let's let everyone get settled for just a second basis of at the heart of the appeal is that when the district court granted summary judgment the court focused almost exclusively on what i think constituted direct evidence of what happened to mr jones because he did not know he did not investigate at the time what happened he could not prove his case in general i think that both the united states is arguments on appeal as well as the district court's ruling ignores the fact that he could have at trial prove his case by circumstantial evidence in addition to direct evidence much of what the district court record required of mr jones and its decision was well you didn't go and actually see what happened but then ignored the fact that he's has defied you know in there it in the record he knew that this condition existed with the grease on the dax he had reported this condition is existing it was not fixed before his slip and fall it was not fixed after his slip and fall and he knows that he slipped on a what was typically a non skin surface i think that what but still requiring him to say well i saw this right after i found ignores his ability to present all of the direct evidence that he had and allow the fact finder to infer that an unsafe condition existed even in the district court's ruling in the order reasons judgments wrote there is there must be some evidence from which a jury can infer that an unsafe condition existed and that the owner knew about it if direct evidence is required to show that there was an unsafe condition that existed the perry vs morgan case didn't say that it's infer and i think the word infer indicates that the jury or the fact finder can consider direct and circumstantial evidence to reach a conclusion that an unsafe condition existed certainly under the causation standards circumstantial evidence is required is allowed to be to prove causation that's from the rogers vs missouri pacific case and i was again in the district courts ruling direct evidence of a fact of causation is not required circumstantial evidence is and that can see if it can suffice to do and prove that an unsafe condition caused an injury the focus on personal knowledge as and as direct evidence there's a lot of focus in the united states brief on this site to rule six so to have personal knowledge without really focusing also and i think the district court erred erred in focusing that this isn't this isn't a guess this was and i had to i don't know i woke up one morning i think this is what happened in this is why i slipped this is i thought about it more and this happens frequently in an injured workers in the end and especially the injured seamen that something happens they do not think that this is a serious injury they think more about it and then come to a conclusion later that this is what happened and then we get involved i think that at the very least what mr jones testified in his deposition and what is in the record is fits within a lay opinion which is you know that's something that he can testify to it's based on his own perception on his own knowledge of the many facts that issue and then he can come and say this is what i think happened and then it's up to the judge to decide and in this case it would be a bench trial before judge vance given the united states being defendant but it's up to the judge to say to look at everything at that point i just think that requiring direct evidence of exactly what happened on the summary judgment level puts a much higher burden on an injured worker than wouldn't would that is should be required just to succeed on the summary judgment  completed additional problems and in family leave the slippery slope of what of when is it required that a plaintiff know exactly what caused his injury what if there's a case where someone is hit in the head and they know they're hit in the head with something they don't know why the thing and they think they know why that thing fell and that's when litigation starts if you know the cause there's usually not a need for the trial because you know what happened and you know what's at fault who's at fault and what's at stake it's the fact that most of the evidence that was presented is personal knowledge it's this that he knows what happened he knows what the condition was he knows that the grease tracks on issue is that evidence is in the record he knows that this condition was not repaired either before or after his injury and he knows that he slipped on that surface for some reason that was abnormal i think that gives enough circumstantial evidence to at least defeat the motion for summary judgment and allow for a full trial on the merits with everybody to testify and then at that point the district court can make a decision on whether or not mr jones's perception of what occurred and the conditions that existed before the occurrence are enough for him to prove his case but i think that the summary judgment standard especially when it comes to the jones act case is a very liberal standard that should not have been thrown out on this level and i think you've saved  based on nothing more than speculation and that's our position in this case that the story of jones the only evidence he's been able to provide as to the cause of the accident is based on his speculation thinking back going back and then concluding later on that it had to be greece that caused him to slip simply doesn't meet the the standard of personal knowledge that's required  hasn't done that here he was alone when the accident occurred so his testimony is is the only evidence we have about what happened and he can tell us what happened the problem is he can't tell us why it happened that's that's the problem he reported the accident the day after he wrote in his statement that he lost his balance and  fell into some c o two bottles he didn't say anything about slipping he didn't say certainly didn't say anything about greece at that point he testified at deposition that he saw no grease in the area when he lost his balance that's on the record at page one forty in one forty six he said if he had seen grease he would have cleaned it up and he didn't do that that's also at page one forty six the record and he didn't check his shoes for gre se he could provide absolutely no specific information about when or where he might have stepped in greece said so the only thing he could do begin to speculate about what had happened and he did that a couple of times in his deposition he testified that looking back thinking back none of this really came back to me i'm quoting him here from his deposition until some time after we went back we looked because i was trying to figure out how did hit my arm on these bottles and the only thing it can be attributed to is greece i stepped in some grease picked up some grease somewhere in my opinion that's on the record at page one forty one forty one later on is dead at the bottom the bottles were inside after after crossing the threshold they were they were so he was stepping from a a couple of portion of it's a weather deck but it was covered and he was stepping into the emergency diesel generator stepping over the nine inch back going through my mind trying to ascertain what precipitated this and walking around the vessel i realized that there squeaks everywhere you know and that's what caused this caused me to slip so these passages are important because they demonstrate that while he now blames the presence of grease for the accident at the time of the accident he didn't see any grease he didn't smell grease didn't touch grease he in no way perceived the presence of grease it was again only in retrospect as he as he says that he decided he must of that grease must of been the cold and of course under rule of six o two a witness can only testify about matters over which he has personal knowledge from his testimony it's clear that that requisite knowledge is lacking he knows he lost his balance again but he can't tell us why you lost his balance and of course judge vance seized on that and she found that his testimony in that regard was was pure speculation and of course you know this court and the supreme court have consistently found that under wolf fifty six rule fifty six doesn't just give a court discretion to grant summary judgment a case like this but will fifty six mandates the grant of summary judgment against a plaintiff who fails to establish an element of this case and that's what we have here i think the other important point to make judge vance also pointed out that she has a little bit more discretion in a situation like this where she will if bench trial it has discretion to decide that the same evidence presented at trial could not possibly lead to different result so i think the point she was making was that even if this were to go to briefly touch on a couple of the points that the united states just made and first is again to the point that several put passages from mr jones testimony were cited too and there was one specifically were looking back that's what caused this that's what caused me to slip that i agree is an important passage from his deposition that's in the record to me it's clear that's not a guess that is him saying i have thought about what caused this and this is what happened to me the united states has cited two six six into the personal knowledge requirement under the law of evidence i think that the comments to six o two are helpful if you look at those because under the comments it says that foundational knock requirements of personal knowledge can be furnished by the testimony of the witness him self hence personal knowledge is not an absolute per the comments it may consist of what the witness thinks he knows from personal perception he is perceived this condition on the dax he is perceived this condition existing for some time before his incident and he then understands that that was the cause later on because he did not identify it as the cause at that point in time i don't think it's failed to his claim at the worst it is a lay opinion on what has happened to him again based on his understanding of the conditions of the decks on the vessel and i think that should have defeated summary judgment so that we could have had a full trial and all of the evidence before the district court and then i'll try to make a decision on both the direct and circumstantial evidence present or think it was missing here cases under submission before the recess briefly before hearing the final two cases