that the court versus the lower court's decision when it took away the jury verdict from my client after a long battle and fight we won a jury verdict of one point two eight million and we proved every element of our case that case was subsequently taken away by the judge changing his mind on the issue of lost profits before the verdict was expert testimony and by the late witness testimony of paul johnson doug johnson and many other witnesses as well testified about the issue and the judge actually argued for us prior to hearing the vertical and argued against mr williams saying no no no mr ingle did testify that last commissions equals lost profits and he when i tried to make statements in this regard to the judge the judge said the district court said no don't worry about it don't even addressed lost profits move on counsel talk about something more interesting to me because this is a moot point so then for him later to come back after hearing the verdict and the jury unanimously finding for every element of the case and in fact we asked for one point eight million awarding one point two and saying no there was insufficient evidence of damages and the reason he did that is he had to take away the expert witnesses testimony jason ingle by saying that he didn't have enough information he didn't know enough about sales reps and the specific business relating to airbags just because he knew about how sales reps run their business in general doesn't mean that he knows about sales reps in the air bag in the street well you know there was no evidence whatsoever the defense did not put on any experts nobody to say there was no evidence perform any further no not at all once the sale was made he was entitled to his commission the contract provided that the sales commission would be paid as the invoices were paid from the from the buyer to the seller but he had no further obligations he'd sold a program in august of two thousand and one that program was worth forty million dollars but it was little parts cemented my client's right to the commission it was taken away by the bad acts of the defendant who we proved in trial didn't maliciously stole his commissions from so that's what happened and that's why he's in front of the commission and that's exactly why jason engle testified that there are no costs to offset any loss commissions because there's nothing further to do the work was already done he had are to procure the sale w sales rep and they're going to sales reps kind of bring down to the t r w factory maybe with a box of donuts drive you know the gas mileage whatever those are the expenses that we're dealing with we're dealing with his driving to share w which is just a few miles from his home which is where his offices and all that now so what are those costs mr ingle said if that would have happened which we can't predict what would have happened or not but if that would have happened if m johnson would have driven it's your job you to help them solve the problem with one of the parts manufactured by wing wire then those costs would have been too de minimus to insignificance alter the damages calculations that he had m based on the net present value of the sales but whether or not he went down with a box of donuts and he had no obligation to do that his don't entitle to the commissions from any sales that's correct but his obligation would be in realizing with sales reps is that when they're too successful they get cheated out of their commissions when they make the big sale when they finally catch the big fish so yet mr johnson had been working for years with wayne wire the principal but their sales  like forty thousand dollars a year when they finally real in the big fish got the forty million dollar sale they eliminated and but they did it because she had to be told i'm too because t r w monnet and actually received and is still receiving his commissions and that goes to why why did they interfere why was it malicious but the bottom line is still that the commissions were and at the time of the sale we calculated those commissions with an expert witness who also said that any any future costs which might have been incurred by some problem that arose a year whatever down the road with the production would have been to in significance alter the damages and not the bottom line is that what he had done before making the sale we've proved he bought lunch one time for the buyer he bought her a pair of tickets to a football game which were fifty dollars each testified to he traveled to michigan one time the judge and even opposing counsel didn't have any expert didn't have any one thing to say what are the actual costs that in their imagination that a sales rep would have had a sales rep the program the successful even after the sale is made because if that program stops his commission stops so he has to incentives to continue to service even the services incidental number one is because it gives them the opportunity to make future sales and number two if it is if they can if the program fails it's commissions stop so those are his incentives but what are the costs again it's making a phone call that doesn't there's no cost  that e mail that's free gasoline ok gasoline is expensive these days but the jason angle the expert witness testified about that he said that was too insignificant to alter the damage just and according to this story par gave it to them in the summary judgment he said that was insufficient but the jury found it was so clearly the judge doesn't have the right to take away that issue from the jury when he later made the jury find malice and the jury did find malice so  did it was just means in that context everybody there's a commercial from god eliminate the middle man there's a commercial that everybody tries to eliminate the middle america but you can tell in many of them it's legal to limit the middleman in some instances when you don't get all of them in the beginning but it's not legal to do it to use the middleman and then squeeze them out afterwards you can't use the buyer and seller can't and usually it is your position that every interference with contractual relations every interference with contractional relations has to have some wrong element to it or it's not actionable but is your position that any time you've proved that that you also entitled yourself no your honor we prove malice as a separate issue and the reason we did it was with the testimony of what we had the cancellation of the meeting there was a meeting that was scheduled and then an airbus route freaked out and ran over to cancel it when she found out about it and then she wrote the nasty d j s you letter saying you know basically the implication was even though we don't have the testimony but we have the letter she gets the notice for the meeting runs over to the engineer to cancel it and then calls up the buyer i mean the seller when wiring says how dare you have this guy thought i told you to get rid of them that's my commission get him out of here that's the natural inference that the jury drew and that was what was malicious in addition to a whole list of other things alleged conduct on their behalf and it was a commission dispute between stream of sales and johnson industrial sales and what happened is after johnson industrial sales succeeded in collecting half a million dollars from streamline a settlement they created this conspiracy theory and tried to paint here and have us escape that's not your starting down a path that's very similar to the path in your brief and my concern about it is that we have a jury verdict against your client and a did over review with regard to the judgment as a matter of law and the question is whether there's substantial evidence to support the jury's finding and on the issue of prophets well on the issue of causation as well because that's the district court properly held there was no substantial evidence presented at trial that t r w scotland either caused the split commission that stream instituted or that it caused the terminations of the agreement in looking at that question now we have to view the evidence in the light most favorable burden that was taken away as a matter of law but  our general rule is that in terms of factual inferences to be drawn we have to view them in favor but there is but it still has to rise to the level of substantial evidence and i'd like to explain why there is no substantial evidence supporting the that conduct caused any of the harm at issue here which is what the district court actually found because i don't think you even get to the issue of lost profits or damages until you establish causation and what the court properly held and again the law is very clear to show substantial evidence of causation it is not enough to show that causation may have been a possibility it's not enough to show a temporal sequence of  especially in the light you know when you have contrary evidence affirmative evidence proving otherwise and here there was affirmative evidence proving that you're going to use conduct had nothing to do with because as as the evidence pointed out this was a competitively bid project it's not as if you have any commitment to work with wayne why are these were projects that were competitively bid as often happens in this industry and it's a question isn't miss nervous t r w starting in november two thousand and one caused all of these bad things to happen but the reality and the evidence was that back in january two thousand and one streamer told johnson industrial sales were cutting your commission to two and a half percent they had an ongoing dispute and that's supported by the testimony of mike brown the principal and president of stream who said that's three cited it i wanted to give the other two and a half percent to my implementation of the cut was delayed there is no substantial evidence to support a causal link between vs the size conduct and the cut there if you go down to mine if you look at the final paragraph and i would like to explain that your hon because what's happening is it says there is there is evidence from which the jury could have found a causal link between vs the size communication and interference to the extent that claim was predicated on exclusion of johnston from vs the size of a silly beginning in two thousand two whether that interference for which there was substantial evidence supports the jury award is not before the court what was going on there and it's the only explanation for this is the only damage claim the only economic damage claim that went to the jury was unpaid commissions and future commissions the unpaid commissions were as a result of this cut and the future commissions were as a result of the term a nation those were the only issues that the expert opined upon which is identified in e r sixty five the summary of damages and those are the only issues that were presented to the jury and damages the court found that your deputed not caused the cut in commissions and it did not cause the terminations of the agreement now when it said this  claiming you were excluded from the property there might have been evidence of that but there was no evidence of damage resulting from that the plaintiff didn't testify to that in fact the plaintiff's theory which is internally inconsistent one of the pla he didn't have to go back to t r w at all he didn't have to go and be involved on a daily basis there was no evidence from the expert that the exclusion from the property resulted in loss commissions even mike brown the principal o stream law told johnson and this is that find the site but he told johnson that he was still going to continue to pay the commissions even if he did not call upon t r w and that's about whether the the damages were on commissions on sales already made that is not accurate the sales the purchase order was issued but the contract clearly spells out that you get paid when sales are actually made terminating the relationship but this then is sort of surfacing harmless but that goes to the issue of whether t r w had any involvement in the termination and there is no evidence other than speculation mike brown testif the sole reason that he terminated the agreement is because johnson industrial sales sent a letter a month before saying if you don't agree to all these demands i'm going to terminate the agreement and sue you it's not a coincidence that the first time johnson industrial sales ever made any gave any notice that there was some alleged wrongdoing was when they were served with the complaint despite the history between johnson industrial sales and stream of going back and forth over this two year period about commissions and about payments and about programs and stream of telling they're going to take in house and cut their commission rate they never once approached or even mentioned to me that they thought they had done something wrong and this is despite testimony from paul johnson who had a longstanding relationship with t r have you he said he could talk to linda near misses bastille hannaford about anything they didn't even try to salvage that relationship because they knew when the evidence supports the theory about you it's not the cause of that you have to look at the evidence that shows why the cut was made and why cord just like the district court did and determine whether there's substantial evidence to support the jury's verdict and when you look at the record and you get beyond the rhetoric and the you know exaggerated characterizations of the documents as appellant put before the jury as well the evidence shows that streamer decided to cut the commission rate in half back in two thousand and one stream of decided to terminate it and everyone testified that there was no involvement by t r w in either of those decisions even though johnson the president when asked do you have any indication that he was involved in the cutting commissions now you have any indication that t r w was involved in the terminations of the agreement no and the franklin court which is a california court of appeal case dealt with this exact same situation it dealt with a sales rep who had been terminated because who believed was it after some disparaging e mails were sent out to a customer and the plaintiff said well i said they sent the e mails and then i was terminated and against that the customer wrote a declaration and said now it had nothing to do with these e mails whatsoever and the california court of appeals said you can't prove causation you haven't proved causation in those under those circumstances all you have is a temporal sequence of events you have to show substantial evidence that the defendant's conduct caused the cause the damage at issue and that was not proven in this case and if you look at the evidence that was submitted to the court the evidence that's been submitted to this court there simply is no evidence indicating that you're going to conduct played any role finally with regard to the issue of the lost profits so you want to address that because first of all the testimony of the johnson test he testified that he had to continue to maintain the account and there was expense associated with that he testified to that we quote the testimony in this brief there is no question there are he didn't do anything to quantify it's not properly before the evidence the so called evidence of the expert that said that the expenses would have been negligible was based upon statements he was told by coun for the pain the appellant and that's one of the reasons why the district court found that it didn't crucible constitute substantial evidence there was no attempt to quantify the expenses and we're not talking about expenses for a single day or a trip or a box of donuts they're claiming a ten year life of the program that they were going to continue to maintain this relationship over ten years that was information that was within the plaintiff's exclusive control it is not as if they tried to present a qualification and the court held that it was insufficient they did medically did nothing to even attempt to their expert who's written papers on lost profits clearly festivity understood the difference between loss commissions and lost profits testified that all he was asked to do was look at the last commissions he did nothing to figure out what expenses would have been involved he didn't look at any documentation he only relied on for johnson industrial sales statement that the expenses would have been negligible there's no question under the law that it's the plaintiff's burden to prove net lost net profits not lost cases that's what he based his opinion that there were no significant costs on it wasn't just counsel statements which you then it's not just the obvious that any juror any everybody can use a common sense on the jury and the common sense tells you that there are no cost of the sales rep if they are there insignificant that the price of a box of donuts that's the reality that's the truth that's what the jury understands that's what even mr williams and if that's what they own there's no he stood up here he could present you with any evidence of any cost which we should have had or why didn't mr biggins talk about the huge expense of a sales rep to has the cost of you know who knows whatever there is nuts no such thing that's why the jury could reasonably infer even if was actually mr mr johnson's testimony that he doesn't he doesn't make it a practice to by purchasing agents his practice is to make sales based on his reputation he doesn't sell by by by bribery you had one o any conversations with t r w that's not true that was recorded conversation it's in the briefing where he asked her point blank did you really dictate this and she said no i have no problem dealing with you so that's not true what he said and also he said there's no but they never acted on the threat as the testimony was and it's in the briefing here to be you i mean when wire of course they didn't want to pay the commissions anymore but they never acted on the threat because they knew that would be a breach of the contract it wasn't until she heard of you push them off