sweet speech i mean one the boss particularly an elected official when you are a low level employee is never pursuant to one's official duties what she was doing was outside of her  calling into question what she saw as corruption as preferential treatment of rich people over poor people so for that reason i believe it meets the st element of the lane test and there is no whistle blower exception to the official duties rule correct it sounds to me like you're making a whistleblower type argument i can understand why your honor views it that way there isn't a whistleblower exception i think the focus needs to be on the context of the employee speech and whether or not it was each that she would ordinarily make in the context of her official duties in this case if miss week had made this statement an issue not to mr longstreet but to a customer and if it had been part of her ordinary duties of collecting rent or talking to customers over the phone then we wouldn't be here today or are but we're here specifically because she did what low level employees are less likely to do which is to call a public official out what she viewed as unfair treatment as preferential treatment of rich people people over poor people in the performance of his official duties so i would say that it's a whistleblower exception i would just say that it's not within her duties which is what the supreme court and r shifting back to causation if i might i think another fact that has been called into question on summary judgment is that longstreet at that stage said that swete was fired because she believed coworker but again there's no documented evidence that that ever happened it was never mentioned to her prior to or terminations and suite and a former co employee affirm that it didn't happen when we look at behavior directed at other employees in developer different than the homeowner and that context ordinarily landowner developers are billed for utility fees before the homeowner takes possession and in that case for whatever reason the homeowner was built for those fees and mr earnest said that shouldn't be that's not how the rules are applied in the town of ours going she was terminated shortly there after this trip there any evidence that mr longstreet who's the one who terminated this week had any r this hurts being terminated actually did the district court found your honor that longstreet was the sole official in that office responsible for hiring and firing decisions and in fact ernest made her statements you to time mean this is certainly not a case where a plaintiff could or should rely on timing alone to meet her summary judgment burden on causation but it can't be discounted that one of suites job duties in fact her main job duty disconnecting untimely utility papers with a move immediately after she spoke out against longstreet for his preferential treatment of rich people over four people so when you remove someone's key duty he job duty  the natural implication is that that person is not going to be around very much longer and in fact that sweet testified in her deposition that she was around long enough to train her replacement as the howard they were dropped and she was gone  collectively these facts raise a genuine issue for trial as to why sweet was fired shifting back to the st amendment portion or the st amendment issue that assuming before the court suite statement to longstreet that he should treat utility customers the same regardless of whether they are richer or is worthy of st amendment protection a public employee now against her boss's preferential treatment and is exactly the sort of citizen's each that we as a society have an interest in protecting and is not very efficient for public employment in general to only protect that speech if it is broadcast outside the walls of the public office we need to protect that sort of speech inside the walls of the proper look office in order to engender trust amongst employees which is vital to public employment if there are no other questions i can reserve the remainder of my time for that thank you judge may it please the court that i think it's important to start with as we went through in our brief that the what did the plaintiff argue with respect to these things to the district it's key to note here that st the district court utilize motivating factor analysis in its in its decision on summary judgment here but but as a starting point i think it's important to know what what was argued about this question by the plaintiff in this case and the sum total of these arguments related to the retaliation claim that were we're talking about here today or are contained in two paragraphs on page thirty one of those two paragraphs on page thirty one of her brief those are the two arguments she makes you makes the argument that simply put simply that the temporal relationship between  swath of circumstantial evidence in support of the factor it's now it's important to note also in the how good case plan for lies upon heavily the court specifically noted that the cases recognize that you can't in facts that with the urns declaration if you're trying to utilize it for the purpose of suggesting that it constitutes circumstantial evidence that's pertinent to ms sweet it is simply not but when you look at it and boil it down to this that really what the plaintiff's only argument was i was removed from doing the right after this allegedly protected speech so how good case doesn't allow one piece of evidence  that supports the firing again as it is waived as as we i believe was waived as we described in more detail in our brief so getting back to the to the  of this the the question which is which is cited in our brief well as well informs us that in order to prove retaliation a point of pastors demonstrate that the trip to retaliation was tangible motivating factor in the decision to finish the defendant's decision to terminate star that's code river city now let's let's say you get past the waiver argument and you can question well what does this alleged removal removed from doing this makes for this allegedly effect speech rationally sports and the inference five months later her her firing was was it was related to that in any way and i think it's important to note the matthiessen case this point if relies upon fairly heavily  in favor of the defendant after jury now most importantly in that case the court noted that there was a direct link between the demotion in which was an issue in that case and the termination was stated that the gentleman's name was bear that when about after james to be clear but if it's directly related to their job duties speech about misconduct is not actionable and again one of the important things to know here in my time but  i'm going to go a little bit more on burden shifting question about how it shifted that she wouldn't be able to prove that as a last point i would know that that the these things she's complaining about are directly related to her where a part time police officer st reported official misconduct privately to some fellow officers within the police force now you could make the argument that a police officer's job is always to report misconduct of any sor whether it be breaking the law or whether it be a violation of a rule that's what police officers are for you could make the argument that that was pursuant to his official duties however this court looked beyond that sort of obvious argument and really dug into what was going on in that situation and said that disc or must be exposed especially careful in concluding that employees have spoken pursuant to their official duties when the speech concerns allegations of public corruption and that's precisely what we have in this case your hon or this is the sort of case that we want to encourage him to bring because if it were otherwise one of two things would happen st of all they would go mediately to the six o'clock news before addressing it directly with their boss the public official or  to this sort of thing is going to continue to happen public officials are going to continue to engage in private business on the public's dime which is not something we as a society have an interest in new or protected so i think for that reason i would urge t to grant sweet speech st amendment protection and move on to the district courts analysis of causation in this case which again by focusing on all of the facts collectively instead of isolating and deconstruct each particular fac i'm confident that this court i hope will agree that she has sufficient evidence of st amendment retaliation to present her case and if there are no further questions and requests all right thank you very much and thanks to both